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Originally, the comment period was extended by 11 days because 90% of the comments were submitted on the last day. It seems there wasn't much public advertising of the original public comment period, or the importance of the proposed changes. By luck, Adam Warner noticed what was going on and sounded the alarm on the 3rd-to-last day. There was no time to do any deep research. Most people just said NO with varying degrees of eloquence. Now we're 3 days away from the end of the newly extended period and still, very few people have been able to take the time to really do their research, let alone engage in any kind of constructive dialog.

If you think this is all a little unfair, you can let the W3C know, here. You've got two more days, please do a little research.

It's hard to miss the names of these big corporations with large Web interests listed at the top of the paper: Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Apple Computer. Of the people listed on the paper, who represented the open source community as the paper was written? Furthermore, how much representation does the open source community have in the W3C? Taking a look at your List of Members, I see lots of corporations with patents and proprietary standards but no open source companies (I do admit I skimmed the list). How can you then claim to be committed to "interoperability and encouraging an open forum for discussion" (taken from your mission statement) when the only involvement that the open source community has is by responding to your RFC's? Remember that the open source community is mostly people who do this because of their belief in open source and not because of financial backing or stock owners.
<rant>The Internet is built on lots of computers who happen to run agreed-upon protocols. These changes seem to want to fracture the 'net from the open standards it was built upon to proprietary 'nets. Also, the biggest proponent of interoperability standards and 'net cohesion is the open source community, who ensures that their software will work with the many pre-existing 'net standards or that their new standards are available for all to use freely. Please tell me that I'm not overreacting when I say that the W3C's first priority should be to the open source community, interoperability, and the standards which have kept the net running from its creation and not to the pockets of the members of the W3C.</rant>
t.

It's hard to miss the names of these big corporations with large Web interests listed at the top of the paper: Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Apple Computer. Of the people listed on the paper, who represented the open source community as the paper was written? Furthermore, how much representation does the open source community have in the W3C? Taking a look at your List of Members, I see lots of corporations with patents and proprietary standards but no open source companies (I do admit I skimmed the list). How can you then claim to be committed to "interoperability and encouraging an open forum for discussion" (taken from your mission statement) when the only involvement that the open source community has is by responding to your RFC's? Remember that the open source community is mostly people who do this because of their belief in open source and not because of financial backing or stock owners.
<rant>The Internet is built on lots of computers who happen to run agreed-upon protocols. These changes seem to want to fracture the 'net from the open standards it was built upon to proprietary 'nets. Also, the biggest proponent of interoperability standards and 'net cohesion is the open source community, who ensures that their software will work with the many pre-existing 'net standards or that their new standards are available for all to use freely. Please tell me that I'm not overreacting when I say that the W3C's first priority should be to the open source community, interoperability, and the standards which have kept the net running from its creation and not to the pockets of the members of the W3C.</rant>
t.

In the w3c patent-response point 3 it is pointed out that W3C acknowledges the importance of RF licences, but wants to keep an open door to non-free licences.

I have to ask you; allowing companies and the W3C to let patented technologies, with (any) royalty fee become a standard, how probable do you think it is that companies will start to licence their technologies only as RAND technologies. Simply because they can. And would you (and the W3C) be able to do anything against that?

There have been many good questions addressing the possible implications of RAND, but I'd like to step back and ask the following:

Why and how did the W3C come upon the idea to implement RAND? What are the benefits to the W3C for having such a standards mechanism? Are these benefits the cause for the RAND proposal being essentially fast-tracked through your organisation? What individuals/organisations/corporations proposed said mechanism to the W3C?

Finally, have you read Alan Cox's opinion on this matter? What is your response?

Thanks in advance,
-Mani.

(a) Listen to the voice of reason, as expressed in these emails; or
(b) Ignore the public interest, and try to force RAND down our throats?

Adam Warner responded to others' concerns that Tim Berners-Lee was not posting his stance on the W3C Patent Policy by noting Tim's financial involvement with (MIT-tied and W3C member) Curl Corporation, who boasts that licensees of their Curl Content language can get rid of HTML, Javascript, etc.

