Slashdot Mirror

"All of our development work for the new MSN.com is...W3C standard," said Bob Visse, the director of MSN marketing, referring to the World Wide Web Consortium, which is developing industry standards for Web technologies. "For browsers that we know don't support those standards or that we can't insure will get a great experience for the customer, we do serve up a page that suggests that they upgrade to an IE browser that does support the" standards.

So maybe they should take it offline to ensure compatability...

http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww .msn.com%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doc type=Inline

Well, it's certainly NOT W3C XHTML

Tried putting www.msn.com through the W3.ORG validator:

Below are the results of attempting to parse this document with an SGML parser.
Sorry, this document does not validate as XHTML 1.0 Strict.

Try it yourself! http://validator.w3.org

"All of our development work for the new MSN.com is...W3C standard," said Bob Visse, the director of MSN marketing, referring to the World Wide Web Consortium, which is developing industry standards for Web technologies. "For browsers that we know don't support those standards or that we can't insure will get a great experience for the customer, we do serve up a page that suggests that they upgrade to an IE browser that does support the" standards.

See for yourself.

The argument I see on the news stories is that Microsoft is whacking Opera and Mozilla because they don't fully support the W3C standards. AMAYA is available at www.w3.org and is the W3's benchmark standards compliant browser. It doesn't work either...

That Microsoft lies probably surprises no one. However, judging from these compliance tables, they are lying in a fairly major way:

Unix/Linux Chart
Windows Chart
Macintosh Chart

If they are letting Netscape 4.7 in, the Opera browser and Mozilla are more standards compatible and should have no problems at all!

"All of our development work for the new MSN.com is...W3C standard," said Bob Visse, the director of MSN marketing

standard, indeed

"We should work toward a universal linked information system, in which generality and portability are more important than fancy graphics techniques and complex extra facilities. The aim would be to allow a place to be found for any information or reference which one felt was important, and a way of finding it afterwards. The result should be sufficiently attractive to use that it the information contained would grow past a critical threshold, so that the usefulness the scheme would in turn encourage its increased use. The passing of this threshold accelerated by allowing large existing databases to be linked together and with new ones."
- Tim Berners-Lee
Information Management: A Proposal CERN 1989

MS argues that it blocks browsers because they can't handle XHTML. I tried to validate their start-page with http://validator.w3.org, but MS seems to think W3C can't handle their XHTML either and blocks it. At least the error page doesn't seem to be valid XHTML. So much for "embracing standards".

MS argues that it blocks browsers because they can't handle XHTML. I tried to validate their start-page with http://validator.w3.org, but MS seems to think W3C can't handle their XHTML either and blocks it. At least the error page doesn't seem to be valid XHTML. So much for "embracing standards".

PS: Slashdot's HTML is horrible, go check out XHTML and CSS.

PS: Slashdot's HTML is horrible, go check out XHTML and CSS.

I don't care what they do, whether they're javascript-happy or lynx zealots (if you want a text-based browser, use links at least -- it's multithreaded so you don't have all those horrible little pauses and it actually has the best download manager I've ever seen), but they must do it properly.

If the font tag is that great for you, use valid HTML 3.2, but I would recommend XHTML 1.0 and CSS. CSS has many advantages over the font tag and the like that are important, but I will omit for brevity. Needless to say, separating structure from apperance is good, because you can concentrate on making your page first, then making it look pretty later. In adition, if you've ever had to change many different font tags because you didn't like the size of your font, you'll be happy to know that CSS cascades so that you only have to set something else once, and every element under it changes likewise. Even then, I rarely use style like <span style="blah"&gt, because simply specifying styles as classes works much better when I want to deviate for the style I've already set for whatever element I want to change.

Whether or not they can spell, I don't care, but please don't force browser writers to keep guessing at what the page author means by his mangeled html. It's very annoying and causes different browsers to do different things, which most people solve by using javascript detect scripts. Those are unneccesary, because if everyone would just adhere to the W3 standards and use CSS (which can do a lot of things that javascript is often used for), you wouldn't need all that junk.

Yes, I know, using vim to hand edit a page is a bit scary at first, but I will never understand people that claim to be able to write web pages, but have never seen html in their life, much less know what valid html looks like. The best part about editors like vim are, is that they support all version of html, javascript, etc., and are free.

I don't know if this is reincarnated PICS, but here's what I do know:
1. ICRA is using PICS in their labels.
2. The same people that run RSAC run ICRA
3. PICS is a w3 standard
4. There's another system out there called: Safesurf

There is one really cool benefit to all this. You can disallow the banner ad hosts. It's awesome for that.

Also don't forget to check how many of today's websites fully comply with W3C recommendations. Just try the validator on popular sites. This shows that web designers are not the innocent sheep that they try to mimic.

