(obvious)

	Hello,
after having read some forum shouts around your changes in
policies, I was a bit disappointed. Then, after having a closer
look at http://www.w3.org/2001/10/patent-response , some things
went to their places. But...

About software patents: 

> The draft policy does attempt to answer this question: In a
> world where patents exist and may be used to constrain
> conformance to standards, how should W3C best proceed in order
> to accomplish its mission?

Well, if "we" are subdued to "them" even this way ("they" have
the freedom to invent and web down more and more absurdic but
otherwise legally OK stuff and we have to deal with the *given*
situation), "we" get passive and generally have no way of ever
giving an option -- chances are that "they" will try to make free
and _open_ standards minimally possible.

IMNSHO the better position would be to make participants in
working groups legally unable to make mines (say oblige them not
to claim copyrights *after* if their existence on given topic
wasn't disclosed *before* the WG was put to work) -- and it's not
just the lower layer infrastructure that needs to be open.

---

My bias is that I'm a Linux user (systems administrator,
programmer) and I believe "them" to be Microsoft in the first
place. Alas it's just the way they prefer things. But as Sun
says, don't try to talk laws to them -- they know no laws.

No pasanara for closed standards.

-- 
WBR, Michael Shigorin -- webmaster@www.chem.univ.kiev.ua
>Home Page:  http://visa.chem.univ.kiev.ua/~mike/  ICQ: 113344029
>Brainbench: http://www.brainbench.com/transcript.jsp?pid=2434729

Received on Wednesday, 3 October 2001 03:31:10 UTC