W3C Looking for More Patent Feedback 128
KjetilK writes: "The World Wide Web Consortium has posted a response to public comments it received. Part of the response is that the review period is extended to 11 October 2001. Continue to submit elaborate comments to the proposed policy, and make sure that the points made by the W3C are specifically addressed. Also, read the Patent Policy Framework proposal, the original announcement and background and the Patent Policy FAQ."
Royalty free use ... but only under the GPL (Score:3, Interesting)
here is a compromise: Allow for royalty free use of the patent, but only if the software is licensed under the GPL. As much as Microsoft has bashed GPL in the past, this is probably the best option for the big boys. They could claim to "support open source" software but still keep their ability to charge royalties for proprietary implementations.
Note that allowing royalty free linking with any ole open source license will allow proprietary applications to "get around" the licensing restrictions. So, I can see why they would require GPL, but nothing less than GPL. One could also use the patent royalty free with any software that had a GPL compatible license, under the restriction that the aggregate license must also be GPL compatible. They may also have to add a clause that the source code for software must be available for download under the GPL when used as a server side process. As this would also give a "loop hole" allowing proprietary uses of the patented technology.
Are we losing control? (Score:3, Interesting)
This proposal to introduce patents into WWW standards greatly concerns the future of the Web. What will happen to the great soap box? Will I have to pay royalties to post my web page? Will I be forced to use a certain OS and web browser to view some web sites and then maybe another browser for others? Will my hard drive become clogged with endless browser plugins. Each allowing me to view separately patented web technology? I see the possibility of greater costs to the web users. I may have to pay greater software and ISP costs.
If the World Wide Web is to become the media of the future. What will happen if large coporations have the patents to control its content? Does everyone still feel that their voice will always be heard?
Even if the W3C is owned by corporations... (Score:2, Interesting)
They're inching closer to obsoletion, anyhow. XML, XSLT and SOAP all really do feel like they were designed by a comittee of comittees who weren't exactly sure what the other guy was up to.
Specific Points (Score:4, Interesting)
-a requirement for disclosure provisions
This is a good thing, we don't want to have the same crap that Rambus pulled with RDRAM.
-a procedure for launching new standards development activities as Royalty-Free Licensing Mode activities.
I'm assuming previous standards already fall under this category and this is just a way to clear any misunderstandings (good thing?)
-a procedure for launching new standards development activities as Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (RAND) Licensing Mode activities
BAD THING! Everyone is going to want to push their standards over to RAND so that they can make money on their technology patents, ultimately shrinking the future number of open standards. They state: When a Working Group wishes to produce a specification that is not Royalty-Free, the proposed policy requires the charter to provide rationale for the choice of RAND. What will be the rationale? This isn't clear and many standards you find today (HTML, XML, etc.) could have fallen under RAND if it existed back then.
W3C should only be concerned with Royalty Free / Open standards. If a company owns a patent on the technology they control the standard. How does W3C plan on forcing a company to stick to a standard where ultimately the company controls the technology. This is just going to confuse current and future developers.
So... (Score:3, Interesting)
Is it in any way possible to form a standards body composed entirely of open source people? With all these things W3C has aptly shown that its relevance days should be over.
Things shouldn't be left in the hands of the big corporations. There are more than enough examples that their interests are in their pockets instead of their customers. So why do people keep paying attention to them? Let them make all the flawed, selfish standards that they want. Why the heck should they dictate the laws? Can't open source/free software people think for themselves, and standardize things on their technical merits instead of their money-making merits?
Oh well, in an ideal world there would be a non-profit corporation (is this a paradox?) allowing people to work on their projects full-time (the FSF doesn't cut it, because RMS seems a little too much of a control freak to me. I may be wrong). No shareholders, no screwing of people... Ahh, those would be the days...
Is W3C a Non-Profit? (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem with this is not that anyone is being denied royalties for their patents, but rather the entire W3C becomes nothing more than a sales effort for those companies that comprise the W3C.
At that point, if the W3C is a not-for-profit corporation, a legal challenge could be raised that it is no longer a standards body but a trade organization.
IP is a VIRUS (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm all for the concept of protecting an author's right to prevent others from directly profiting from their work, but the whole concept of IP as something to be locked up is wrong, and I'll go so far as to say that it's a VIRUS, an evil MEME.
Those who would allow patenting of software, math, etc... are just short sighted, and will eventually get reap what they sow.
--Mike--
My response (Score:3, Interesting)
It's clear from the community response to the draft "W3C Patent Policy Framework Working Draft" that we aren't ready for a policy concerning how patent-encumbered technology can be included in W3C recommendations. There first needs to be an open and frank discussion of _whether_ patent-encumbered technology should be part of W3C recommendations at all. Given the lack of discussion over the general issue of software patents in web standards, this draft is premature.
"Working Group Flexibility", the final "concensus point" given in the draft appears the be heart of the problem. The authors of the draft appear to agree that individual working groups should "have the flexibility to specify minimum licensing terms as part of their work". This statement may be self-evident to the authors, but it's by no means self evident to the Internet community as a whole. Any policy that takes this position as a starting point will meet heavy resistance.
Since the very basic principles that form the basis for this working draft are at best contraversial, the appropriate response on the part of the W3C would be to withdraw the working draft temporarily and begin a consultation process to determine what role patents have in Internet standards. Until that question has been answered, discussion of detailed procedures is premature.
Re:So... (Score:2, Interesting)
You may have more success trying to get open source groups involved in the current standards bodies more, like the W3C, to take it back from the corporations who are trying to turn it into a rubber-stamp agency.
The last patent (Score:4, Interesting)
I own and make money from software patents. But not from the Web, even though my unpatented "Nagle algorithm" is in every TCP implementation in the world. Patented technology should not be in standardized interfaces. It inhibits their adoption and causes the technology base to fork. That makes the "standard" non-standard.
John Nagle
Menlo Park, CA
Re:The last patent (Score:2, Interesting)
As I said in my post...I am a math person. I see this as an induction argument in that if you cannot patent an arrangement of switches on all machines with
Basically, the argument that things get complicated so we have to let them be patented is what I call the "OH MY GOD THE NUMBERS ARE SO BIG THAT I CANT UNDERSTAND THEM SO SOMETHING MAGICAL MUST HAPPEN!!!" argument which I think is complete bullshit and has no place coming out of the mouth of anyone who wants to be a "technical" person in any sense of the word. Use of that argument means the speaker does not have the ability to think abstractly, and needs to go back to school to learn how to think more gooder.