RE: [xml-dev] Comment on W3C Patent Policy WG Response

["Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@simonstl.com>]

On Mon, 2001-10-15 at 11:21, Champion, Mike wrote:
> > I think in _this particular case_ that's the intent, 
> > certainly as far as PR is concerned.
> 
> Well, if you consider "the public" and the "open source and free software
> communities" the same thing, yes ... :~) 

I should probably have separated "the public" from "the software
developing public" - it's hard enough to get software developers to take
an interest in this stuff, much less folks who just want to surf.

> The public needs the vendors to
> implement the Web technologies, and the vendors need to keep the public from
> getting angry enough at them to invest the time to hassle with the
> alternatives.  The W3C is the arena for this balancing act; opening up the
> patent policy WG strikes me as an acknowledgement that the open source folks
> are collectively an alternative "vendor" that the W3C has to accomodate.

It's a start, and I'll be curious to see how it goes.  This seems to be
the first serious threat to "the software developing public"'s
perception of the W3C's mantle of legitimacy, so I suspect there's a lot
more at stake here in the long run than just patent licensing.
 
-- 
Simon St.Laurent
"Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better." - Emile Coue