ZDNet: post about Xaml Specs
This ZDNet article mentions MyXaml, United XAML, etc... without providing much explanation. Early commenters see that MyXaml was released in 2004 and think that Microsoft copied XAML...
My comments/clarifications:
Microsoft announced our XAML and WPF work at the Professional Developers Conference in October 2003. We started formal work on WPF and XAML in January 2001. I began blogging about XAML and WPF in November 2003. While there were definitely different technologies that influenced our choices in designing XAML and WPF, it was not a "copy" of an existing thing.
A little background: All XAML is XML. XAML provides a set of rules on top of those in XML that provide certain benefits for some scenarios. XAML is not confined to be used as a UI definition language for WPF or Silverlight. The XAML concepts can be used to represent other types of data.
With the release of [MS-XAML], the Xaml Object Mapping Specification 2006, we hope that XAML's Object Mapping rules may used by others for their file formats, if they are interested in the benefits it provides.
With the release of the [MS-WPFXV] WPF Xaml Vocabulary Specification 2006, we hope to be more open with WPF's file format.
Thanks, Rob Relyea
Architect, Microsoft WPF/Xaml Team
http://robrelyea.com/blog