This must be stopped

Some comments to earlier postings. Some gems, that I've found, here.

>So what happened on the Web? This absolutely genius invention of Tim
>Berners-Lee was devoted to free communication and developed by community.
>WWW provided people with fantastic opportunities to communicate, to learn, to
>create... All these opportunities are the best people generally need. I think
>this actually  makes WWW grow so dramatically.
>Since job has been done and Web huge potential became clear, predators smell
>money and go ahead. They did not develop it, they did not promote it, they
>are not concerned about our wishes, our freedom of speech, they just want to
>exploit all these.

This is the essense.

And W3C is betraying its own community, and the world, by letting this happen.

Thieves wants to take over the Web. To take it away from the people, who built it, and who it belongs to.

Greed has entered.

They must be stopped. Now.


Another good one:

>Once non RF standards start the is no reason why people would want to 
>submit free ideas anymore.  The W3C is powerful enough the help promote 
>the free web.  Once you allow one non RF standard the other groups will 
>say this can be non RF also.  If you don't stop it before it starts it 
>will never stop. The web will end up the property of a few companies.


>Now the web is a monsterous and glorious melting pot of ideas, commerce, 
>personality, politics, and entertainment. It is at once a lesson in history & 
>society, as well as an exploration of the absurd and useless. It can be a 
>place to exchange goods, ideologies, and concepts.

>It is what it is today because of a /lack/ of patent-encumbered standards. If 
>it had been hindered by such fee-based devices, there is no doubt in my mind 
>that it would have grown to the proportions that it has.

>Some may argue that the web as it is today is in need of patent and standards 
>regulation, but I would beg to differ. Doing so would kill the heart and soul 
>of this new medium we have created. And no single entity has "created" the 
>web. It has been "created" by every person who's placed content anywhere on 
>the web. Thus, no one can ethically claim ownership to it or its standards.

Exactly. The Web is owned by noone, and everyone.


>I submit that the internet could not have managed any substantial user base 
>or even come into existence if it had not been free and open. I would also 
>say that in a historical perspective what we do here today is so important 
>that it may be difficult to gauge while looking at a huge pool of resources 
>to siphon off. I believe human civilization was most dramaticallly impacted 
>by the printing press and the exchange of information. However due to the 
>physical cost of materials it favored those who had financial resources. The 
>internet promises to be the greatest impact yet with free information. The 
>prospects to advance the human condition are nearly unfathomable.

Exactly.


>In closing I believe the following. We have a debt to both those who have 
>made the internet possible as well as posterity. That debt is that we keep it 
>free for common content and we do not enhance the digital divide by creating 
>means by which we move beyond the selective and understandable charges for 
>content to where delivery and key technologies proverbially nickel and dime 
>away what is potentially the greatest opportunity to enhance the human 
>condition we have yet known. 

>Forget your board of directors for a moment and consider where you will be in 
>the history books... and whether the less fortunate will even be able to 
>access them.

Where were you when they stole the Web?

How would you answer this?


Regards,

Terje,

Computer engineer, Norway

Received on Wednesday, 3 October 2001 10:05:25 UTC