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So Harvard now controls RSS 2.0 by consent of? No, I see
they attempt to sidestep the question of
ownership, but essentially, all they are saying is
that they will answer questions about a document.
It is a bit like having the Vatican advise on the Bible.
They are an authority that some will recognize, but
come a Martin Luther, a fork is inevitable. They
are advising on the Userland copyright material, yes?
Umm.. what is the goal of that? What risks are being
managed? Whose risks are they?
Nice punt but it won't avoid multiple forks. It is
nice of Harvard to be Userland's lawyer though.
When and if any organization takes Atom, expands it,
etc., no branding has been obtained by any entity
so no claims against that brand will be enabled.
I think we will see a formal competitor to Atom
with all legal issues resolved in the organizational
charter. It may be an expansion of the Harvard
site, it may be an individual competitor, it
may be an organization or both. Figure out what the goals
are and proceed accordingly. If it is regulation,
neither the Harvard site nor the Intertwingly site
do that. Userland came close with the copyright
and expansions on that will be protected. Intertwingly
is an open mine. That's fine as long as it is understood.
It will even hold if the rate of defectors isn't too great.
This is just too cherry for someone not to do this
and because there is nothing to stop them from co-opting
the Atom specification, they can take that, add their
own IP, and pick up all the jacks with one toss of the ball.
IBM may have some claims since their employee is managing it.
Why the heck not hand it over to an organization that
has worked out these issues? Seems to me someone is preserving
risks instead of managing them. Is the RSS syndication moving
too fast for the good of the herd? Ok. Do that. Your
choices are 'only as fast as the slowest runner' or 'fast
enough to stay ahead of the pack'.
At the end of the day, this is a dll distribution contest,
same as with the browser. My intuition is that when the
dust settles, RSS/??? engines will get bundled just like
the browsers with 'good enough' capabilities.
This isn't grass roots chaos; it is a range war. "Give me
land lots of land..."
The odd thing about open source advocates is that by not acquiring
IP rights, they always drive the value of their products
to zero except for the distributors and service add ons,
and these guys assume the indemnification costs and the
profits while the other contributors get egoBoo. It's
like playing concert gigs for free and letting everyone
but the band sell the concert CDs and other paraphanalia.
Weird business model for the band. Applause is neat
but it won't put gas in the band bus.
len
From: Seairth Jacobs [mailto:seairth@seairth.com]
Take a look at the following:
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/advisoryBoard
http://www.intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/
I doubt you will see RSS handed over to W3C, OASIS, or whomever...
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