Clarity is key

I sent some comments already, and I'd like to add a couple remarks.

After discussing this with other people, reading other people's 
comments, I can see that the RAND policy is probably 
better-intentioned than I originally thought.  However, in the 
interest of keeping the playing field level, it is imperative that 
the definitions of low-level standards versus higher-level be spelled 
out better.

In other words, we need to know, in writing, that 
HTML/XML/XHTML/CSS/DOM and other low-level standards will continue to 
be royalty free.  That is implied, but not specifically stated, in 
the current policy.  There also should be strict criteria laid out 
describing what comprises low-level, and therefore what *must* be 
royalty-free. I'll leave it to the W3C and its lawyers to figure out 
what that language should be, but I think it's very important to have 
that spelled out before this policy is adopted.

Thank you,
Joe
-- 
Joe Chellman   email - joe@chellman.org
drummer          web - http://www.chellman.org/
webdesigner      pgp - http://www.chellman.org/pgp_key.txt

Received on Thursday, 4 October 2001 15:52:51 UTC