Charles Campbell

Do you really have to spend $50,000 a year and commit to spending that amount for each of the next three years to have formal input to the W3C process? Well...yes and no. If you expect to have hands-on influence in the development of W3C Recommendations for XML and other Web technologies, the answer is a qualified yes. There are two levels of membership: Full Member and Affiliate Member. However, if you want to participate in the Recommendation Review Process, then no. There's little difference in levels of membership with the exception of the fees paid. A full member must pay $50,000 per year and make a three-year membership commitment. An affiliate member must also make a three-year membership commitment, but the fees are only $5,000 per year. To qualify as an affiliate member an organization must meet any of the following three criteria: Not-for-profit organizat... (more)

Are We On The Cusp Of A Paradigm Shift?

For the past 20+ years SQL has been the predominant query language, but is it now time for a change? The W3C XML Query Workgroup was chartered to develop a query language for XML. It was formed by a large group of companies, each with a wide range of objectives for their particular products. In my opinion, these companies fall into two camps: the data-centric or traditional database and the document-centric. However, there's no real definable dividing line since many companies blur the line on some of the issues. Since SQL has dominated the database industry, can it be the basis o... (more)