All our file formats meld into one format that no one understands, or could possibly understand, by design. That's the puzzle of namespaces. And RDF abstracts it one more level, making it even more impossible to comprehend. The W3C wants us to be prepared for anything, but it's human nature to wait for someone to go first. But I've never grokked this, it goes against all history in software.
Proprietary standards have more juice, iff the product takes off.
Look at Napster. The WSJ gives them shit for being indecisive about openness. At least they went first and didn't wait for a standards body to give the green light. And when pushed, they opened it up. They did the right thing and did it the right way.