[Bug 13423] [editing] Remove the Editing APIs section

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=13423

Aryeh Gregor <ayg@aryeh.name> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|REOPENED                    |RESOLVED
         Resolution|                            |FIXED

--- Comment #43 from Aryeh Gregor <ayg@aryeh.name> 2011-09-07 19:50:52 UTC ---
(In reply to comment #42)
> Aryeh Gregor had stated he'd move his document to the Editing API Community
> Group, but I've not seen this happen, this group isn't active, and Aryeh has
> not joined.

I requested to join the CG immediately after opening it.  This requires
approval of T.V. Raman, the Google AC rep.  He's told me that he'll approve
Google's membership in the CG as soon as he gets approval from Google legal,
but that's apparently taking a while.  This is what happens any time lawyers
have to be involved in anything, unfortunately.

Needless to say, I continue to work on the specification in its original
location.  All work I'm doing now will become part of the CG specification when
that finally does get published, so we aren't losing anything from the delay.

> Since, as was noted earlier, other companies such as Microsoft have patent
> rights to the material that Aryeh took for his document, and these rights would
> supposedly be preserved if the document was managed by the W3C,

This is a severe and material misrepresentation of the patent situation,
although I'm sure it's unintentional:

1) There is no reason to believe that Microsoft or any other party holds
patents relevant to HTML editing.  None have been declared to date in the
HTMLWG.

2) I did not "take" anything for my document.  It was written completely from
scratch.

3) Even if I had taken something from HTML5, that would not infringe anyone's
patents.  Patents cover only inventions, not descriptions of inventions. 
Publishing material that documents or explains a patented invention -- such as,
indeed, the patent application itself -- is completely fine.

4) If someone held patents relevant to editing work, the reason to have the
editing specification covered by W3C patent policy would not be to preserve
that entity's patent rights.  To the contrary, coverage by the patent policy
could only require that entity to give a royalty-free license to others for the
patent.  The patent policy *waives* patent rights, it doesn't *preserve* them.

The only relevance that the patent policy has is that it protects organizations
against patent suits by members of the relevant W3C Working Group.  This is
only relevant at Recommendation stage, which is to say not for a long time yet.
 Thus a few extra months or whatever it takes before the editing spec is
covered by a patent policy will not create any additional patent risk for
anyone, and is entirely harmless from a patent-policy perspective.

> I ask that this change be reverted.

EDITOR'S RESPONSE: This is an Editor's Response to your comment. If you are
satisfied with this response, please change the state of this bug to CLOSED. If
you have additional information and would like the Editor to reconsider, please
reopen this bug. If you would like to escalate the issue to the full HTML
Working Group, please add the TrackerRequest keyword to this bug, and suggest
title and text for the Tracker Issue; or you may create a Tracker Issue
yourself, if you are able to do so. For more details, see this document:

   http://dev.w3.org/html5/decision-policy/decision-policy.html

Status: Accepted
Change Description: See comment 41
Rationale: Reinstating original resolution.  If you would like to escalate, you
are aware of the procedure and free to use it.  Reopening this bug again would
not be productive.

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Received on Wednesday, 7 September 2011 19:51:01 UTC