Corporate product lines as "standards"

 
            Good day, I am writing today to express my opposition to the proposed inclusion of royalty-bound extensions as web standards. I believe that by allowing companies to "own" a portion of the standards that we base this new economy on we allow for the exclusion of participants that are not fiscally able to meet the demands of another company. The companies whose extensions are made standards do not have interests founded in the expansion and betterment of the web as a whole but instead on maintaining their own corporate existence. By allowing one company to control a standard we keep progress on that standard paced to that of the company and its own interests, as opposed to the more "just-in-time" fashion of current standards where additions, fixes, and expansions are made as the web developers need them. This will generate a "phone company" mentality in the companies whose extensions are made into standards, where they will find little motivation to improve and better themselves and their products.  I believe that instead the free-market and open business should decide whether or not any one companies products are popular, not the standards committees that should be leveling the playing field for all comers.

 

            I thank you for your time,

 

Jesse M. Klug