Re: [xml-dev] [Fwd: W3C ridiculous new policy on patents]

[Elliotte Rusty Harold <elharo@metalab.unc.edu>]

At 9:00 AM -0700 10/1/01, David Brownell wrote:

>I think a lot of us were surprised to see this proposal get
>so far along without getting noticed.  There's something
>about what W3C did (and plans to do) with respect to
>this proposal which doesn't smell right.
>


FYI, Cafe con Leche first reported on this on August 17:

The W3C has published a first and last call working draft of the W3C Patent Policy Framework. Boiled down, what this says is that all W3C members have to tell the working groups what relevant patents they hold. There's no obligation to offer any sort of license to anybody on any terms. Frankly, this is far too weak. I would prefer a policy that stated that all W3C members must dedicate all relevant patents to the public domain, but short of that it would probably be enough to say that all W3C members must offer royalty-free licenses to all implementers. However, since the W3C is bought and paid for by its corporate members the chance of this happening is virtually nil. Comments are due by September 30.  

 <http://www.ibiblio.org/xml/news2001.html#news2001August17>
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| Elliotte Rusty Harold | elharo@metalab.unc.edu | Writer/Programmer |
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