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

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

Pretense and policy are different texts.

There has been an enormous pretense over the last 
ten years and we are now facing the problems of 
thinking such pretense is policy.  It isn't. 
That any individual or group reflects on the 
public interest speaks well of their morals, 
and such are to be commended.  To state that they 
represent it is to assert authority they do 
not have legally and must be challenged.  

That said, they do a reasonable job with their 
specifications in pursuit of the interests of 
their members and that is not at issue.

len

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

> I think you're point's well stated, Len. W3C is not a body in pursuit of
the
> public interest. 

Of course, I certainly recall folk trying to deflect various
criticisms of W3C on this list with arguments along the lines
of "that's not true, W3C _is_ representative of the overall
web community".

It's a case of "can't have cake and eat it too".

And in particular, if W3C isn't the body in pursuit of
the public interest for web technologies, then nontrivial
chunks of the work done in that context have been
under false pretenses.

- Dave