XML has a social agenda: freedom from vendor control.

• (1996) We knew that HTML could not support data exchange in general
• Without XML, HTML would have been replaced with a binary, proprietary format controlled by a single vendor
• The alternative was SGML (international, open, text-based standard, ISO 8879-1986)
• XML put SGML on the Web. Result:
  • Users can define their own data exchange standards
  • There are many inexpensive, robust tools
  • In theory, data belongs to the people who create it rather than to the software vendors
  • In practice, freedom depends on the open standardization of XML tag languages