All the standard opt-in vs opt-out arguments apply, plus you have three hurdles to hop before it works. Specifically, sites must:

• add metadata elements (aka "tags")...
• in the correct syntax...
• and contain a recognized vocabulary...

Also, you have the problem of self-evaluation which can be troubled by different interpretations by individuals or by malicious mis-classification. ( BTW: even professional catalogers tend to overlap only about 60% on the subject of a given resource. Quality and suitability are even more subjective and thus subject to variation. ) For accuracy, third party evaluation is the way to go, which introduces the problems with staffing and other human dependencies.

The Swedish National Agency for Higher Education ran a technically similar project called SAFARI to help disseminate material, which is what the web is about. If you make the good stuff easy to find then the crap is less troublesome. You can read a a description of the methods used.

So unless MS have some spesific client type check in the services you can create your own client. But if the services may still require an subscrption.

http://www.w3.org/TR/wsdl

bloat, most of which could be removed by taking look-and-feel instructions out of the HTML and placing them into stylesheets.

Kuro5hin's readers discussed doing something similar but rejected it because not only does Netscape 4.x not render CSS unless you have popup ads turned on, but it also crashes when fed some perfectly valid CSS. Many of Slashdot's readers do not have a powerful enough computer to run Mozilla or Konqueror.

Some examples:

• "Stallman's philosophy is not open source, it's not the spirit of sharing, it's not generous. It has other purposes, it's designed to create a wall between commercial development and free development." (9/7/2000)
• "Talking with Nicholas Petreley a few days ago I said that the problems that open source addresses have already been dealt with." (9/9/2000)
• "It's possible to be an open source developer with high integrity, I'm sure of that, I know people who do that. But it's not inevitable that all open source developers and middlemen have high integrity." (8/8/2000)

And that's just a few of the more recent posts to his log. Don't get me wrong, Dave is a very thoughtful, articulate guy who's no Microsoft parrot -- he and his company, UserLand Software, were one of the authors of the SOAP specification that is proving so critical for future interoperability. He's just got a keen intelligence and is fond of applying it, which means he'll often come up with a different angle on things than you might expect. Go search his site and I bet you'll find, if not the answer you seek, at least some interesting questions.

-- Jason Lefkowitz

But Microsoft? It's contributed to standards initiated by others. It's tried to detract from standards initiated by others (Java).

Java is not a standard unless your criteria for being a standard is simply that it is used by a lot of people. If that's the case then Microsoft has created lots of standards from COM to the Word file format to UDDI to their XML schema proposal that was rejected by the W3C but was embraced by most of industry.

If you're talking about standards in the strict sense of the Word then I can think of SOAP and C# and the CLI (in progress) but then again I haven't paid much attention to what Microsoft does until quite recently.

KHTML is way less stable than Mozilla, even though Mozilla isn't to 1.0 yet
Bullsh**t. KHTML is very stable. If you are not happy with some third-party JavaScript-based web sites, turn off JavaScript support. As I wrote in another posting, do not mix JS with DHTML. These are different things. Konqueror has the best CSS2 support on the market, so far. Click on link above or here to see how W3C CSS page renders in Konq. Compare than it to MS IE6 or other browsers.

All that and I didn't even get into the speed advantage...

Are you kidding? Konqueror starts in 3 sec. on my computer, while Mozilla needs 20-25 seconds to start!
Besides, Konq opens new window in less than 1 sec., while Mozilla needs 3 sec.(!) to open new window. Minimize/Maximize actions are also pretty slow for Mozilla.

KHTML is way less stable than Mozilla, even though Mozilla isn't to 1.0 yet
Bullsh**t. KHTML is very stable. If you are not happy with some third-party JavaScript-based web sites, turn off JavaScript support. As I wrote in another posting, do not mix JS with DHTML. These are different things. Konqueror has the best CSS2 support on the market, so far. Click on link above or here to see how W3C CSS page renders in Konq. Compare than it to MS IE6 or other browsers.

All that and I didn't even get into the speed advantage...

Are you kidding? Konqueror starts in 3 sec. on my computer, while Mozilla needs 20-25 seconds to start!
Besides, Konq opens new window in less than 1 sec., while Mozilla needs 3 sec.(!) to open new window. Minimize/Maximize actions are also pretty slow for Mozilla.

The solution will be to move to a mark-up language that is designed to define layout to the pixel.

...comparatively speaking. For those of you who didn't read it, one of their objections is that while anyone involved in making the standard might potentially be forced to declare RF licensing, someone who keeps quiet during the standard's formulation but owns a patent on essential parts of the standard, can license under RAND or whatever else, as they didn't take part in the process.

While that is a problem, it doesn't negate the idea of RF. There were three other objections - but they're half legalese, and IANAL... :-)

amusing.. someone is adding it to lists like openxxx.com.

