RAND

The change in attitude that the licensing policy the
W3C is promoting is very disturbing. The W3C seems to
be forgetting that developers and designers are the
ones that promote and utilize their standards. Without
us, there is no one to use these standard procedures
and therefore there would be no reason to have a W3C. 

If the patent group decides to close off the standards
by implementing a licensing policy it could quite
possibly constitute a lethal blow to the Web design
and development industry. Right now, designers and
developers are closing shop and being laid off
everywhere due to the fall of the tech sector. Now, if
we have to start paying to use Standards (which should
be freely available to all who want to use them since
that is the only way they can become standard
practice...)then the cost of development would rise
even more than what most customers already consider
difficult to justify, and could cause a few things: 

1. A massive shutdown of many web shops currently in
existence.

2. A fracturing of the web where there would be open
standards, and licensed "standards", thus generating a
potential "Browser War" between the browsers that
support open standards, and those that support the
RAND patent.

I understand that member companies want to protect
what they might consider to be their intellectual
property but some of the patents that they hold are
ludicrous. Microsoft patenting CSS? The fact that
these software patents even exist is confusing, and
bothersome. Even Mr. Berners-Lee has stated in the
past that these patents should not exist. The W3C has
done an excellent job of standardizing and unifying
this crazy environment we all work in. Please don't
let it be hijacked by company's interests and those
who would bow to them. We need open standards,
otherwise they won't work at all.



=====
E-motion, inc.
Media that moves the soul

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Received on Friday, 5 October 2001 10:45:30 UTC