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Given the current practice of granting patents which contain
claims that are dependent on specific "named" data formats, languages,
protocols, etc., it is vital, in order to preserve our ability to
innovate, that we accept a new discipline when we define and discuss
these things...
We must:
1. Ensure that conformance requirements for our standards are
extremely well defined and that any non-conforming use is clearly
flagged as not being able to be described as "HTML", "XML", or
whatever.
2. We must stop defining extension mechanisms to ensure that
the use of any extension clearly prevents the extender from claiming
that an extended format is an instance of the named base format. (In
this way, if someone adds proprietary extensions to XML, HTML, etc.
then we would be able to say: "It is *not* HTML. Thus, the patent
doesn't apply."
3. Given that namespaces provide a flexible and broadly useful
extension mechanism for XML documents, W3C, the Open Source community
and other responsible persons should immediately drop support for
namespaces and establish a policy against consideration of similar
mechanisms in the future.
4. We should stop using versions to refer to extensions,
variants, or enhancements of specifications and instead ensure that
spec names change on every revision.
5. Anyone who suggests or attempts to discuss adding extension
mechanisms or flexibility to any important standards should be
suspected of being a plant for someone with a patent or someone in the
process of obtaining a patent. Such people should be removed from
mailing lists immediately and warned against in any available public
forum...
None of the things suggested above are any more unreasonable
than the current situation. If this situation continues, the actions
outlined above will become increasingly necessary -- no matter how
painful.
bob wyman
How long until we see a patent application which refers to:
"The standard formerly known as HTML"...
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