Just for the record... before shooting your mouth off, check out the latest version of IE6.

I have, and it isn't anywhere near compliant with CSS2 (CSS1 is fine - but how old is that!?!). Mozilla absolutely walks all over IE6 in standards compliance. Compare this page in both IE and Mozilla to see what I mean.

About 18 months ago, I was working on a intranet app that used some CSS2 for stretchy resizable menus with graphics and resizable text in them (the client didn't want fixed widths). I cursed the developers of Netscape 4.x loudly for their broken implementation of CSS, but being an intranet app we could ignore it. Getting IE5 to work was doable but a few hoops needed jumping through to work around things it wouldn't do, and IE4 was a lot harder but we ended up getting it to work. Of course this code wouldn't work properly in either Mozilla, Opera or Konqueror (all 3 other browsers displayed it the same way though).

Now we have been hired to update the look and feel and we would like to make it a little more cross browser compatible. I find myself cursing IE loudly this time. First attempts at making something based on what the CSS2 standard says will work in Mozilla first time, while IE will need many tweaks to get it to kinda work and these tweaks will end up breaking how it looks in Mozilla and Opera.

The worst thing is that MS hasn't really improved the CSS2 compliance since IE5. IE5.5 and 6.0 look just the same as IE5 - they still keep ignoring about half the style properties available (if not more).

People complain about websites using ugly hacks like tables for layout and spacer gifs etc - but it won't change until MS fully (or even almost fully) implements the standards and lets sites be written the right way.

Moz does use its own extensions to the standards, and features of draft standards, but has implemented them in a manner that states them clearly as mozilla (a "moz-" prefix I think).
These extensions are not being encouraged as "wow look at this great feature" but developed to fulfill needs such as assisting the themes capability, or because a developer is particularly interested in it. The advance work is not enabled in all builds, but will give an advantage when the standard is reccommended (complete).

The point of mozillas approach to standards is to get the existing standards working fully and correctly, anything else is a bonus.

(skipping moderation duty to comment :)

Moz does use its own extensions to the standards, and features of draft standards, but has implemented them in a manner that states them clearly as mozilla (a "moz-" prefix I think).
These extensions are not being encouraged as "wow look at this great feature" but developed to fulfill needs such as assisting the themes capability, or because a developer is particularly interested in it. The advance work is not enabled in all builds, but will give an advantage when the standard is reccommended (complete).

The point of mozillas approach to standards is to get the existing standards working fully and correctly, anything else is a bonus.

(skipping moderation duty to comment :)

Moz does use its own extensions to the standards, and features of draft standards, but has implemented them in a manner that states them clearly as mozilla (a "moz-" prefix I think).
These extensions are not being encouraged as "wow look at this great feature" but developed to fulfill needs such as assisting the themes capability, or because a developer is particularly interested in it. The advance work is not enabled in all builds, but will give an advantage when the standard is reccommended (complete).

The point of mozillas approach to standards is to get the existing standards working fully and correctly, anything else is a bonus.

(skipping moderation duty to comment :)

Actually the current HTML spec is XHTML 1.0 Revision 2 released last week.

I don't know what nationality Berners-Lee currently has, but according to his bio on w3c, he was born and educated in the UK. That being said, I think this discussion is rather silly. I always felt that free software and internet were about cooperation instead of this kind of stupidity.

1. Technology: GNOME is based on the GTK+ library, which was fine for its day, but is now decidedly outdated. The basic design, themability and functionality simply haven't changed in years. It doesn't offer exciting components like KParts, KDE's analog to COM. The closes thing to that will be Bonobo, but its development is far behind even GNOME 2's release schedule and won't make it in until at least 2003.
   
2. Browsers: The GNOME project depends on Mozilla for its browser component. While Galeon makes the experience quite pleasant, page loads are still slow. In contrast, Konqueror is under heavy development, supporting both Mozilla and KHTML as its viewer component, the latter of which is its greatest strength. The W3C recommends Konqueror for having the most complete CSS2 implementation in the world.
3. Lack of modern features: XFree86 in itself is not that fast in implementing modern OS facilities. But when the XFree86 team did finally implement XRender (some 10 years after amigaOS could do antialiasing), they did it right. Trolltech team, thanks to the component based design of Qt, were able to implement text antialiasing and alpha channels with just a couple of screens of code. The same implmenentation for GTK+/GNOME, in contrast, is only possible as either a hack (render text large and sale it down) or potentially by major redesign, which will be done with GTK+ 2.
   
4. Looks. Although KDE had formerly been the ugly duckling, it really has leapt ahead of GNOME. One need look no further than http://www.kde-look.org/ to see how powerful and customisable KStyle is. As a developer once said, GNOME has themes, but KDE has style! What he meant in fact is that GNOME themes are generally pixmap designs, and when they are done programatically, there is limited scope for customisation.
5. A previous post aptly pointed out that GNU always wants to re-invent the wheel. Linux is fine, but they still want to work on HURD, because Linux isn't made by GNU. KDE is fine, but they still want to work on Gnome, because KDE isn't made by GNU.

