RE: [xml-dev] RAND issues

["Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Rex Brooks [mailto:rexb@starbourne.com

Excuse me if I cordially disagree.

>MPEG is NOT just Sony and Motorola, and those two are not currently 
>playing their trump cards and acting as you suggest they might, and 
>as they certainly can, if they don't mind a big PR snafu and a bunch 
>of bad press, which they do. That would also effectively kill the 
>MPEG working group, and then what are you going to do with those 
>patents?

I didn't say it was Sony and Motorola.  And yes, they are effectively 
defending their patents.  So is MIT in a suit against them.  No, 
it won't effectively kill them.  If the press makes a big deal out 
of their holding valuable patents, their stock price will go up. 
MIT holds patents too and prosecutes them.

What am I going to do?  Nothing.  I pay for the operating system 
I use that provides the software I need.  No problem.

>They don't want the W3C imprimatur nor do they need it.
>They operate with a patent pool that is very lucrative.
>They operate in an environment in which the numbers
>of files that are created using patent bearing technology
>are one of the hottest types on the web today and likely
>to grow as the bandwidth continues to support ever larger
>and highly integrated multimedia.

>Oh yes they do want the W3C imprimatur, although they can live 
>without it, but RAND won't supply that. 

Only if it makes good business sense.  If it doesn't they 
go elsewhere.

>What RAND does is hang the 
>Sword of Damocles over everyone and hope that no one is the first to 
>charge.

The sword is there now.  RAND policy is a way of dealing with that 
in advance rather than getting another Sun patent on core technology.

>The W3C is flawed seriously. 

In some respects, I agree. They are engaged in trying to fix that. 
Some don't like the solution.  We are debating its merits or demerits.

>This is real balkanization but is it any more serious
>than having RealPlayer files and mpegs?  Is it worse
>than having Java support given it is a wholely owned
>Sun product?  Is it worse than all of the PDF files
>or the Flash files? Is this a case where a cadre of
>web developers who have benefited from the research
>of their predecessors in a bubble market are now faced
>with the real costs of that development continuing?

>Well, I disagree with the foregoing and agree with the following. Go
figure.

Why?  Just because you like free MPEG files?  Case proved 
and thank you.

>While that cadre can be very vocal, an industry and
>a global economy faced with a recession that the
>philosophy of that cadre helped engender are not
>likely to be given much credence even if given a
>lot of press.   Look up the quote from the CEO of
>Intel about the need for companies to profit by
>their intellectual property.

>Of course they need to profit from their Intellectual Property, but 
>not at the expense of whole technologies, which is the point I would 
>like to make. 

Who pays then?  I work in a company that Intel raped and lost 
whole divisions, watched a thousand or so people lose their 
jobs.  I couldn't agree with Intel's statement more.

The independent developers took a free ride on the backs 
of the BigCos and government organizations that paid for 
the basic research, that paid for the Internet, that paid 
for the people to attend those meetings.  Now some are 
saying they have good technology but won't submit it to 
the W3C without RAND.  Ok.  The W3C can turn that down 
case by case.  RAND gives them a way to choose.  But 
the example of MPEG/MHEG is there to prove quite compellingly
the W3C doesn't matter if the technology is valued.

len