The proposed policy is bad news

I'm sorry to see the W3C abandon the idea of open standards.  The open
source community will abandon W3C standards if W3C standards are patent
encumbered.  The nonprofit community will abandon W3C standards if W3C
standards are patent encumbered.  This policy has a high probability of
fragmenting the web community into well funded companies and everyone
else.

The Internet succeeded by relying on open standards.  The Internet
Protocol swept patented, proprietary protocols out the networking
door, in large part because anyone can use all parts of IP without
licensing nonsense.

I'm sorry to see that the W3C is bent upon insuring that its work will
be ignored by a large community out here.  I believe this shortsighted
and wrongheaded idea will result in a significant, vibrant part of the
developer and user communities actively shunning W3C standards.  That
would be a loss for all concerned.

--
John F. Nixon, Ph.D.
jfnixon@ieee.org

Received on Sunday, 30 September 2001 23:14:30 UTC