- From: Alex Morales <voxx25@yahoo.com>
- Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2001 07:45:27 -0700 (PDT)
- To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
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 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? NEW from Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just $8.95/month. http://geocities.yahoo.com/ps/info1
Received on Friday, 5 October 2001 10:45:30 UTC