Re: [xml-dev] Expertise and Innovation - was Re: [xml-dev] Non-Borg servers can authenticate Borg clients (Was Re: [xml-dev] Re: Cookies at XML Europe 2004 -- Call for Participation)

Michael Kay wrote:

> My first reaction was quite different but equally wrong. I thought he
> was totally na�ve to imagine that he could get the world to agree on one
> standard for doing this stuff. I still don't know how he succeeded in
> grabbing mindshare. Most good ideas fall on stony ground, why didn't
> this one?

My best guess: it wasn't Tim B-L who got everyone to agree,
it was NCSA.  Mosaic was a sufficiently compelling improvement
over the various gopher clients then in use that everyone
switched over.  The "standard format" was largely ignored;
people didn't create documents for "The Web", they created
them for Mosaic.


--Joe English