In early August, Curl Corporation gained 500,000 potential users via their agreement with adisoft AG.

Does Tim's Curl investment, which is in fact disclosed on the W3C site, concern you?

Adam Warner responded to others' concerns that Tim Berners-Lee was not posting his stance on the W3C Patent Policy by noting Tim's financial involvement with (MIT-tied and W3C member) Curl Corporation, who boasts that licensees of their Curl Content language can get rid of HTML, Javascript, etc.

In early August, Curl Corporation gained 500,000 potential users via their agreement with adisoft AG.

Does Tim's Curl investment, which is in fact disclosed on the W3C site, concern you?

This is possible and practical and we should prepare to do it. However, to have three Internet standards bodies would be a bad thing. What we should really seek to achieve is a situation where:

• Either
  • W3C commits to not incorporating any proprietary technologies into standards, and
  • W3C opens up its membership to ordinary peoplr, with a subscription for individual members of not more than US $50 per annum
• or
  • W3C winds up and IETF resumes the role of setting Web standards, and
  • IETF commits to not incorporating any proprietary technologies into standards.

So long as W3C remains a rich corporations club this sort of proposal will come bach again and again. It is, after all, in the rich corporations' interest.

From this, i see:

This Version:
http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/WD-patent-policy-20010 81 6/
Latest Version:
http://www.w3.org/TR/patent-policy/
Editor:
Daniel J. Weitzner, W3C/MIT, djweitzner@w3.org
Authors:
Michele Herman, Microsoft, micheleh@microsoft.com
Scott Peterson, Hewlett-Packard, scott_k_peterson@hp.com
Tony Piotrowski, Philips, tony.piotrowski@philips.com
Barry Rein, Pennie & Edmonds (for W3C), barry@pennie.com
Daniel Weitzner, W3C/MIT, djweitzner@w3.org
Helene Plotka Workman, Apple Computer, plotka@apple.com

What gives?

From this page it seems both Apple and Kodak claim to have patents covering SVG.

• Bruce Perens
• Alan Cox
• Richard Stallman
• Tim O'Reilly
• Eben Moglen
• Jeremy Allison
• John Gilmore
• Ken Coar ('Rodent of Unusual Size')
• Tim Bray (editor of XML 1.0)
• and finally, me(no, I'm not important)

If I've missed anyone I shouldn't have, I'm sorry - blame tired eyes. I was particularly looking for comments by Brian Behlendorf, Eric Raymond, Larry Wall, Linus, Hakon Lie, Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee, but if they were there I didn't see them.

OK, so what are we going to do about it?

We have to face the fact that these days commercial companies have a lot of power on the Web. If AOL/Time Warner/Netscape, Microsoft, CNN, the movie studios and the big music companies get together to invent new, patented (in the US) Web technologies which won't interoperate with Open Source technology, then 90% of the Web using public will not notice. If they do notice, they'll blame our software for 'not working'.

So we have to make a determined, co-ordinated grab for the moral high ground. I'm prepared to bet that W3C will be a bit shaken by the furore they've brewed up here, and I would endorse everyone else's suggestions that anyone who hasn't responded yet to the consultation document does so now, in calm, polite, grammatical, spelling-corrected - words, explaining why you see 'reasonable and non discriminatory' license fees as unacceptable.

This may in itself be enough. I hope it will, but I think we should prepare against the possibility that it won't. What should we do? I believe we should take immediate steps to set up a new, independent, standards setting body for the Web spearheaded by people with a wide international reputation with the avowed intention of forking the standards base and maintaining free, open, standards for the Web. We should work to include the corporates who have already shown their commitment to Open Source into a broad coalition alongside the recognised open source projects, and seek to isolate Apple, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft (the companies who actually authored this proposal).