This Patent Policy Proposal was under development since October 1999. Discussion was confined to W3C Members.

The first working draft was compiled on 16 August. For feedback, a public comment mailing list was opened on the 10th of August, 2001. The deadline was set for 30 September.

For the month of August, a total of seven comments were sent, of which one was an announcement from Simon J. Hernandez, five were spam, and one from Hartmut Pilch asking if RAND and opensource would mix.

Over the next 29 days - one day short of the cutoff - only 24 relevant comments were made, most of them on the 29th.

On the last day, the community awoke. Their responses came in a torrent, 726 messages in less than 24 hours. Almost all the respondents expressed vociferous opposition to the inclusion of RAND in any W3C Recommendation. This continued well into the next day. Consequently, the W3C was obliged to extend the comment period to 11 October.

As of last count, 1568 messages have been posted for the month of October [spam constitutes a small percentage].

Daniel J. Weitzner of the W3C replied to the list yesterday, outlining the next steps in the process.

Many organisations such as HP, Mozilla, WASP and the OSI have asserted their opposition to RAND. Even Apple has reversed its stance on RAND licensing.

For more info, visit Adam Warner's website where you'll find resources, analyses and links.

My personal thanks to everyone who mailed in their opinions. Special credit is due to Daniel Phillips and Adam, both of whom have relentlessly pursued the debate over the days, unearthing key points in the process.

It's a pleasure to see the W3C respond in a constructive manner by appointing Bruce and Eben as Invited Experts. Hopefully, Open Source's presence will ensure the next draft is even-handed.

Cheers,
Jason Antony

This Patent Policy Proposal was under development since October 1999. Discussion was confined to W3C Members.

The first working draft was compiled on 16 August. For feedback, a public comment mailing list was opened on the 10th of August, 2001. The deadline was set for 30 September.

For the month of August, a total of seven comments were sent, of which one was an announcement from Simon J. Hernandez, five were spam, and one from Hartmut Pilch asking if RAND and opensource would mix.

Over the next 29 days - one day short of the cutoff - only 24 relevant comments were made, most of them on the 29th.

On the last day, the community awoke. Their responses came in a torrent, 726 messages in less than 24 hours. Almost all the respondents expressed vociferous opposition to the inclusion of RAND in any W3C Recommendation. This continued well into the next day. Consequently, the W3C was obliged to extend the comment period to 11 October.

As of last count, 1568 messages have been posted for the month of October [spam constitutes a small percentage].

Daniel J. Weitzner of the W3C replied to the list yesterday, outlining the next steps in the process.

Many organisations such as HP, Mozilla, WASP and the OSI have asserted their opposition to RAND. Even Apple has reversed its stance on RAND licensing.

For more info, visit Adam Warner's website where you'll find resources, analyses and links.

My personal thanks to everyone who mailed in their opinions. Special credit is due to Daniel Phillips and Adam, both of whom have relentlessly pursued the debate over the days, unearthing key points in the process.

It's a pleasure to see the W3C respond in a constructive manner by appointing Bruce and Eben as Invited Experts. Hopefully, Open Source's presence will ensure the next draft is even-handed.

Cheers,
Jason Antony

This Patent Policy Proposal was under development since October 1999. Discussion was confined to W3C Members.

The first working draft was compiled on 16 August. For feedback, a public comment mailing list was opened on the 10th of August, 2001. The deadline was set for 30 September.

For the month of August, a total of seven comments were sent, of which one was an announcement from Simon J. Hernandez, five were spam, and one from Hartmut Pilch asking if RAND and opensource would mix.

Over the next 29 days - one day short of the cutoff - only 24 relevant comments were made, most of them on the 29th.

On the last day, the community awoke. Their responses came in a torrent, 726 messages in less than 24 hours. Almost all the respondents expressed vociferous opposition to the inclusion of RAND in any W3C Recommendation. This continued well into the next day. Consequently, the W3C was obliged to extend the comment period to 11 October.

As of last count, 1568 messages have been posted for the month of October [spam constitutes a small percentage].

Daniel J. Weitzner of the W3C replied to the list yesterday, outlining the next steps in the process.

Many organisations such as HP, Mozilla, WASP and the OSI have asserted their opposition to RAND. Even Apple has reversed its stance on RAND licensing.

For more info, visit Adam Warner's website where you'll find resources, analyses and links.

My personal thanks to everyone who mailed in their opinions. Special credit is due to Daniel Phillips and Adam, both of whom have relentlessly pursued the debate over the days, unearthing key points in the process.

