1.	The articles in the rest of this magazine, which I have not seen, probably make XML seem very complicated. But it is not complicated. You can ignore most of what they tell you about schemas and namespaces and parsers and whatever. It's meaningless. If it ever gets widely deployed, the details will be hidden behind middleware interfaces, because basically it is only comprehensible to a very small number of people who care.
2.	The important thing about XML is that it means that your software can be replaced. Now this may not sound like an advantage, unless you work for a software vendor who's being sued for antitrust, but it actually is an advantage for everyone. Because users have choice, there are fewer reasons for them to wait. And we can have diversity. Not only will there be desktop editing tools for Windows, but there will be equivalent tools for people who use Macs. Maybe someday Unix will be a great writing platform, or maybe something revolutionary and wonderful will come along that no one has ever heard of that you'll want to use to edit your Web site. In the software business you never can tell what's coming next, and with open interfaces the new things can easily be compatible with the old.
3.	Further, no company or individual, no matter how mighty they are, can do everything well. Some make great servers, others make great editors. And there are all kinds of editors, from page layout programs, graphics editors, flowcharters, outliners, spreadsheets, presenters, and on and on. People should be able to use any kind of tool to edit content for the Web, even things we haven't thought of yet, and they should automatically plug in. Again, open interfaces make that possible.
4.	The beauty of XML is that it's *possible* to make open interfaces with it. It's not automatic or inevitable, so you should ask your vendors if they are working with their competitors on plug-compatibility. Make it an issue when you decide which tools to use. Because if you have choice, you can never be left behind.
5.	Dave Winer