Proposed RAND Policy

I strongly believe that any change to the current RF policy, RAND or 
otherwise, should be rejected outright.

As W3C has demonstrated perhaps more successfully than any other standards 
organization, a strict RF policy is key to the most successful adoption of 
standards. A RAND approach would have rendered HTTP and HTML "yet another 
standard" instead of the universal protocol for the Web. Indeed the Web as we 
know it would probably never have come into existence, as competing patent 
holders sought ways to collect revenues from their approach rather than pay 
for HTTP/HTML. History has demonstrated this repeatedly. In the long run it 
is to the detriment of commercial interests as well as users.

Today is no different than yesterday - there are no indispensable patented 
technologies for W3C standards. The introduction of patented technologies 
into W3C standards will simply lead to successful efforts to work around 
them, just as the GIF patent problems lead to PNG. However it would be a 
shame to see such a well respected standards body as W3C become yet another 
politically driven effort to ensconce patent claims. This would simply lead 
to W3C being bypassed.

Received on Sunday, 30 September 2001 14:24:52 UTC