It's a pleasure to see the W3C respond in a constructive manner by appointing Bruce and Eben as Invited Experts. Hopefully, Open Source's presence will ensure the next draft is even-handed.

Cheers,
Jason Antony

This Patent Policy Proposal was under development since October 1999. Discussion was confined to W3C Members.

The first working draft was compiled on 16 August. For feedback, a public comment mailing list was opened on the 10th of August, 2001. The deadline was set for 30 September.

For the month of August, a total of seven comments were sent, of which one was an announcement from Simon J. Hernandez, five were spam, and one from Hartmut Pilch asking if RAND and opensource would mix.

Over the next 29 days - one day short of the cutoff - only 24 relevant comments were made, most of them on the 29th.

On the last day, the community awoke. Their responses came in a torrent, 726 messages in less than 24 hours. Almost all the respondents expressed vociferous opposition to the inclusion of RAND in any W3C Recommendation. This continued well into the next day. Consequently, the W3C was obliged to extend the comment period to 11 October.

As of last count, 1568 messages have been posted for the month of October [spam constitutes a small percentage].

Daniel J. Weitzner of the W3C replied to the list yesterday, outlining the next steps in the process.

Many organisations such as HP, Mozilla, WASP and the OSI have asserted their opposition to RAND. Even Apple has reversed its stance on RAND licensing.

For more info, visit Adam Warner's website where you'll find resources, analyses and links.

My personal thanks to everyone who mailed in their opinions. Special credit is due to Daniel Phillips and Adam, both of whom have relentlessly pursued the debate over the days, unearthing key points in the process.

It's a pleasure to see the W3C respond in a constructive manner by appointing Bruce and Eben as Invited Experts. Hopefully, Open Source's presence will ensure the next draft is even-handed.

Cheers,
Jason Antony

This Patent Policy Proposal was under development since October 1999. Discussion was confined to W3C Members.

The first working draft was compiled on 16 August. For feedback, a public comment mailing list was opened on the 10th of August, 2001. The deadline was set for 30 September.

For the month of August, a total of seven comments were sent, of which one was an announcement from Simon J. Hernandez, five were spam, and one from Hartmut Pilch asking if RAND and opensource would mix.

Over the next 29 days - one day short of the cutoff - only 24 relevant comments were made, most of them on the 29th.

On the last day, the community awoke. Their responses came in a torrent, 726 messages in less than 24 hours. Almost all the respondents expressed vociferous opposition to the inclusion of RAND in any W3C Recommendation. This continued well into the next day. Consequently, the W3C was obliged to extend the comment period to 11 October.

As of last count, 1568 messages have been posted for the month of October [spam constitutes a small percentage].

Daniel J. Weitzner of the W3C replied to the list yesterday, outlining the next steps in the process.

Many organisations such as HP, Mozilla, WASP and the OSI have asserted their opposition to RAND. Even Apple has reversed its stance on RAND licensing.

For more info, visit Adam Warner's website where you'll find resources, analyses and links.

My personal thanks to everyone who mailed in their opinions. Special credit is due to Daniel Phillips and Adam, both of whom have relentlessly pursued the debate over the days, unearthing key points in the process.

It's a pleasure to see the W3C respond in a constructive manner by appointing Bruce and Eben as Invited Experts. Hopefully, Open Source's presence will ensure the next draft is even-handed.

Cheers,
Jason Antony

This Patent Policy Proposal was under development since October 1999. Discussion was confined to W3C Members.

The first working draft was compiled on 16 August. For feedback, a public comment mailing list was opened on the 10th of August, 2001. The deadline was set for 30 September.

For the month of August, a total of seven comments were sent, of which one was an announcement from Simon J. Hernandez, five were spam, and one from Hartmut Pilch asking if RAND and opensource would mix.

Over the next 29 days - one day short of the cutoff - only 24 relevant comments were made, most of them on the 29th.

On the last day, the community awoke. Their responses came in a torrent, 726 messages in less than 24 hours. Almost all the respondents expressed vociferous opposition to the inclusion of RAND in any W3C Recommendation. This continued well into the next day. Consequently, the W3C was obliged to extend the comment period to 11 October.

As of last count, 1568 messages have been posted for the month of October [spam constitutes a small percentage].

Daniel J. Weitzner of the W3C replied to the list yesterday, outlining the next steps in the process.

Many organisations such as HP, Mozilla, WASP and the OSI have asserted their opposition to RAND. Even Apple has reversed its stance on RAND licensing.

For more info, visit Adam Warner's website where you'll find resources, analyses and links.

My personal thanks to everyone who mailed in their opinions. Special credit is due to Daniel Phillips and Adam, both of whom have relentlessly pursued the debate over the days, unearthing key points in the process.