The long term objective is not to have two competing standards setting bodies: it is to hold over the W3C a credible threat of two competing standards setting bodies. In the face of that credible threat it's my opinion that W3C will rethink. If they don't, we would have to do this for real, but that is in my opinion very much a suboptimal option.

• Bruce Perens
• Alan Cox
• Richard Stallman
• Tim O'Reilly
• Eben Moglen
• Jeremy Allison
• John Gilmore
• Ken Coar ('Rodent of Unusual Size')
• Tim Bray (editor of XML 1.0)
• and finally, me(no, I'm not important)

If I've missed anyone I shouldn't have, I'm sorry - blame tired eyes. I was particularly looking for comments by Brian Behlendorf, Eric Raymond, Larry Wall, Linus, Hakon Lie, Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee, but if they were there I didn't see them.

OK, so what are we going to do about it?

We have to face the fact that these days commercial companies have a lot of power on the Web. If AOL/Time Warner/Netscape, Microsoft, CNN, the movie studios and the big music companies get together to invent new, patented (in the US) Web technologies which won't interoperate with Open Source technology, then 90% of the Web using public will not notice. If they do notice, they'll blame our software for 'not working'.

So we have to make a determined, co-ordinated grab for the moral high ground. I'm prepared to bet that W3C will be a bit shaken by the furore they've brewed up here, and I would endorse everyone else's suggestions that anyone who hasn't responded yet to the consultation document does so now, in calm, polite, grammatical, spelling-corrected - words, explaining why you see 'reasonable and non discriminatory' license fees as unacceptable.

This may in itself be enough. I hope it will, but I think we should prepare against the possibility that it won't. What should we do? I believe we should take immediate steps to set up a new, independent, standards setting body for the Web spearheaded by people with a wide international reputation with the avowed intention of forking the standards base and maintaining free, open, standards for the Web. We should work to include the corporates who have already shown their commitment to Open Source into a broad coalition alongside the recognised open source projects, and seek to isolate Apple, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft (the companies who actually authored this proposal).

The long term objective is not to have two competing standards setting bodies: it is to hold over the W3C a credible threat of two competing standards setting bodies. In the face of that credible threat it's my opinion that W3C will rethink. If they don't, we would have to do this for real, but that is in my opinion very much a suboptimal option.

• Bruce Perens
• Alan Cox
• Richard Stallman
• Tim O'Reilly
• Eben Moglen
• Jeremy Allison
• John Gilmore
• Ken Coar ('Rodent of Unusual Size')
• Tim Bray (editor of XML 1.0)
• and finally, me(no, I'm not important)

If I've missed anyone I shouldn't have, I'm sorry - blame tired eyes. I was particularly looking for comments by Brian Behlendorf, Eric Raymond, Larry Wall, Linus, Hakon Lie, Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee, but if they were there I didn't see them.

OK, so what are we going to do about it?

We have to face the fact that these days commercial companies have a lot of power on the Web. If AOL/Time Warner/Netscape, Microsoft, CNN, the movie studios and the big music companies get together to invent new, patented (in the US) Web technologies which won't interoperate with Open Source technology, then 90% of the Web using public will not notice. If they do notice, they'll blame our software for 'not working'.

So we have to make a determined, co-ordinated grab for the moral high ground. I'm prepared to bet that W3C will be a bit shaken by the furore they've brewed up here, and I would endorse everyone else's suggestions that anyone who hasn't responded yet to the consultation document does so now, in calm, polite, grammatical, spelling-corrected - words, explaining why you see 'reasonable and non discriminatory' license fees as unacceptable.

This may in itself be enough. I hope it will, but I think we should prepare against the possibility that it won't. What should we do? I believe we should take immediate steps to set up a new, independent, standards setting body for the Web spearheaded by people with a wide international reputation with the avowed intention of forking the standards base and maintaining free, open, standards for the Web. We should work to include the corporates who have already shown their commitment to Open Source into a broad coalition alongside the recognised open source projects, and seek to isolate Apple, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft (the companies who actually authored this proposal).

