Date: Sep. 20, 2001
Link: http://java.sun.com/xml/birth_of_xml.html
Source Author or Organization: Jon Bosak, Solaris Global Engineering and Information Services, Sun Microsystems

This description of the birth of XML is a memoir by Sun Microsystems Distinguished Engineer Jon Bosak (sometimes referred to as "The Father of XML").

Bosak describes milestones such as a the crucial opportunity for development offered by Dan Connolly and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and funded by Sun, the recruitment of leading SGML experts for the "Web SGML initiative", the XML name suggestion from James Clark, the recruitment of Jean Paoli that planted the seeds for adoption by Microsoft, eleven weeks of "feverish" design by Tim Bray and C. M. Sperberg-McQueen and finally the introduction of the first XML draft specification at the 1996 SGML conference.