[uf-discuss] Very basic question that is not in the FAQ

Thu Jun 22 15:13:30 PDT 2006

On 6/22/06 2:29 PM, "Ryan King" <ryan at technorati.com> wrote:
> On Jun 22, 2006, at 2:08 PM, Scott Reynen wrote:
>> On Jun 22, 2006, at 1:20 PM, Kevin Marks wrote:
>>>>> The point of microformats is to give up control. Technorati
>>> genuinely believes that distributed open formats are more valuable
>>> than centralised closed ones, and that is a big reason why Tantek
>>> and I work here.
>>>> I know all this. My point is that someone reading microformats.org
>> for the first time does not, and they should.
>>>>> The problem may be that 'clarifying ownership' involves a
>>> digression into Open Source theory rather than a simple
>>> disclaimer. If you have a good way of explaining this do please
>>> share it.
>>>> On http://microformats.org/about I'd suggest something like:
>>>> "
>> microformats are:
>>>> ... open data format standards that a diverse community of
>> individual and organizations are actively developing ...
>>>> microformats are not:
>>>> .... Controlled by any individual or organization....
>> This seems reasonable.

Indeed. Scott, care to add them to the respective spot in:
 http://microformats.org/wiki/microformats
and when the about page gets revved we can take text from there.
>> Work on microformats began at Technorati,
>> Well, that's not quite true. Work on microformats began with Tantek,
> Eric and Matt working on XFN. At the time, Tantek was still at
> Microsoft (and Eric and Matt have never worked at Technorati).

Indeed.
Similarly, Scott, go ahead and add your proposed FAQ to the FAQ[1] and we
can iterate on it to edit for accuracy as necessary.
Thanks,
Tantek
[1] http://microformats.org/wiki/faq