The long term objective is not to have two competing standards setting bodies: it is to hold over the W3C a credible threat of two competing standards setting bodies. In the face of that credible threat it's my opinion that W3C will rethink. If they don't, we would have to do this for real, but that is in my opinion very much a suboptimal option.

• Bruce Perens
• Alan Cox
• Richard Stallman
• Tim O'Reilly
• Eben Moglen
• Jeremy Allison
• John Gilmore
• Ken Coar ('Rodent of Unusual Size')
• Tim Bray (editor of XML 1.0)
• and finally, me(no, I'm not important)

If I've missed anyone I shouldn't have, I'm sorry - blame tired eyes. I was particularly looking for comments by Brian Behlendorf, Eric Raymond, Larry Wall, Linus, Hakon Lie, Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee, but if they were there I didn't see them.

OK, so what are we going to do about it?

We have to face the fact that these days commercial companies have a lot of power on the Web. If AOL/Time Warner/Netscape, Microsoft, CNN, the movie studios and the big music companies get together to invent new, patented (in the US) Web technologies which won't interoperate with Open Source technology, then 90% of the Web using public will not notice. If they do notice, they'll blame our software for 'not working'.

So we have to make a determined, co-ordinated grab for the moral high ground. I'm prepared to bet that W3C will be a bit shaken by the furore they've brewed up here, and I would endorse everyone else's suggestions that anyone who hasn't responded yet to the consultation document does so now, in calm, polite, grammatical, spelling-corrected - words, explaining why you see 'reasonable and non discriminatory' license fees as unacceptable.

This may in itself be enough. I hope it will, but I think we should prepare against the possibility that it won't. What should we do? I believe we should take immediate steps to set up a new, independent, standards setting body for the Web spearheaded by people with a wide international reputation with the avowed intention of forking the standards base and maintaining free, open, standards for the Web. We should work to include the corporates who have already shown their commitment to Open Source into a broad coalition alongside the recognised open source projects, and seek to isolate Apple, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft (the companies who actually authored this proposal).

The long term objective is not to have two competing standards setting bodies: it is to hold over the W3C a credible threat of two competing standards setting bodies. In the face of that credible threat it's my opinion that W3C will rethink. If they don't, we would have to do this for real, but that is in my opinion very much a suboptimal option.

• Bruce Perens
• Alan Cox
• Richard Stallman
• Tim O'Reilly
• Eben Moglen
• Jeremy Allison
• John Gilmore
• Ken Coar ('Rodent of Unusual Size')
• Tim Bray (editor of XML 1.0)
• and finally, me(no, I'm not important)

If I've missed anyone I shouldn't have, I'm sorry - blame tired eyes. I was particularly looking for comments by Brian Behlendorf, Eric Raymond, Larry Wall, Linus, Hakon Lie, Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee, but if they were there I didn't see them.

OK, so what are we going to do about it?

We have to face the fact that these days commercial companies have a lot of power on the Web. If AOL/Time Warner/Netscape, Microsoft, CNN, the movie studios and the big music companies get together to invent new, patented (in the US) Web technologies which won't interoperate with Open Source technology, then 90% of the Web using public will not notice. If they do notice, they'll blame our software for 'not working'.

So we have to make a determined, co-ordinated grab for the moral high ground. I'm prepared to bet that W3C will be a bit shaken by the furore they've brewed up here, and I would endorse everyone else's suggestions that anyone who hasn't responded yet to the consultation document does so now, in calm, polite, grammatical, spelling-corrected - words, explaining why you see 'reasonable and non discriminatory' license fees as unacceptable.

This may in itself be enough. I hope it will, but I think we should prepare against the possibility that it won't. What should we do? I believe we should take immediate steps to set up a new, independent, standards setting body for the Web spearheaded by people with a wide international reputation with the avowed intention of forking the standards base and maintaining free, open, standards for the Web. We should work to include the corporates who have already shown their commitment to Open Source into a broad coalition alongside the recognised open source projects, and seek to isolate Apple, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft (the companies who actually authored this proposal).

