"If you could even just get Gmail, Outlook, Zoho, and Yahoo" Well, that's where you hit the blocker I'm talking about. They're only on board if there's some so

"If you could even just get Gmail, Outlook, Zoho, and Yahoo" Well, that's where you hit the blocker I'm talking about. They're only on board if there's some sort of benefit they can get from closing the standard. I didn't think of this when I wrote my post first, but we've basically been down this road in something close enough to be relevent: Instant messaging. Such interop as was supported has been the result of the open source community laboriously fighting against the commercial interests... and, ultimately, losing comprehensively. Nobody is interested in a standardized instant messaging system.