Apology to Bob Sutor

By the way, while here, I want to offer a public apology to Bob Sutor for being a caustic ass in some of my comments of late. Bob has been most generous to provide all sides a place in his private blog for all sides of these discussions of standards and other issues. I am making a most amateur mistake to conflate the decisions and strategies of the company of which Bob is an officer with his private opinions in regards to decisions made about the future of virtual worlds and virtual world standards.

At a recent interoperability forum sponsored by IBM, ALL of the existing standards organizations were shut out of admittance and discussions. That this rankles the supporters of existing standards and standards organizations would be an understatement. That Bob had no control or input to those decisions is not as obvious I am egregious in assuming he did. Over the many years of working on open lists on standards beginning in the SGML days when we were young turks, I've come to respect Bob's expertise and professionalism with regards to this and I have no cause to doubt that now. Any of us who have worked for very large corporations know that they are hydra-headed and one group can often be making decisions at variance with the others wearing the same logo on their badges.

Whatever the case in these current discussions, I've no right nor reason to assume Bob is acting differently or advising the corporation to decisions contrary to the spirit and fact of open standards for emerging markets and technologies. I do apologize for my remarks.

I do have to fight for the organizations that have proven by act and contract their past, present and future commitment to open systems and IP-unencumbered standards for 3D on the web and the implementations of this in virtual worlds. It is my belief that this is the fight for the rights of the generation of world builders now coming into the market, who are in fact, our children. Virtual worlds for them are what rock 'n roll were for our generation. We may be the ones who kick the doors open as Bill Haley and the Comets were credited and the untold numbers of black musicians who did without credit, but they will be the Beatles, Dylan and Clapton of the art form. If we do not hold this door open until they can establish themselves, we have robbed them for the sake of our current careers already entering the last arc.

I don't think we want to be remembered for having done that.