It's a pleasure to see the W3C respond in a constructive manner by appointing Bruce and Eben as Invited Experts. Hopefully, Open Source's presence will ensure the next draft is even-handed.

Cheers,
Jason Antony

This Patent Policy Proposal was under development since October 1999. Discussion was confined to W3C Members.

The first working draft was compiled on 16 August. For feedback, a public comment mailing list was opened on the 10th of August, 2001. The deadline was set for 30 September.

For the month of August, a total of seven comments were sent, of which one was an announcement from Simon J. Hernandez, five were spam, and one from Hartmut Pilch asking if RAND and opensource would mix.

Over the next 29 days - one day short of the cutoff - only 24 relevant comments were made, most of them on the 29th.

On the last day, the community awoke. Their responses came in a torrent, 726 messages in less than 24 hours. Almost all the respondents expressed vociferous opposition to the inclusion of RAND in any W3C Recommendation. This continued well into the next day. Consequently, the W3C was obliged to extend the comment period to 11 October.

As of last count, 1568 messages have been posted for the month of October [spam constitutes a small percentage].

Daniel J. Weitzner of the W3C replied to the list yesterday, outlining the next steps in the process.

Many organisations such as HP, Mozilla, WASP and the OSI have asserted their opposition to RAND. Even Apple has reversed its stance on RAND licensing.

For more info, visit Adam Warner's website where you'll find resources, analyses and links.

My personal thanks to everyone who mailed in their opinions. Special credit is due to Daniel Phillips and Adam, both of whom have relentlessly pursued the debate over the days, unearthing key points in the process.

It's a pleasure to see the W3C respond in a constructive manner by appointing Bruce and Eben as Invited Experts. Hopefully, Open Source's presence will ensure the next draft is even-handed.

Cheers,
Jason Antony

This Patent Policy Proposal was under development since October 1999. Discussion was confined to W3C Members.

The first working draft was compiled on 16 August. For feedback, a public comment mailing list was opened on the 10th of August, 2001. The deadline was set for 30 September.

For the month of August, a total of seven comments were sent, of which one was an announcement from Simon J. Hernandez, five were spam, and one from Hartmut Pilch asking if RAND and opensource would mix.

Over the next 29 days - one day short of the cutoff - only 24 relevant comments were made, most of them on the 29th.

On the last day, the community awoke. Their responses came in a torrent, 726 messages in less than 24 hours. Almost all the respondents expressed vociferous opposition to the inclusion of RAND in any W3C Recommendation. This continued well into the next day. Consequently, the W3C was obliged to extend the comment period to 11 October.

As of last count, 1568 messages have been posted for the month of October [spam constitutes a small percentage].

Daniel J. Weitzner of the W3C replied to the list yesterday, outlining the next steps in the process.

Many organisations such as HP, Mozilla, WASP and the OSI have asserted their opposition to RAND. Even Apple has reversed its stance on RAND licensing.

For more info, visit Adam Warner's website where you'll find resources, analyses and links.

My personal thanks to everyone who mailed in their opinions. Special credit is due to Daniel Phillips and Adam, both of whom have relentlessly pursued the debate over the days, unearthing key points in the process.

It's a pleasure to see the W3C respond in a constructive manner by appointing Bruce and Eben as Invited Experts. Hopefully, Open Source's presence will ensure the next draft is even-handed.

Cheers,
Jason Antony

This Patent Policy Proposal was under development since October 1999. Discussion was confined to W3C Members.

The first working draft was compiled on 16 August. For feedback, a public comment mailing list was opened on the 10th of August, 2001. The deadline was set for 30 September.

For the month of August, a total of seven comments were sent, of which one was an announcement from Simon J. Hernandez, five were spam, and one from Hartmut Pilch asking if RAND and opensource would mix.

Over the next 29 days - one day short of the cutoff - only 24 relevant comments were made, most of them on the 29th.

On the last day, the community awoke. Their responses came in a torrent, 726 messages in less than 24 hours. Almost all the respondents expressed vociferous opposition to the inclusion of RAND in any W3C Recommendation. This continued well into the next day. Consequently, the W3C was obliged to extend the comment period to 11 October.

As of last count, 1568 messages have been posted for the month of October [spam constitutes a small percentage].

Daniel J. Weitzner of the W3C replied to the list yesterday, outlining the next steps in the process.

Many organisations such as HP, Mozilla, WASP and the OSI have asserted their opposition to RAND. Even Apple has reversed its stance on RAND licensing.

For more info, visit Adam Warner's website where you'll find resources, analyses and links.

My personal thanks to everyone who mailed in their opinions. Special credit is due to Daniel Phillips and Adam, both of whom have relentlessly pursued the debate over the days, unearthing key points in the process.

It's a pleasure to see the W3C respond in a constructive manner by appointing Bruce and Eben as Invited Experts. Hopefully, Open Source's presence will ensure the next draft is even-handed.

