Open, shared technology, not patents

The Internet has been a success because of common, open standards. Much 
of its technology is open to all and developed by the community, 
including of course the W3C.

Patents exist to create income by limiting the sharing of information. 
All patents are a risk, even if currently "RAND" - they make standards 
open to future abuse and manipulation. MP3 and GIF "standards" are 
already troublesome.

Apple is clearly keen to promote Quicktime. It's a great technology, but 
where is Quicktime for Linux? Or BSD? Or QNX? Or BeOS? Patents have 
restricted the universal adoption of Quicktime.

If Apple and Microsoft want their protocols to become official 
"standards", maybe they should open them up. Making the web less open is 
not the way to do it.

I had assumed that the W3C existed to stop business interests dominating 
the development of the Internet, not rubber stamp their activities. I'm 
not against proprietary technology, but it should be in addition to a 
broad base of open technology.

Pete Birkinshaw

Network administrator for a large company but posting this as a personal 
opinion. And rushed too - why has this issue been kept quiet?

Received on Sunday, 30 September 2001 13:25:09 UTC