W3C Patent Policy: Bad for the W3C, bad for business, bad for users

Allen Cox said it best:
"When patented W3C standards ensure there is only one web browser in the
world, its owners will no longer have time for the W3C or standards."

Allowing patents to be mandatory parts of a standard means that by it's
very definition is not an open standard. You do realize that a patent
(AKA government granted monopoly) cannot possibly be a mandatory parts
of any "open" standard don't you?

It's easy to sell your tomorrow for a small gain today. Obviously the
W3C is moving away from the very thing that has made your organization
most valuable in the past. Selling "psuedo open standards" to big
corporations may, in the near term, be more profitable than developing
truely open standards - but it also virtually guarentees your
organization will soon become irrevellant to the web marketplace of the
future.

Thanks for the good work you have done in the past. It saddens me to
know you are working hard on the process of handing the mantel of "most
relevent web standards body" over to another organization. As a software
engineer I will now need to find another source for "open standards" on
the internet to develop my applications to. It is a sad day indeed.

Darren

Received on Monday, 1 October 2001 17:07:44 UTC