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On Tue, 25 Apr 1995, Don Taylor wrote:

> At 10:32 PM 4/24/95 -0400, PFiske@aol.com wrote:
> >What are we to make of this: NCN is announced, with a goal of establishing a
> >single standard for many prospective member papers to follow in setting up on
> >the web. Several member companies have bought Netscape, which seems to
> >provide NCN with a good platform for its venture, and some other promising
> >stuff (like a company that serves MLS realtors).

My guess is that NCN is doing some the "Reigning in".  Newspapers want to 
download their custom fonts, stuff PDFs to the point of swamping the net 
feeds, and in general be to "Artistic" for their own good.  If NCN can
keep some sanity in this domain, it will make it easier to manage 
mass-marketing the web.  Imagine if each television network came up with 
it's own encoding standard.  You would have to by 5 different televisions.
Try getting a refill for your car that takes "leaded gas only".

> > A few days later, a couple
> >of other members of the NCN consortium buy Open Market, apparently a
> >competitor of Netscape, and say they are going to create the complete
> >platform from which publishers can deal with their customers directly, or
Netscape/httpd lacked 3 important features:
	1 - authentication of individual users with encryption/passwords.
	2 - encryption of content and delivery of keys.
	3 - accounting/billing/charging capability
Until these features are incorporated into the GPL browsers, they are 
unlikely to be supported by commercial vendors.

> >some such. If these are competing platforms, as characterized in WSJ,
> >acquired by members of the same NCN consortium, then:
It comes down to the classic issue of "Standards" versus "Emerging 
Standards".  As Sun, HP, and DEC have learned the hard way, a standard is 
not a standard just because you say it is.  You must have the agreement 
of nearly all concerned parties.  Without that agreement, even a few 
dissidents can derail the standard by placing a rival standard into GPL.

> >1) Are they less than serious about a single standard, and by implication the
> >whole project?

Remember, Corporate America still thinks that the Internet is a bunch of 
radical college students who make bombs and shred hard drives through 
shell commands.  To that world, endorsement by familiar brands is a 
public endorsement of the Internet.

> Maybe they're just practicing the old idea of not putting all their eggs in
> one basket (or hedging their bet in some circles).
There will be lots of baskets before it's over.  Look-and-feel, user 
interfaces are largely a matter of choice.  What is appropriate for a 9.6 
kb user on a 14" monitor is much different than what is wanted by a T1 
user on a 21" monitor.

> >2) Are they trying to get technologies that might compete with whatever
> >standard NCN chooses off the market by buying them all up?
> Maybe negotiations for the deals were independent.
Again, public endorsement, through press releases, provides more trust 
from "Main Street" for the internet.  Many of the providers are coming to 
corporations with promises to protect them from outside users.  Most 
IAPs are putting routing, caller ID, and accounting on their PPP and SLIP 
servers.

> >All insights gratefully recieved
Again, what the Internet has needed for some time is Trust.  When J.P. 
Morgan openly announces that it manages pension funds through sources 
obtained on the Internet, people will start to let go of the "Students 
and Soldiers Only" mentality.

> I would imagine a consortium of this size would be very difficult to focus
> on singular objectives, even after its been in place for a while. I'm
> working on a *much* smaller one and can't imagine the nightmares they're
> having. Every member has their own agenda, which may or may not coincide
> with the consortium's. Oy vey!

Look at the fun we're having in THIS group!

> Talley Ho
> 
>     Don
> 
	Rex


From rballard@cnj.digex.net Mon May  1 04:54:42 1995