The long term objective is not to have two competing standards setting bodies: it is to hold over the W3C a credible threat of two competing standards setting bodies. In the face of that credible threat it's my opinion that W3C will rethink. If they don't, we would have to do this for real, but that is in my opinion very much a suboptimal option.

• Bruce Perens
• Alan Cox
• Richard Stallman
• Tim O'Reilly
• Eben Moglen
• Jeremy Allison
• John Gilmore
• Ken Coar ('Rodent of Unusual Size')
• Tim Bray (editor of XML 1.0)
• and finally, me(no, I'm not important)

If I've missed anyone I shouldn't have, I'm sorry - blame tired eyes. I was particularly looking for comments by Brian Behlendorf, Eric Raymond, Larry Wall, Linus, Hakon Lie, Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee, but if they were there I didn't see them.

OK, so what are we going to do about it?

We have to face the fact that these days commercial companies have a lot of power on the Web. If AOL/Time Warner/Netscape, Microsoft, CNN, the movie studios and the big music companies get together to invent new, patented (in the US) Web technologies which won't interoperate with Open Source technology, then 90% of the Web using public will not notice. If they do notice, they'll blame our software for 'not working'.

So we have to make a determined, co-ordinated grab for the moral high ground. I'm prepared to bet that W3C will be a bit shaken by the furore they've brewed up here, and I would endorse everyone else's suggestions that anyone who hasn't responded yet to the consultation document does so now, in calm, polite, grammatical, spelling-corrected - words, explaining why you see 'reasonable and non discriminatory' license fees as unacceptable.

This may in itself be enough. I hope it will, but I think we should prepare against the possibility that it won't. What should we do? I believe we should take immediate steps to set up a new, independent, standards setting body for the Web spearheaded by people with a wide international reputation with the avowed intention of forking the standards base and maintaining free, open, standards for the Web. We should work to include the corporates who have already shown their commitment to Open Source into a broad coalition alongside the recognised open source projects, and seek to isolate Apple, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft (the companies who actually authored this proposal).

The long term objective is not to have two competing standards setting bodies: it is to hold over the W3C a credible threat of two competing standards setting bodies. In the face of that credible threat it's my opinion that W3C will rethink. If they don't, we would have to do this for real, but that is in my opinion very much a suboptimal option.

• Bruce Perens
• Alan Cox
• Richard Stallman
• Tim O'Reilly
• Eben Moglen
• Jeremy Allison
• John Gilmore
• Ken Coar ('Rodent of Unusual Size')
• Tim Bray (editor of XML 1.0)
• and finally, me(no, I'm not important)

If I've missed anyone I shouldn't have, I'm sorry - blame tired eyes. I was particularly looking for comments by Brian Behlendorf, Eric Raymond, Larry Wall, Linus, Hakon Lie, Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee, but if they were there I didn't see them.

OK, so what are we going to do about it?

We have to face the fact that these days commercial companies have a lot of power on the Web. If AOL/Time Warner/Netscape, Microsoft, CNN, the movie studios and the big music companies get together to invent new, patented (in the US) Web technologies which won't interoperate with Open Source technology, then 90% of the Web using public will not notice. If they do notice, they'll blame our software for 'not working'.

So we have to make a determined, co-ordinated grab for the moral high ground. I'm prepared to bet that W3C will be a bit shaken by the furore they've brewed up here, and I would endorse everyone else's suggestions that anyone who hasn't responded yet to the consultation document does so now, in calm, polite, grammatical, spelling-corrected - words, explaining why you see 'reasonable and non discriminatory' license fees as unacceptable.

This may in itself be enough. I hope it will, but I think we should prepare against the possibility that it won't. What should we do? I believe we should take immediate steps to set up a new, independent, standards setting body for the Web spearheaded by people with a wide international reputation with the avowed intention of forking the standards base and maintaining free, open, standards for the Web. We should work to include the corporates who have already shown their commitment to Open Source into a broad coalition alongside the recognised open source projects, and seek to isolate Apple, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft (the companies who actually authored this proposal).

