I concur with Alan Cox

I fully concur with the position statement of Alan Cox.

The W3C can rest assured that if it fails to fulfill its mandate to
promote unencumbered interoperability, that another organization will
arise to do so.

Just as politicans lose the respect of their constituents (and sometimes
their offices as well) by abusing their authority to peddle influence,
so too will the W3C lose its moral authority which -- let us be frank --
is its greatest, if not sole, asset, if it deigns to sell part or all of
the Web standardization space to self-interested parties.

Make no mistake, sale is exactly what it is.  Patents are about
ownership, and restrictively-licensed patents are about exclusive
ownership.  By ceding control of web standardization, even if piecemeal,
to the exclusive ownership of third parties, the W3C cannot "own" these
areas any longer.  I am assuming, of course, that the W3C is receiving
some sort of consideration in exchange for abandoning stewardship of web
standardization.  Perhaps it would be a good idea if this consideration
were made explicit, so that the public can be better informed when
making its comments.

-- 
G. Branden Robinson                |    If you wish to strive for peace of
Debian GNU/Linux                   |    soul, then believe; if you wish to
branden@deadbeast.net              |    be a devotee of truth, then
http://www.deadbeast.net/~branden/ |    inquire.     -- Friedrich Nietzsche