Opposition to RAND Proposal

The RAND Proposal is inconsistent with the actions of a true standards body.  The Web is what it is today because of the open, royalty-free standards it has been built on.  It is reasonable that commercial vendors are concerned about their intellectual property.  This does not mean that the W3C must then incorporate these concerns into its standards.  Commercial vendors must realize that there is a tradeoff in participation in a standards process - deciding what to hold proprietary and what to make publicly available (floating your boat vs. floating all boats).

If the W3C accepts the RAND Proposal, I will be among many others in calling for replacement of W3C as the Web standards body.  I am not enthused about forking the Web, but I am much less enthused about RAND.