The long term objective is not to have two competing standards setting bodies: it is to hold over the W3C a credible threat of two competing standards setting bodies. In the face of that credible threat it's my opinion that W3C will rethink. If they don't, we would have to do this for real, but that is in my opinion very much a suboptimal option.

• Bruce Perens
• Alan Cox
• Richard Stallman
• Tim O'Reilly
• Eben Moglen
• Jeremy Allison
• John Gilmore
• Ken Coar ('Rodent of Unusual Size')
• Tim Bray (editor of XML 1.0)
• and finally, me(no, I'm not important)

If I've missed anyone I shouldn't have, I'm sorry - blame tired eyes. I was particularly looking for comments by Brian Behlendorf, Eric Raymond, Larry Wall, Linus, Hakon Lie, Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee, but if they were there I didn't see them.

OK, so what are we going to do about it?

We have to face the fact that these days commercial companies have a lot of power on the Web. If AOL/Time Warner/Netscape, Microsoft, CNN, the movie studios and the big music companies get together to invent new, patented (in the US) Web technologies which won't interoperate with Open Source technology, then 90% of the Web using public will not notice. If they do notice, they'll blame our software for 'not working'.

So we have to make a determined, co-ordinated grab for the moral high ground. I'm prepared to bet that W3C will be a bit shaken by the furore they've brewed up here, and I would endorse everyone else's suggestions that anyone who hasn't responded yet to the consultation document does so now, in calm, polite, grammatical, spelling-corrected - words, explaining why you see 'reasonable and non discriminatory' license fees as unacceptable.

This may in itself be enough. I hope it will, but I think we should prepare against the possibility that it won't. What should we do? I believe we should take immediate steps to set up a new, independent, standards setting body for the Web spearheaded by people with a wide international reputation with the avowed intention of forking the standards base and maintaining free, open, standards for the Web. We should work to include the corporates who have already shown their commitment to Open Source into a broad coalition alongside the recognised open source projects, and seek to isolate Apple, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft (the companies who actually authored this proposal).

The long term objective is not to have two competing standards setting bodies: it is to hold over the W3C a credible threat of two competing standards setting bodies. In the face of that credible threat it's my opinion that W3C will rethink. If they don't, we would have to do this for real, but that is in my opinion very much a suboptimal option.

• Bruce Perens
• Alan Cox
• Richard Stallman
• Tim O'Reilly
• Eben Moglen
• Jeremy Allison
• John Gilmore
• Ken Coar ('Rodent of Unusual Size')
• Tim Bray (editor of XML 1.0)
• and finally, me(no, I'm not important)

If I've missed anyone I shouldn't have, I'm sorry - blame tired eyes. I was particularly looking for comments by Brian Behlendorf, Eric Raymond, Larry Wall, Linus, Hakon Lie, Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee, but if they were there I didn't see them.

OK, so what are we going to do about it?

We have to face the fact that these days commercial companies have a lot of power on the Web. If AOL/Time Warner/Netscape, Microsoft, CNN, the movie studios and the big music companies get together to invent new, patented (in the US) Web technologies which won't interoperate with Open Source technology, then 90% of the Web using public will not notice. If they do notice, they'll blame our software for 'not working'.

So we have to make a determined, co-ordinated grab for the moral high ground. I'm prepared to bet that W3C will be a bit shaken by the furore they've brewed up here, and I would endorse everyone else's suggestions that anyone who hasn't responded yet to the consultation document does so now, in calm, polite, grammatical, spelling-corrected - words, explaining why you see 'reasonable and non discriminatory' license fees as unacceptable.

This may in itself be enough. I hope it will, but I think we should prepare against the possibility that it won't. What should we do? I believe we should take immediate steps to set up a new, independent, standards setting body for the Web spearheaded by people with a wide international reputation with the avowed intention of forking the standards base and maintaining free, open, standards for the Web. We should work to include the corporates who have already shown their commitment to Open Source into a broad coalition alongside the recognised open source projects, and seek to isolate Apple, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft (the companies who actually authored this proposal).

