RAND will either kill W3C or the internet

RAND will not work. Open-source software development is not possible anymore 
if patneted standards are in the way. But open-source software is what mainly 
powers the internet these days. 

If the W3C is turning their back on the open-source community, internet as it 
is today will cease to exist. If that is your goal, be careful, since that 
could as well kill the W3C as a standard. Standards have to be open, or else 
there will be always a strong force against them. It happened to X-Open, it 
happened to GIF (from Unisys) and it could happen with the W3C also.

If W3C was to adopt RAND, I would encourage the free internet community to 
create a new standard organization to supercede W3C. I am not alone with this 
thought, and I am sure this is very likely to happen in this event.

Furthermore I support the comment of Alan Cox on LinuxToday:
http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-09-30-010-20-OP-CY

Received on Monday, 8 October 2001 03:19:45 UTC