技术标准化——福兮？祸兮？

诚如Jim Waldo所说，我们生活在一个标准的年代。我们常常不由自主地相信、选择标准。如果一个东西被标准化，我们就认为它开放、稳定、有保障、好用；反之，我们就不敢信任它。

但是，如今的标准也和以前不一样了。在C++和CORBA那里，首先是全世界的人使用它们，他们觉得有彼此兼容的必要，然后为它们订立标准。到了Web Service这里，情况完全倒了个：在看到任何实用价值之前，厂商已经为标准吵翻了天，技术讨论早已变成了政治、商业之争——而作为用户的我们还没用货币投票呢。

太多的标准。我们需要这么多的标准吗？对标准的过度重视甚至依赖是否会损害技术创新和发展？To be standardized or no to be, this is the question.

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Artima Weblogs

Why Standards?

by Jim Waldo
May 18, 2003

Summary
Common wisdom, especially in distributed computing, says that the right approach to all problems is to use a standard. This common wisdom has no basis in fact or history, and is curtailing innovation and rewarding bad behavior in our industry.

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We are living in the era of standards. Technology that is a standard is good because it is a standard; if something is blessed as a standard it can be seen as open, non-proprietary, and gets the blessings of the IT managers and the analysts. Something that is not a standard is closed, proprietary, and to be avoided at all costs. This is the received wisdom in our industry; it is so obviously true that we don't even question it, and we seem to get uncomfortable around those who ask why standards should always be used.

This kowtowing to the god of standards is, I believe, d