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>The owner of the spec (Dave Winer) is loath to change it,
Dave isn't the owner of anything significant. He controls one file on
the Internet and possibly the name XML-RPC, but those aren't
significant.
People with these proposals to extend XML-RPC speak as if their
problems would be solved if Dave Winer would endorse the extension and
change his file. That would barely begin to solve any problem,
because what needs to change is substantially all of the XML-RPC
clients and servers in the world. If you want interoperability, it
doesn't matter that some document or person says a server _should_
know what <i8> means. What matters is if a client developer can
expect it actually to do so.
"Changing" a spec means issuing a new spec. The old one is still
there and can still be referred to. A code library that implements
the original spec still implements it -- correctly. Furthermore,
issuing a new spec is nothing more than _proposing_ different
implementations.
Anyone can publish a new XML-RPC spec (probably using a different name
for it) that has <i8>. Dave Winer and xmlrpc.com notwithstanding.
I know of several extensions to XML-RPC that have been published as
standards, and several more that are invented by the various XML-RPC
libraries.
Some specs occupy a world that is so dynamic that proposing more
powerful implementations results in those implementations happening,
and before long one can safely assume that one's communication
partners implement the new spec.
I believe the issue with XML-RPC is that it is not in that world. The
culture of XML-RPC is one of light usage and development, so I
personally would never expect enough servers to know <i8> that I would
be comfortable making a client that needs it. The <nil> extension is
fairly widespread now, but I wouldn't rely even on that.
(This isn't the only issue with extensions -- some people actually
like the present simplicity of XML-RPC; I'm just trying to address the
issue of whether there's a problem of the spec being frozen).
--
Bryan Henderson Phone 408-621-2000
San Jose, California
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