It is so sad to see the W3C go

Allowing patent fees and terms to be imposed on standards will mean the 
end of the W3C; it becomes a vehicle for corporations to standardize 
amongst themselves rather than an open standards body which allows 
outside implementors (including Free and Open software developers) to 
implement those standards.  By the events I've seen (including 
practically no announcment, and executing on this new policy before it 
is even ratified), I doubt the 300+ dissenting messages in this forum at 
this time will sway the decision.

Still, I would urge for more consideration, even though I doubt the 
people (or rather, large corporations) which could act on this will ever 
read this comment, or for that matter act on it if they did. Once you 
allow for fees to be imposed on standards (and even worse, openly allow 
for patent fees to come out of the woodwork after a standard is 
ratified), nobody will pay attention to W3 standards except the 
companies listed as authors of the document. Eventually they will 
realize that its much more efficient to just talk amongst themselves, 
and us outsiders won't even have the benefit of a standard which cannot 
be implemented.

I think the rest of us will cope with the death of the W3C, but it is 
very disappointing that we will have to.

-David Waite

Received on Sunday, 30 September 2001 14:50:04 UTC