It's every geek's dream to be able to write such a message.

Tim Bray, Canadian technologist extraordinary, has finally had enough of being dubbed "the inventor of XML" - and accordingly wrote to a Slashdot thread yesterday to say: 

I didn't invent XML dammit (Score:5, Informative)
by tbray (95102) on Friday January 09, @07:10PM (#7934486)
There were 11 other people on the committee and a couple hundred more in the discussion group. Geez.
[ Reply to This ]  

"I was just going to suggest that somebody push you off a cliff, in case you feel like inventing something else," was the first (inevitably flippant) response by another Slashdot contributor. Followed by sundry cheap shots like "That's okay. I wouldn't admit to it either," "Sure... cast the blame on someone else." There was also the usual Slashdot wit - "wow, the inventor of XML reads Slashdot !"  

One realist chipped in with an almost sensible response:

"But if you're not 'The Inventor of XML' then we don't have a simplistic tag for you.
Without such a tag, you cease to exist for much of the world! We can't have that!"

But the last word in the thread went to the following post, referring to Bray's protestations that he was but one of many behind XML: 

"Imagine a Beowulf cluster of XML creators!"
(Ungggh, I can't believe I just typed that... had to be done.)

The real last word deserves of course to go to Tim Bray himself. What is he, if not the inventor of XML? The answer is as follows:

"I serve as a member of the World Wide Web Consortium's XML Working Group and have co-edited the XML 1.0 and XML Hyperlinking specifications through their first several drafts, with an interlude of having been temporarily axed under pressure from Microsoft, because of my relationship with Netscape. I am the editor of The Gilbane Report, Technical Editor of XML.com, and a Seybold Fellow."