The long term objective is not to have two competing standards setting bodies: it is to hold over the W3C a credible threat of two competing standards setting bodies. In the face of that credible threat it's my opinion that W3C will rethink. If they don't, we would have to do this for real, but that is in my opinion very much a suboptimal option.

• Bruce Perens
• Alan Cox
• Richard Stallman
• Tim O'Reilly
• Eben Moglen
• Jeremy Allison
• John Gilmore
• Ken Coar ('Rodent of Unusual Size')
• Tim Bray (editor of XML 1.0)
• and finally, me(no, I'm not important)

If I've missed anyone I shouldn't have, I'm sorry - blame tired eyes. I was particularly looking for comments by Brian Behlendorf, Eric Raymond, Larry Wall, Linus, Hakon Lie, Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee, but if they were there I didn't see them.

OK, so what are we going to do about it?

We have to face the fact that these days commercial companies have a lot of power on the Web. If AOL/Time Warner/Netscape, Microsoft, CNN, the movie studios and the big music companies get together to invent new, patented (in the US) Web technologies which won't interoperate with Open Source technology, then 90% of the Web using public will not notice. If they do notice, they'll blame our software for 'not working'.

So we have to make a determined, co-ordinated grab for the moral high ground. I'm prepared to bet that W3C will be a bit shaken by the furore they've brewed up here, and I would endorse everyone else's suggestions that anyone who hasn't responded yet to the consultation document does so now, in calm, polite, grammatical, spelling-corrected - words, explaining why you see 'reasonable and non discriminatory' license fees as unacceptable.

This may in itself be enough. I hope it will, but I think we should prepare against the possibility that it won't. What should we do? I believe we should take immediate steps to set up a new, independent, standards setting body for the Web spearheaded by people with a wide international reputation with the avowed intention of forking the standards base and maintaining free, open, standards for the Web. We should work to include the corporates who have already shown their commitment to Open Source into a broad coalition alongside the recognised open source projects, and seek to isolate Apple, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft (the companies who actually authored this proposal).

The long term objective is not to have two competing standards setting bodies: it is to hold over the W3C a credible threat of two competing standards setting bodies. In the face of that credible threat it's my opinion that W3C will rethink. If they don't, we would have to do this for real, but that is in my opinion very much a suboptimal option.

• Bruce Perens
• Alan Cox
• Richard Stallman
• Tim O'Reilly
• Eben Moglen
• Jeremy Allison
• John Gilmore
• Ken Coar ('Rodent of Unusual Size')
• Tim Bray (editor of XML 1.0)
• and finally, me(no, I'm not important)

If I've missed anyone I shouldn't have, I'm sorry - blame tired eyes. I was particularly looking for comments by Brian Behlendorf, Eric Raymond, Larry Wall, Linus, Hakon Lie, Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee, but if they were there I didn't see them.

OK, so what are we going to do about it?

We have to face the fact that these days commercial companies have a lot of power on the Web. If AOL/Time Warner/Netscape, Microsoft, CNN, the movie studios and the big music companies get together to invent new, patented (in the US) Web technologies which won't interoperate with Open Source technology, then 90% of the Web using public will not notice. If they do notice, they'll blame our software for 'not working'.

So we have to make a determined, co-ordinated grab for the moral high ground. I'm prepared to bet that W3C will be a bit shaken by the furore they've brewed up here, and I would endorse everyone else's suggestions that anyone who hasn't responded yet to the consultation document does so now, in calm, polite, grammatical, spelling-corrected - words, explaining why you see 'reasonable and non discriminatory' license fees as unacceptable.

This may in itself be enough. I hope it will, but I think we should prepare against the possibility that it won't. What should we do? I believe we should take immediate steps to set up a new, independent, standards setting body for the Web spearheaded by people with a wide international reputation with the avowed intention of forking the standards base and maintaining free, open, standards for the Web. We should work to include the corporates who have already shown their commitment to Open Source into a broad coalition alongside the recognised open source projects, and seek to isolate Apple, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft (the companies who actually authored this proposal).

