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On Fri, 17 Jan 2003, Berend de Boer wrote:
> Simon St.Laurent wrote:
>
> >We urge the W3C and the Advisory Committee to evaluate the precedent
> >setting RF-only nature of the proposed patent policy in the context of
> >whether or not it will enable the W3C to remain a good forum for
> >developing web standards.
> >...
> >It reads like a threat to me, but I suppose it's possible to read it
> >more gently.
> >
>
> As I read it, Microsoft is not talking about itself, but about other
> companies that might want to pull out. That might be bad for Microsoft,
> because it has invested (heavily?) in the W3C process. Getting involved
> in another process might require more resources and divide effort, with
> probably less results.
You are insufficiently paranoid. MS is probably unhappy that RF allows
Open Source implementer's to compete with them head to head. Their IIS vs
Apache trend numbers at Netcraft <URL:http://netcraft.com/survey/> haven't
been looking especially good for them lately. RAND licenses would allow
the creation of specs that Open Source developers couldn't release at all
since they don't have substantial (in many cases _any_) financial
resources to throw at licensing. Hence the push to 'cut off their air
supply' flow to Open Source of unencumbered web specs.
--
Benjamin Franz
"If the code and the comments disagree, then both are probably wrong."
-- Norm Schryer, Bell Labs
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