don't think so

It seems to me the W3C is about to embark on a
Titanic-ish voyage if it (the W3C) pursues the RAND
issue. This issue smacks (loudly) of corporate greed. 
The corporate based and biased W3C will successfully
plunge the development community into a bottomless
chasm from which the development community will never
recover and will have no desires to do so. 

As the holder of three patents (mechanical) and have
recently gone through the patent process for a fourth,
I feel your (and the digital development community's)
problem lies not in a way to collect royalty fee from
users (Isn't that already done when we purchase
software?) but in the way the Patent Office delivers a
patent... With TOTAL misunderstandig and no
comprehension of what that patent is or represents. 

I can see it now... "Microsoft's patented application
adopted as a W3C standard... Pay Me Now. Then here
comes AOL-TimeWarner (is that what they're called
now?) with a re-invented wheel... Pay Me Now" Both do
the same exact thing but take a different road to get
there. Both are W3C standards (You KNOW they will
be...). However, they are incomprehensibly
incompatible with each other and the little guys have
to figure out which road to take to get to point B...
So much for real innovation. 

All in all... Sounds like a really good reason for a
resurgence of Local Area Networks in the most literal
sense.


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Received on Saturday, 13 October 2001 09:09:23 UTC