w3c about to allow proprietary extensions to standards?

The message below was forwarded to another list I am on...

Can anyone from the w3 comment on what this means? Obviously it has broader ramifications then just international, but lets focus on international for now ...

To me, it sounds like w3 is on the verge of agreeing to allow companies to create proprietary extensions, subclasses, what have you, of freely-available-and-often-commonly-used-to-the-point-of-necessity standards.

If it is at all remotely like this, I am having a hard time grasping the difference between that and "extend and embrace" from you-know-who in Redmond, especially in light of last week's fud-inducing Palladium announcements.

Am I misunderstanding this completely, or what?

Best,

Barry Caplan
www.i18n.com

Dear LWN and Linux Today,
>On Monday Susan Lesch disclosed that the Chair of the W3C 
>(who is Daniel Weitzner) and three undisclosed W3C 
>participants made an exception proposal to bring back a type 
>of RAND track/hybrid:
>> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-patentpolicy-comment/2002Jul/0000.html
>The idea is that anything not defined as "Core" can require 
>royalties and perhaps still be a standard promoted by the 
>W3C. Through this public relations filter we are told that 
>"The consensus seemed to be that specs built on top of Core 
>work are valuable and that standardizing them is important."
>It's fortunate that this consensus is shattered by the next 
>fact disclosed: "The group did not appear to universally 
>accept the proposal. Discussion may continue when the group 
>meets next on 8 July."
>I am confident that the W3C will not produce a satisfactory 
>definition of "Core" technologies. It is likely to be 
>defined as anything that is not an "Extension". And 
>Extensions will be defined as anything that may require a 
>royalty. Core will just end up as anything that happens to 
>be left over that's royalty free. And there will be little 
>of that because W3C members will have the easy opt out of 
>creating Extensions.
>Note that I have carbon copied this message to a mailing 
>list that tracks such issues (C-FIT) and put up the same 
>comment at my web site: > 
>http://www.openphd.net/W3C_Patent_Policy
>I'm not seeking individual publicity. Feel free to promote 
>this issue without attribution. The issue may become clearer 
>when we find out what happened at the 8 July meeting in 
>seven or so days time.
>Regards, 
>Adam Warner

Received on Tuesday, 9 July 2002 12:38:58 UTC