Yuri - The Video

Yuri Rubinsky (1952-1996) was a gnome-like, smiling, brilliant man who inspired so many of the people who later became known in the XML community: Jon Bosak, Liora Alschuler, and many others.

In addition to being the co-founder of SoftQuad International, he was co-founder and chairman of the SGML Open consortium (which later became OASIS and still later spawned XML.org) and worked tirelessly to promote SGML and HTML. Yuri - The Video was a moving tribute written and produced by Liora Alschuler and produced and edited by Kate Cone, Windy Bluff Productions. It showed those of us (like myself) who never had the privilege of meeting him just what a remarkable man he was. He was the bridge between the SGML and emerging Web communities. In 1994, SoftQuad's Panorama became an SGML plugin for the Web, making this the first XML browser in the world (over 3 years before XML came into being, which makes sense if you recall that XML is a subset of SGML). The movie made clear that Yuri's major gift was the ability to intently listen to people and find out what made them tick -- what excited them -- and then to think of another person who shared that particular passion, so he could introduce them to each other, and then sit back and watch the chemistry take its natural course, producing something that either person might not have achieved alone.

For historical reference only, see this 1995 NCSA page about SGML on the Web (most links from the page are broken). You may be interested in this 1997 article from the Journal of Electronic Publishing, Transcending the Limitations of the Printed Page.

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