Posted by Rick Denney on July 24, 2002 at 12:36:42:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Best deal on the Finale Program posted by 0.6b on July 23, 2002 at 22:14:23:
Sure they could. Easily. All it requires is building the standard around those expectations, which means defining the expectations as the basis for developing the standardized XML messages. (I haven't reviewed Music XML, so I won't comment on how good this proposed standard might be or what set of user needs it addresses).
I spend a good part of my day defining standards for traffic control equipment, which is more complex and provides even more options than does musical notation. XML is just an extensible representational language. If you can define what is important to you, you can represent it with an XML message. We are considering moving our standards to XML notation because it is more flexible than the ASN.1 notation we have been using. Neither XML nor ASN.1, though, know anything at all about traffic control equipment (or music)--we added that part.
What is really needed is for the Sibelius and Finale folks to participate in the creation of these standards. They should realize that they are selling a user interface, not a file format. When they realize that, they will both sell more product because the market will get larger.
Rick "who lives and breathes standards for things like this" Denney