Marc's Voice

Canter’s Law #1

I’ve been getting feedback on a new project - which we’ll announce at Web 2.0 and pushback on some of my ideas. Folks have been quoting Postel’s Law to me.

So I just wanted to time stamp this moment and spiel out Canter’s Law #1. This will make sense - later. But for now - today - I wanted to get this down:

Canter’s Law #1:

- It is not a bad thing to make everyone happy. It sometimes requires compromises, but at the end of the day – by getting around the format Wars – we all benefit.
- So though we understand that having too many formats may confuse or muddy the waters – it won’t be muddy to the constituents of each format. Most developers will adhere to ONE philosophy and the others – will appreciate support for all.
- See Flickr

No human cares about what format is supported. Only us. Flickr proved that they could be completely format agnostic and provide a compelling experience to all.

We believe in compatiblity boxes. It provides a competative advantage - by being compatible with everybody - whether they’re a file format or feed format.

God bless micro-content. Thank you Anil.

FOLLOWUP: More than one person has pointed me to the original RFC (from 1981) and the Wikipedia entry.