Re: Summary of 1 July 2002 Patent Policy Working Group Teleconference

I believe the user and development community has made
it abundantly clear that so-called "RAND" standards
are simply not acceptable.  Any royalty for standards always
discriminates against some users and developers, thus
they are always discriminatory, and thus they are not
appropriate for standardization.

A standards-setting body should not be in the business
of creating standards to prevent competition and
inhibit interoperability, as any RAND standard would do.

The notion of "Extensions" is a misnomer; today's
extension is tomorrow's necessary infrastructure.

The W3C has already gathered a great deal of ill will, which
was thankfully averted in time.  There's no reason to
make the same mistake again.

--- David A. Wheeler

Received on Tuesday, 9 July 2002 18:25:29 UTC