W3C, this is stupid stuff, you publish standards quicly enough, but oh, the decisions you make, they give a chap the belly-ache

The Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory (RAND) clause must be dropped.
It is simply impossible to imagine working on an internet in 10 years
that charges money not for content, but for use of standards. The idea
that standards should not be free is a huge mistake. This is one of
dozens of debates that have played out over and over and over again.
Unless you want you current supporters working on standards that
oppose your own, solely to have free ones, you must abandon this
counterproductive, 20th century paradigm of charging for whatever you
think you might be able to get away with.

By following the course you have charted out, you have paved the way
to enrage the free software community, the very community that has
driven adoptation of most the standards you promulgate. The idea is
silly, and worse, dangerous to the vision of the interent that you,
yourselves espouse.

David Manheim

Received on Wednesday, 28 July 2004 16:08:05 UTC