Cheers,
Jason Antony

This Patent Policy Proposal was under development since October 1999. Discussion was confined to W3C Members.

The first working draft was compiled on 16 August. For feedback, a public comment mailing list was opened on the 10th of August, 2001. The deadline was set for 30 September.

For the month of August, a total of seven comments were sent, of which one was an announcement from Simon J. Hernandez, five were spam, and one from Hartmut Pilch asking if RAND and opensource would mix.

Over the next 29 days - one day short of the cutoff - only 24 relevant comments were made, most of them on the 29th.

On the last day, the community awoke. Their responses came in a torrent, 726 messages in less than 24 hours. Almost all the respondents expressed vociferous opposition to the inclusion of RAND in any W3C Recommendation. This continued well into the next day. Consequently, the W3C was obliged to extend the comment period to 11 October.

As of last count, 1568 messages have been posted for the month of October [spam constitutes a small percentage].

Daniel J. Weitzner of the W3C replied to the list yesterday, outlining the next steps in the process.

Many organisations such as HP, Mozilla, WASP and the OSI have asserted their opposition to RAND. Even Apple has reversed its stance on RAND licensing.

For more info, visit Adam Warner's website where you'll find resources, analyses and links.

My personal thanks to everyone who mailed in their opinions. Special credit is due to Daniel Phillips and Adam, both of whom have relentlessly pursued the debate over the days, unearthing key points in the process.

It's a pleasure to see the W3C respond in a constructive manner by appointing Bruce and Eben as Invited Experts. Hopefully, Open Source's presence will ensure the next draft is even-handed.

Cheers,
Jason Antony

This Patent Policy Proposal was under development since October 1999. Discussion was confined to W3C Members.

The first working draft was compiled on 16 August. For feedback, a public comment mailing list was opened on the 10th of August, 2001. The deadline was set for 30 September.

For the month of August, a total of seven comments were sent, of which one was an announcement from Simon J. Hernandez, five were spam, and one from Hartmut Pilch asking if RAND and opensource would mix.

Over the next 29 days - one day short of the cutoff - only 24 relevant comments were made, most of them on the 29th.

On the last day, the community awoke. Their responses came in a torrent, 726 messages in less than 24 hours. Almost all the respondents expressed vociferous opposition to the inclusion of RAND in any W3C Recommendation. This continued well into the next day. Consequently, the W3C was obliged to extend the comment period to 11 October.

As of last count, 1568 messages have been posted for the month of October [spam constitutes a small percentage].

Daniel J. Weitzner of the W3C replied to the list yesterday, outlining the next steps in the process.

Many organisations such as HP, Mozilla, WASP and the OSI have asserted their opposition to RAND. Even Apple has reversed its stance on RAND licensing.

For more info, visit Adam Warner's website where you'll find resources, analyses and links.

My personal thanks to everyone who mailed in their opinions. Special credit is due to Daniel Phillips and Adam, both of whom have relentlessly pursued the debate over the days, unearthing key points in the process.

It's a pleasure to see the W3C respond in a constructive manner by appointing Bruce and Eben as Invited Experts. Hopefully, Open Source's presence will ensure the next draft is even-handed.

Cheers,
Jason Antony

This Patent Policy Proposal was under development since October 1999. Discussion was confined to W3C Members.

The first working draft was compiled on 16 August. For feedback, a public comment mailing list was opened on the 10th of August, 2001. The deadline was set for 30 September.

For the month of August, a total of seven comments were sent, of which one was an announcement from Simon J. Hernandez, five were spam, and one from Hartmut Pilch asking if RAND and opensource would mix.

Over the next 29 days - one day short of the cutoff - only 24 relevant comments were made, most of them on the 29th.

On the last day, the community awoke. Their responses came in a torrent, 726 messages in less than 24 hours. Almost all the respondents expressed vociferous opposition to the inclusion of RAND in any W3C Recommendation. This continued well into the next day. Consequently, the W3C was obliged to extend the comment period to 11 October.

As of last count, 1568 messages have been posted for the month of October [spam constitutes a small percentage].

Daniel J. Weitzner of the W3C replied to the list yesterday, outlining the next steps in the process.

Many organisations such as HP, Mozilla, WASP and the OSI have asserted their opposition to RAND. Even Apple has reversed its stance on RAND licensing.

For more info, visit Adam Warner's website where you'll find resources, analyses and links.

My personal thanks to everyone who mailed in their opinions. Special credit is due to Daniel Phillips and Adam, both of whom have relentlessly pursued the debate over the days, unearthing key points in the process.

It's a pleasure to see the W3C respond in a constructive manner by appointing Bruce and Eben as Invited Experts. Hopefully, Open Source's presence will ensure the next draft is even-handed.

