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

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

Given these two statements:

Cargill:  "Why did the other people duck their responsibilities? This was
part of the standards process, why did it have to be W3C; where was ISO
(International Standards Organisation), where was ANSI (American National
Standards Institute)?"

then

"RAND terms originally formulated by the International Standards
Organisation have been adopted by most other standards bodies such as the
International Telecommunications Union and the Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers."

It isn't that the issue has never come up before.  It is that the issue 
was successfully avoided by the W3C including the Director who is now 
expected to solve it.  So the W3C failed and that first statement is 
Sun propaganda.  The W3C has to discontinue the harvest until the 
boundaries of the common are determined. (It's only a tragedy if you 
fail to work out the rules of use.)

Cargill: "This is where having Tim Berners-Lee as the person who holds
ultimate reign is important. 
He will do what is best for the Web."

So if Sun can't solve it, IBM can't solve it, Berners-Lee is expected to 
get from between the rock of his membership (a king) and the hard place of
the 
online community (a religion) puts him.    Shades of Thomas Beckett....

Patents do not extort.  They are licensed.  You are  
demanding other's property for free if the W3C 
harvests it.  Otherwise, there is no issue here.

len

-----Original Message-----
From: David Brownell [mailto:david-b@pacbell.net]

http://it.mycareer.com.au/news/2001/10/09/FFX52P06JSC.html

This story includes a judgement ("back to the drawing board")
that's perhaps a bit premature.

Interesting question:  how many peoples' comments to W3C
addressed problems with that policy beyond its willingness to
support using (mostly first world) patent law to extort license
taxes from the whole world?