[said Rick]
>
> I think it depends upon how you choose to use the term.
> There are ISO and IEEE standards.  There are industry standards.
> There are "defacto" standards.  There are organization standards.

True. We are arguing about which of several competing definitions
is the "correct" one. The most widely-used meaning of this term,
in and out of the computer industry, is something that is accepted
by a broadly representative industry sector, NOT just imposed by
a single company.

The most obvious non-computer example of this is the SAE standards
for nuts and bolts and similar hardware. SAE is Society for Automotive
Engineering. If all the automakers could not agree on a common set
of sizes and threading for nuts and bolts, the industry would
degenerate into complete chaos.

What makes the standard work is that a large number of companies, and
suppliers, agree on it. The standard is not owned, in a legal or practical
sense, by a single company.

(Of course now we have two competing standards, SAE and metric, but
that is another issue altogether.)

> When it comes to Microsoft languages, I can look in the MSDN Library
> and find the definitive references for their language standards.

Yes, of course, but that only strengthens my argument. These are
proprietary _Microsoft_ languages, implemented _only_ on proprietary
_Microsoft_ platforms. Windows this, Windows that. (You gave a whole
list of them, without a hint of irony!)

Unless Microsoft chooses to release its proprietary interest in these
things, they cannot be plausibly be adopted by the non-Microsoft world.
I don't see that happening very soon, do you?

It's natural for a single company to declare its proprietary products
to be a "standard", but that does not make them so. It's a marketeer's
distortion of the term. It's high time this industry accepted some
technical terminology as "standard" (no pun intended). They are
unlikely to do so; distortion is in their interest. But we can
be smart consumers and at least understand the distortion.

Rick, it's OK for you to like Microsoft. But please do not insult our
intelligence by insisting that its products are something they are
not. Popular, yes, Proprietary, yes. Good, maybe (a matter of opinion,
of course, as we have few objective measures). Standard, only in
Microsoft's distorted meaning. Rick, you're a technical guy. I'm
surprised at your willingness to buy into the distortion.

Mike Feldman