I’m happy to announce that Jon Bosak’s closing keynote from the XML 2006 conference is now online. We don’t require keynote speakers to contribute text to the proceedings, but we received a large number of requests for Jon’s talk and he kindly obliged.

In case anyone reading this doesn’t know, Jon chaired the original W3C group that developed XML. In his closing, post-dinner keynote, Jon gives a playful account of the controversies, strange behaviour, and general atmosphere leading up to the first public XML draft released in 1996. He then goes on to contrast the pioneer attitude (my phrase) of the implementors at the time with the vendor-dependence of most XML users today. It’s well worth a read, if you weren’t able to be there to listen — just remember to picture Jon saying everything with a slight smile at the edges of his mouth.

By the way, most of the other conference presentations also have slides and/or text available now. See the programme for links to papers or slides in the proceedings. And if you’re one of the few delinquent authors who has not yet sent in your proceedings, please get them to me as soon as possible.