- From: <tz1@mac.com>
- Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 11:40:21 -0400
- To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
My model would be the case that RAMBUS lost by being on the JEDEC committee with submarine patents (Dell lost a similar case before). Require disclosure. Require zero-cost licenses for the usage (this applies to both ENCODING AND DECODING - It will cripple things if the viewers are free, but the encoders require $1Million to use 2 lines of code). Agreeing to participate in W3C would mean that any technology would be made available cost-free if there are any IP claims a member would hold. As far as RAND licenses, It should only be agreed to if there was a GPL implementation available for any such technology (so I could modify and improve it - I could go into details but the GPL prevents things like publishing a unfixable crippled version). This would insure that any opensource browser (e.g. Mozilla) could incorporate the technology. If a company wants to incorporate the technology into a commercial product, THEN the RAND terms should apply, however there should be again be provisions about reasonableness - $1 per copy isn't reasonable if there is a 1 million minimum purchase. It would probably be better to simply omit any encumbered technology. That would be the simplest thing to do. But there is also a simple comprimise. The rule stripped of legalese should be: ----- If a completely free and opensource Browser AND SERVER cannot completely and effectively use the technology, it should not be a standard. ----- Commercial versions could improve the implementation so might be better, but there should be nothing to LEGALLY prevent an opensource project from bettering commercial browsers.
Received on Tuesday, 2 October 2001 11:41:08 UTC