Jon Bosak - XML

XML

Tim Bray, who was one of the editors of the XML specification, has this to say in his note on Bosak in his annotated version of the specification:

"Jon Bosak is the single person without whose efforts XML would most likely have failed to happen. He had come to appreciate the power and flexibility of SGML in his days running Novell's (excellent) on-line documentation repository at http://www.novell.com, and had acquired a conviction that HTML was not a suitable base on which to build the next layer of Web infrastructure. Jon's stewardship of the XML process has been marked by a combination of deft political maneuvering with steadfast insistence on the principle of doing things based on principle, not expediency."

In a 1999 posting to the xml-dev mailing list, Bray writes:

"It is to Jon Bosak's immense credit that he (like many of us) not only saw the need for simplification but (unlike anyone else) went and hounded the W3C until it became less trouble for them to give him his committee than to keep on saying SGML was irrelevant."

When he stepped down from the W3C XML Coordination Group in 2000, Jon Bosak was given the unusual recognition of having a formal identifier reserved for him:

In appreciation for his vision, leadership and dedication the W3C XML Plenary on this 10th day of February, 2000 reserves for Jon Bosak in perpetuity the XML name "xml:Father".