There are a number of factual inaccuracies in your reply; some of them will be dealt with in a code4lib article due to be published within the next few days. There are a few points you bring up that I want to touch on though.

XForms, as I said, is useful for creating complex data models. Complex data models can certainly be created with intuitive user interfaces.

IBM may have dropped support of the Firefox XForms plugin. For what reason, I don’t know, but they have not abandoned the development of XForms rendering tools. They are currently developing Ubiquity XForms (http://code.google.com/p/ubiquity-xforms/), a series of extensible javascript libraries for browser-based XForms support. IBM and Orbeon are not the only developers of XForms processors. XSLTForms and BetterForm are also available. If there was no market for XForms, no one would be developing the variety of applications that exists.

It is a misconception that HTML5 forms unseated XForms. HTML5 forms are not nearly as versatile as XForms, so the two standards serve different audiences. The user base of the standard is not shrinking, especially not in libraries, where support of XForms has entered maturity within the last few years. As a result, XForms development in libraries is actually ramping up. Several institutions are using such applications in production now or will be in the near future.

Thanks for reading my post and commenting so passionately. I’ve attempted to address your concerns at http://yourmediashelf.com/2010/07/writing-on-the-wall-xforms-has-been-dead-for-years/#comment-156