That's not our job! [Standards]

Abstract

It is argued that until a technology has been proven in the real world to the point where that its target audience will readily embrace it, it should not be standardized. In other words, a standards group should codify successful technology, not try to invent it. Standards work is already difficult by its very nature - it is distributed engineering at its most extreme - distributed across multiple companies, including competitors. The more this type of distributed engineering team is asked to invent solutions, the greater the chance it will either fail or produce a Standard that suffers lackluster adoption. The Verilog hardware description language (HDL) is a good example of a very successful standard that was based on success in the marketplace.