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

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

To be part of the W3C and participate in 
harvesting subsets of other organizations' 
standards you must pay $$$.  Spy Vs Spy. 
The W3C isn't a commons arbiter.  It is a 
commercial consortium.  The myth of its 
moral majesty is well-exposed at this point.

As for the W3C not labeling as commons 
that which is not, I completely agree. 
That is why they must have a RAND policy 
and all the argument comes down to is 
if they will have the flexibility other 
spec and standards orgs have:  the ability 
to negotiate RAND terms for non-RF for 
their members.  In other words, the 
field owner must decide if he is to 
donate land use to a commercial trust.

len

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

> Patents do not extort.  They are licensed.

The fact that the extortion has bought-and-sold parts
of the legal system behind it doesn't make it any less
an extortion process.  In fact it makes the "tax" part
of the analogy even stronger.  "To be a part of the
on-line global commons, you must pay $N to this
company, $M to that one, ..."

"No taxation without representation", as the saying
went a few hundred years back.  Of course, today
corporations can buy representation that citizens
can't, including free access to "patents" which were
once handed out only to Friends of the King ...


>      You are  
> demanding other's property for free if the W3C 
> harvests it.  

The W3C labels fields as part of the commons.  You
can still harvest from Farmer Z's field, if he/she lets you;
likely you'd have to pay to do that.  W3C needs to be
preventing Z's field from being labeled "commons" if
it's not actually commons.