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1/7/2002 1:33:27 AM, "Dare Obasanjo" <kpako@yahoo.com> wrote:
>As for patents and XML, I can't help but feel that this is indeed the tip of
>the iceberg. After all, what most of us do with XML is simply reimplement old
>technology with our favorite new buzzword. It's just a matter of time before
>more companies claim that simnply XMLizing some technology in an area they
>have patents is a no-no.
Ahh, I see the argument now. And to the extent that people DO just reimplement
patented technology with angle brackets, I agree. Still, that's a long way from saying that
" patents are screwing up XML" (as Dave W, says on his blog). I'm guessing
that Dave's opinion is somewhat colored by the bizarre UFIL patent that RDF
and RSS allegedly violate. I can definitely sympathize, but if Dave
and the others who created RSS had used CSV or an EDI-like format rather
than XML, wouldn't it still (allegedly) violate U.S. patent 5,684,985?
If that is a defensible patent on anything, it covers the RDF information
model not the RDF or RSS serialization format.
On the other hand, if we're still talking about the W3C patent policy working draft
that caused a firestorm of protest last summer, the W3C has pretty much
decided that discretion is the better part of valor as far as RAND WG's go.
See http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2001/12/19/patents.html
So, the patent situation sucks, but I still maintain that it doesn't suck any worse
for XML (the core technologies, not individual applications such as VoiceXML)
than it does for anything else in the software world.
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