Cheers,
Jason Antony

This Patent Policy Proposal was under development since October 1999. Discussion was confined to W3C Members.

The first working draft was compiled on 16 August. For feedback, a public comment mailing list was opened on the 10th of August, 2001. The deadline was set for 30 September.

For the month of August, a total of seven comments were sent, of which one was an announcement from Simon J. Hernandez, five were spam, and one from Hartmut Pilch asking if RAND and opensource would mix.

Over the next 29 days - one day short of the cutoff - only 24 relevant comments were made, most of them on the 29th.

On the last day, the community awoke. Their responses came in a torrent, 726 messages in less than 24 hours. Almost all the respondents expressed vociferous opposition to the inclusion of RAND in any W3C Recommendation. This continued well into the next day. Consequently, the W3C was obliged to extend the comment period to 11 October.

As of last count, 1568 messages have been posted for the month of October [spam constitutes a small percentage].

Daniel J. Weitzner of the W3C replied to the list yesterday, outlining the next steps in the process.

Many organisations such as HP, Mozilla, WASP and the OSI have asserted their opposition to RAND. Even Apple has reversed its stance on RAND licensing.

For more info, visit Adam Warner's website where you'll find resources, analyses and links.

My personal thanks to everyone who mailed in their opinions. Special credit is due to Daniel Phillips and Adam, both of whom have relentlessly pursued the debate over the days, unearthing key points in the process.

It's a pleasure to see the W3C respond in a constructive manner by appointing Bruce and Eben as Invited Experts. Hopefully, Open Source's presence will ensure the next draft is even-handed.

Cheers,
Jason Antony

This Patent Policy Proposal was under development since October 1999. Discussion was confined to W3C Members.

The first working draft was compiled on 16 August. For feedback, a public comment mailing list was opened on the 10th of August, 2001. The deadline was set for 30 September.

For the month of August, a total of seven comments were sent, of which one was an announcement from Simon J. Hernandez, five were spam, and one from Hartmut Pilch asking if RAND and opensource would mix.

Over the next 29 days - one day short of the cutoff - only 24 relevant comments were made, most of them on the 29th.

On the last day, the community awoke. Their responses came in a torrent, 726 messages in less than 24 hours. Almost all the respondents expressed vociferous opposition to the inclusion of RAND in any W3C Recommendation. This continued well into the next day. Consequently, the W3C was obliged to extend the comment period to 11 October.

As of last count, 1568 messages have been posted for the month of October [spam constitutes a small percentage].

Daniel J. Weitzner of the W3C replied to the list yesterday, outlining the next steps in the process.

Many organisations such as HP, Mozilla, WASP and the OSI have asserted their opposition to RAND. Even Apple has reversed its stance on RAND licensing.

For more info, visit Adam Warner's website where you'll find resources, analyses and links.

My personal thanks to everyone who mailed in their opinions. Special credit is due to Daniel Phillips and Adam, both of whom have relentlessly pursued the debate over the days, unearthing key points in the process.

It's a pleasure to see the W3C respond in a constructive manner by appointing Bruce and Eben as Invited Experts. Hopefully, Open Source's presence will ensure the next draft is even-handed.

Cheers,
Jason Antony

> There are similar things out there, such as XML-RPC, but they don't focus as much on providing web services as .NET does.

SOAP is already an open standard. If Sun wanted to, I'd imagine it could pretty easily build in SOAP functionality into J2EE's guts, but you'd still be stuck, for better or for worse, developing in Java.

The Patent Group's working draft identified the need for disclosure of patents as a point of consesus:

* Better disclosure: A clear process, to which Members are committed and/or bound to ensure better disclosure of essential patents as a condition of Membership, is vital.

What does the RAND liscencing scheme add to this proposed solution? My view is that it creates more problems than it solves. If the intent is truly to solve the problem of submarine patents, nothing further is needed than to establish rules of patent disclosure.
____

The Patent Group's working draft identified the need for disclosure of patents as a point of consesus:

* Better disclosure: A clear process, to which Members are committed and/or bound to ensure better disclosure of essential patents as a condition of Membership, is vital.

What does the RAND liscencing scheme add to this proposed solution? My view is that it creates more problems than it solves. If the intent is truly to solve the problem of submarine patents, nothing further is needed than to establish rules of patent disclosure.
____

It seems to me that this is the key to the current problem, and illustrates that fixing the current problem - the incompatibility betwen RAND licensing and open source software - won't fix the underlying problem and this sort of hting will keep on occurring.

This raises a number of questions for me:

• What is the justification for having a W3C separate from the IETF?
• If it's reasonable to have two standards-setting bodies for the net, why not three?
• Why should we, as people explicitly excluded from the W3C's processes, treat W3C as authoritative?
• What if anything is W3C going to do about expanding its constituency?