Re: Concerns over aspects of PPF

I support Chris Lilley's suggestions, in particular his third suggestion
that a W3C Recommendation in which there are IP claims should contain
comments on the claims.

SVG is being mentioned as the precedent for RAND licensing in W3C
Recommendations.  I would like to point out that there was no mention
of RAND licensing in the last version of SVG for which public comment
was invited, namely http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/CR-SVG-20001102/
RAND licensing was first mentioned, to my knowledge, in the July 19 2001
version, http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/PR-SVG-20010719/
for which comments were only invited from W3C membership, and
which was approved as a W3C Recommendation on September 5.

After looking carefully at the SVG specification, I cannot figure out
whether it is possible or not to write a non-infringing implementation
of the spec.  I am not a lawyer.  Also, it's a bit alarming that most
of the IP statements that promise RF licensing have conditioned it
upon RF licensing by all other Working Group members, which didn't happen.

Glenn Randers-Pehrson (PNG, MNG, libpng, pngcrush, ImageMagick)

Received on Wednesday, 3 October 2001 08:50:32 UTC