Liars and Hypocrites

"The W3C and the Patent Policy Working Group represent a diverse range of opinions."
What a buch of B.S. !!!
(5) IP lawyers , who all Have "significant" CONFLICTS OF INTEREST !!!!!!
YOU CALL  THIS A "DIVERSE RANGE OF OPINIOIN"  
YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME
Here is what Alex Berkman has dug up about these so called "diverse opinions" !!! 

1) Michele Herman, Microsoft: http://www.ietf.org/ietf/IPR/MICROSOFT-499 

Here, the "Senior Corporate Attorney" is threatening an IETF working group on behalf of Microsoft. 

2) Scott Peterson, Hewlett-Packard: http://arbiter.wipo.int/asp/report/pdf/report.pdf 

Another IP lawyer, here with his name on a WIPO document related to "Application Service Provider" arbitration. 

3) Barry Rein, Pennie & Edmonds: http://www.entrepreneur.com/Your_Business/YB_PrintArticle/0,2361,275848----2-,00.html 

Here's some friendly advice from another famous patent lawyer on how companies should "protect" their inventions. 

4) Daniel Weitzner, W3C/MIT: http://www.pff.org/aspen96/weitzner.html 

Yet another lawyer! This one seems like one of the good guys, though (for a lawyer). 

5) Helene Plotka Workman, Apple Computer: http://www.linux.org.tw/~majordom/cle-devel/cle-devel.199912/msg00025.html 

Here, one of Apple's "Patent Counsel" is threatening the FreeType project. 

Surprise, surprise! Five IP lawyers, and not a single technologist on the committee that developed this recommendation (except possibly Tony Piotrowski -- I couldn't find any definite references to his work, but he's probably a lawyer as well). This includes two lawyers who's day-to-day work (for two of the worlds' largest proprietary software developers) involves threatening free software projects and other standards bodies. 

This committee and their recommendations are an insult to the internet community and the traditions of the W3C. The committee should be abolished and its recommendations scrapped. If this is not done, I recommend a boycott of the W3C and any future pseudo-standards that it creates. Anyone working on its committees should resign and establish the next generation of genuinely free and open internet standards under the auspices of the IETF or a new standards body. 

I agree 100 % with these sentiments.

Received on Tuesday, 2 October 2001 14:41:03 UTC