A belated reply to Hans Joergen Marker's query about the TEI and
(governmental) standardization of text encoding.  The TEI is an
independent project within the research community and is not formally
related to or a part of any governmental or standards-organization
activity.
 
We are interested in learning as much as we can about other efforts in
the same vein, so as to avoid needless collisions and duplication of
effort; for the same reasons, we endeavor to publicize our own work
within the circles concerned with standardization and electronic data
interchange, though (as HJM's note makes clear) only partial success.
We maintain contact (mostly unofficially) with some groups in the
standards organizations and in the European Esprit projects, but this
contact should not be overstated.
 
Perhaps HJM could be persuaded to describe briefly the standardization
efforts he has in mind?
 
Michael Sperberg-McQueen