Competition will set us free

Microsoft must be stopped.  Please do not listen to their lies any longer.
Resist their dirty money.  They can and will be defeated.  The truth of the
matter is that RAND royalties are neither reasonable nor non-discriminatory.
The w3c will stop this madness if it truly values universal access and
creative freedom.  Why is it so common for an organization ostensibly acting
in the global community's interest to be controlled by corporate goons?
When did the w3c lose its capacity for independent thought?  Think of this:

Those who advocate RAND royalties ultimately share a shortsighted vision of
the internet's role in our society.  For them, the internet is a big bag of
money to be grabbed up as soon as it becomes available, a mineral rich
countryside ripe for a strip-mining operation.  How insane!  The w3 is not
(or should not be) a commercial medium primarily.  It cheapens the medium to
characterize it as a vehicle for obtaining market share at the expense of
all else.  But the problem is that this is what is happening.  And right
under our very noses.  We're being lulled into accepting it.  And it's not
our government's fault, it's our own.  The lawsuits against Microsoft have
been waged and won.  Microsoft has tried to buy its way out, and maybe it
has succeeded.  But be aware, if this view of the internet as a primarily if
not exclusively commercial opportunity continues to become the dominant
position in people's minds then everyone will be worse off -- even those
companies and consumers who in their greed or shortsightedness are blinded
to the consequences of their views in action.  The crux of their fallacy
comes down to volume considerations, not raw market share alone.

If we open up access to new innovations instead of tolerating RAND
royalties, we effectively construct an infinite marketplace for ideas as
well as commerce: a forum where new ideas, ranging from simple improvements
to preexisting conveniences to genuinely revolutionary change, may be
evaluated, adopted and disseminated openly and constructively.  All will
benefit from the inevitable expansion of society's horizons.  And even if a
particular company's market share weren't to change all that much, the size
of the piece of pie each would ultimately receive would be larger due simply
to the increased volume of interaction transpiring over the net.  Why
continue to stunt the growth of this medium now that we finally have
critical mass in the way of the populace's attention to and familiarity with
the internet?  A w3 encumbered by RAND royalties will severely handicap the
growth potential of the internet.  Society is ready to take the next step
and cast off the shackles of corporate dominion.  Let's use technology to
make everyone's life better.  Microsoft's pockets are lined nicely enough
already, wouldn't you say?




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Received on Tuesday, 8 January 2002 12:06:02 UTC