- From: Chuck Adams <scrytch@onebox.com>
- Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001 12:48:37 -0500
- To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
I will spare all of you my philosophical diatribes against the "land grab of ideas themselves" that describes the current out-of-control patent process and offer two simply pragmatic concerns about the current recommendations on RAND and related issues. I am commenting as an independent software developer who is concerned about the possibility of W3C including patented technologies as part of the standards base. I am concerned how this will de-legitimize the W3C as a whole in the eyes of a large portion of the community, namely the free software community -- potentially losing the support of developers in and contributing to the Apache Software Foundation is not entirely in the best interests of the W3C (a more cynical view would suppose however that hobbling the ASF might be in the best interests of some of the W3C's commercial members). Even a $1 fee to license a critical technology in a product I develop would place requirements on me to track the spread of intellectual property owned by various vendors in my product, and worse, remove much of the control I have over my own IP, not to mention precluding my product from ever being included in many free software distributions. I and other developers would be forced to divide technology recommendations from the W3C into two piles: freely available, and encumbered. This impacts goes beyond free software -- as I and others are less likely to develop with encumbered technology, I might simply opt for a wholly proprietary solution when it is needed, by virtue of the fact that there is no free alternative at all ... the cynic again raises the question whether that is after all the intended effect. Secondly, I must question the necessity. Is the current standards base somehow falling the state of the art led by proprietary technologies? From where I stand, open royalty-free standards are leading the way as technology companies rush to catch up, and the W3C is a leader in setting the pace. Even in the current economic climate where patents might bring in extra revenue -- *especially* not in this climate, as R&D is quite expensive -- no company involved in internet technologies wants to ostracize themselves out of the W3C by having all their draft proposals rejected because of IP entanglements. If the W3C is a truly independent standards body and not merely a collusion of marketers, it can stand firm: no __________________________________________________ FREE voicemail, email, and fax...all in one place. Sign Up Now! http://www.onebox.com
Received on Tuesday, 2 October 2001 13:49:11 UTC