- From: Steve Waldman <swaldman@mchange.com>
- Date: Fri, 05 Oct 2001 21:43:39 +0200
- To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
I thank the W3C Patent Policy Working Group for their work in taking on a very challenging and contentious set of issues. However, I oppose the draft policy in its current form. The Draft Framework seems motivated by two very laudable goals: 1) Clarity - The ubiquity of software patents present implementers of W3C standards with the uncertain hazard of unintentional infringement. A policy that diminishes this hazard by ensuring implementors know "up front" where patented technology will be essential and under what terms they may use this technology without infringing is certainly desirable. 2) Excellence - Ideally W3C standards ought to represent the best possible approach to whatever problem W3C is attempting to solve, irrespective of patent considerations. The draft PPF requires disclosure of relevant patents and explicit statements regarding licensing in an attempt to create greater clarity about the impact of any patents on a WWC proposal. It allows for specifications to be developed that require the use of patented technology, in pursuit of excellence. There is another W3C goal that the proposal addresses, primarily implicitly and unfortunately inadequately. That, of course, is the goal of openness. The draft PPF acknowledges that specifications that require patented technology are by definition not free and open. It attempts to balance openness and excellence by requiring patented technology be made available to all comers under one of two sets of terms it deems acceptable, "Royalty Free" or "RAND" ("Reasonable and Nondiscriminatory"). Many writers have argued forcefully why "RAND" terms are insufficiently open to be of use to large and important comunities of World Wide Web stakeholders. I won't rehash those arguments, but I agree with them. For these communities, there is no balance at all here between openness and excellence: however technologically excellent the standard, RAND specifications will be closed off, out of reach, and of no use, to many people. Such specifications could potentially cause great harm by fragmenting and misdirecting the energies of the larger WWW community. There are other ways that W3C might attain sufficient lattitude to produce excellent standards without excluding important communities from the use of those standards. Alternative approaches exist that might displease some patent holders, but that do not infringe upon their legal rights, and that exclude no one. W3C must show the courage to put the interests of the larger WWW community above the preferences of a small but powerful group of stakeholders. A concrete alternative to the current draft follows as part two of this comment. respectfully, Steve Waldman
Received on Friday, 5 October 2001 14:42:54 UTC