You are bang on. It reminds me of the opposite take that we've seen in browsers as of late. Eg. innovate with webkit specific extensions then standardize what

You are bang on. It reminds me of the opposite take that we've seen in browsers as of late. Eg. innovate with webkit specific extensions then standardize what works. Java meanwhile standardized conceptually useful concepts (Swing, Java Server Faces, etc), but the markets for pluggable Swing or JSF components never took off. I think it's that under Sun's direction the intent was to create markets, e.g. a market for GUI components or web components, a market for server components (EJBs). At least in the case of server components, Sun made a lot of money by licensing J2EE servers. I suppose that was their motivation all along for forcing DocumentBuilderFactory's on developers.