Turning out the light...

Developers on the front lines -- the ones who establish the strategies and
write the code for Web-based content and appliations -- look to the W3C as a
bright beacon of safety shining through the fog of proprietary roadblocks.
Adoption of a patent policy that allows for required royalty payments may
snuff out that light, setting us all adrift.

I believe that the policy puts at great risk the way the W3C is perceived by
the hundreds of thousands of individual developers around the world. At
best, working groups and recommendations will be balkanized into RF and RAND
subgroups, the latter shunned by those who could otherwise apply the
recommendations to promote the Web as a "truly universal information space"
(words from the W3C mission statement). At worst, the organization as a
whole will be cheapened by the perception that the patented tail is wagging
what had been a freedom-loving dog.

Danny Goodman
http://www.dannyg.com

Received on Sunday, 30 September 2001 15:47:26 UTC