Re: Dear Janet@w3.org

On October 1, 2001 07:13 pm, No Monopolies wrote:
> Dear Janet@w3.org
> > As many of you may have missed the August announcement of the draft,
> 
> "May"? I'd say it's pretty much guaranteed that many of us missed it.
> 
> > I include the links here for your reference. I would ask that you 
> > consider reading these documents as "item 0" in Adam's "What you can do" 
> > list.
> > 
> > Announcement: archived with date at http://www.w3.org/News/2001

Here is the relevant text from that page.  I had to spend about 10 minutes 
hunting for it:

   20 August 2001: The Patent Policy Working Group has released the W3C
   Patent Policy Framework as a Last Call Working Draft. The draft proposes 
   changes to the W3C process and Member Agreements, including licensing 
   modes for W3C Working Groups, disclosure obligations, licensing 
   commitments, and a procedure for variances. Comments are welcome through 
   30 September. Learn more in the backgrounder and Patent Policy FAQ.

Note that there is no mention of the term RAND, or any hint of the rather 
important underlying intent.  Note also that this is a "Last Call" working 
draft, so nobody can pretend they were not aware of the content.  Where are 
the public announcements of work done by this working group prior to the 
"Last Call"?  Why are the other documents listed below, available at the time 
this news was released not mentioned in the news item?

How can I interpret this as anything other than deception?

A google search for "Patent Policy Working Group" turns up a total of two 
relevant hits.  The first:

    http://www.w3.org/Voice/

    "The charter for the working group has now expired and the Group is 
    operating under an extension. W3C plans to recharter the Voice Browser 
    working group in the near future, and to use this opportunity to revise 
    the IPR policy and patent licensing requirements the working group 
    operates under. The Voice Browser Patent Advisory Group (W3C members 
    only) is working on formulating recommendations on trademark and 
    intellectual property rights issues, operating under the procedures 
    defined by the W3C Patent Policy working group (W3C members only)."

Note that this mentions the working group only indirectly, and suggests that 
public participation in the process is not welcome.  Note also that this 
group seems to be already operating as if the Patent Policy working group's 
recommendation had already become a formal standard.

The other hit is just a dutch version of the above-mentioned news page at 
www.w3c.nl/newsletters/newsletter-jul1999.txt.

The number of hits on news organizations: zero.  Once again, this looks like 
deception.

> > FAQ: http://www.w3.org/2001/08/16-PP-FAQ
> > Backgrounder: http://www.w3.org/2001/08/patentnews

Why does a google search on "W3C Forms Patent Policy Working Group" not find 
this site, whereas it does find the above-mentioned /Voice/ site?  Did google 
somehow not index the site, or was the information not actually present or 
publicly visible on the site until recently?  Hmm?

> > W3C Patent Policy Framework:
> > http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/WD-patent-policy-20010816/

Likewise, a google search on "W3C Patent Policy Framework" fails to find this 
site, whereas it does find the /Voice/ site.

> Oh, you are too kind! Such a wealth of documentation to carefully peruse 
> just before the deadline! Oops. The deadline is already passed.

This is looking increasingly like a pattern of deception.  Personally, I 
believe that there is far more going on here than meets the eye.

--
Daniel

Received on Monday, 1 October 2001 14:25:18 UTC