W3C and the Promotion of Fee-based Standards for the Web

Dear Sir/Madame,

By chance, today I learned about upcoming changes in W3C licensing policy
I have deep concerns that proposed Fee-based Standards for the Web can 
dramatically damage web development process, including both developers' part 
and potential or existing users.
I am user of different OpenSource software (KDE, Konqueror, Mozilla, Apache). 
Developers of this software did their best to achive W3C standards compliance 
and promote these standards to the Internet Community.
I have to admit that I personally advocate W3C standards over property 
implementations, receiving no compensation or reinbursement for this.
Therefor, I am quite surprised about possibility for some companies to 
collect fees using W3C standards.
My decision to switch from property standards (like MS Windows, MS IE, etc.) 
to Open  Standards was not easy and painfull. I am 10+ years Windows user, 
and started using Linux just around 1.5 years ago.
But I was so much surprised in early 2000 by quality of Open-Source software 
and fast update/bug-fix process, that I considered switching process 
acceptable and effected transition, step by step, from Windows to Linux 
desktop.
Proposed possibility of fee-based standards for the Web can change my opinion 
on W3C standards in general, and on my personal support and advocating of 
them.
Even if such dramatic, I would say - cultural, changes in W3C policy are 
effected, I doubt you (or companies lobbing this) will achieve "expected" 
results.
Open Source software had tremendous success *before* support from Big 
Companies (like IBM, Oracle, etc.), and promoting fee-based standards will 
just cause Open-Source developers to "branch" such standards, creating own, 
probably incompatible or partially-compatible implementations.
Do Web users need this? I guess no. And I believe USERS should be top 
priority not only to Open-Source developers, but for commercial companies 
(creating closed-sourced software) as well.

I would like to ask you do not change W3C policy, standing now for 
comprehensive, universal standards accessible for everyone, including 
Open-Source developers, for implementation and usage.

If you have any questions or comments on points which I raised in this mail, 
please contact me by:
Tel. 007 095 374-2371
or by email <plessky@cnt.ru>, or just by replying to this mail.

-- 
Sincerly Yours,

Vadim Plessky
Moscow, Russia

http://kde2.newmail.ru  (English)
33 Window Decorations and 6 Widget Styles for KDE
http://kde2.newmail.ru/kde_themes.html

Received on Monday, 1 October 2001 06:54:21 UTC