- From: James Clark <jjc@jclark.com>
- Date: Mon, 01 Oct 2001 08:54:43 +0700
- To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
I have reviewed http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/WD-patent-policy-20010816/ The WD introduces a high/low-level distinction: "Importance of interoperability for core infrastructure, lower down the stack: Preservation of interoperability and global consensus on core Web infrastructure is of critical importance. So it is especially important that the Recommendations covering lower-layer infrastructure be implementable on an RF basis. Recommendations addressing higher-level services toward the application layer may have a higher tolerance for RAND terms." I think this distinction is irrelevant. If a Recommendation is part of the core infrastructure, then it needs to be RF whether it's low-level or high-level. If a Recommendation is not part of the core infrastructure, then I would question whether the W3C should be devoting part of its limited resources to it. In summary, if it's important for the Web infrastructure enough to be a W3C Recommendation, then it needs to be RF. Non-RF standards would have a devastating impact on open-source software, which has historically been very important in the development of the Web. I also believe that such a policy would further weaken respect for the W3C as an institution and would tend to promote the perception that the W3C is a tool of its corporate paymasters rather than an organization that is trying to do the right thing, whether morally or technically. James
Received on Sunday, 30 September 2001 21:54:59 UTC