The long term objective is not to have two competing standards setting bodies: it is to hold over the W3C a credible threat of two competing standards setting bodies. In the face of that credible threat it's my opinion that W3C will rethink. If they don't, we would have to do this for real, but that is in my opinion very much a suboptimal option.

August 2001: 7 comments
September 2001: 755 comments
October 2001: 330 comments - and it's only 10/2/01.

Keep those cards and letters coming!

You think so do you? Perhaps you're unaware that the SVG working group is is already incorporating RAND into the draft SVG standard?

Yeah. BTW, I would recommend people to do what I've done to keep informed, and thus be able to post this story: Subscribe to the w3c-announce mailing list. I remember getting the announcement there, I just hadn't the time to read it then and there. I wish I had now...

John Gilmore addressed this with an excellent submission (this guy is now officialy my hero - I want to be John Gilmore when I grow up :-).

He makes the point that the IETF is actively moving away from RAND and towards RF. W3C appears to be going backwards.

1.Interoperability: Specifications for the Web's languages and protocols must be compatible with one another and allow (any) hardware and software used to access the Web to work together.

These principles guide the work carried out within W3C Activities.

I would say that the W3C is in a difficult position. They fear that they will be sidelined if they don't find some way to incorporate patented technologies into their standards. However, this sort of action has the effect of draining the credibility out of a standards body, because it divides the community which wishes to use the technology for which the body is responsible. I believe that the W3C should avoid ratifying anything which has patents attached, unless the patent-holder allows the technology to be used on a royalty-free basis.

To make God laugh, tell him your plans.

This is yet another example. Patents are good. They help inefficient startups with a new idea survive long enough to be competitive. Before patents, companies kept everything secret to protect themselves and science was stifled. Patents allow companies to protect their IP but for this protection they must open their invention to inspection. I would love to see all the proprietary, closed algorithms be patented and open sourced. That way they could still protect their work, but people could learn from their code. Innovation would be much faster. But patents should NEVER be applied to open standards. The patent should be in the implementation of a standard not the standard itself. Patenting an algorithm is OK, patenting the data structure it's processing shouldn't be.

W3 has forgotten its roots and its goals. They should be ashamed for even suggesting this.

* may be conditioned on payment of reasonable, non-discriminatory royalties or fees;

Yeah,

just like some company, which created a new technology with a nice pricing policy and at least one well known founder.

One wonders if they have a patent pending.

Janet's comment is perhaps best attributed to the LinuxToday forum, where it's gotten several more replies. Several were even cross posted to the W3C comments list:

• Karsten M. Self (IMO best)
• G. Branden Robinson
• David Boring

It's been pointed out that most of the comments say substantially more than the "Don't" which Janet mischaracterizes them to be. And also that the short-circuiting of the W3C process in this case is atypical and suspicious, particularly when combined with the way notice for this fundamental change was slipped under everyone's radar.

Janet's comment is perhaps best attributed to the LinuxToday forum, where it's gotten several more replies. Several were even cross posted to the W3C comments list:

• Karsten M. Self (IMO best)
• G. Branden Robinson
• David Boring

It's been pointed out that most of the comments say substantially more than the "Don't" which Janet mischaracterizes them to be. And also that the short-circuiting of the W3C process in this case is atypical and suspicious, particularly when combined with the way notice for this fundamental change was slipped under everyone's radar.

Janet's comment is perhaps best attributed to the LinuxToday forum, where it's gotten several more replies. Several were even cross posted to the W3C comments list:

• Karsten M. Self (IMO best)
• G. Branden Robinson
• David Boring

It's been pointed out that most of the comments say substantially more than the "Don't" which Janet mischaracterizes them to be. And also that the short-circuiting of the W3C process in this case is atypical and suspicious, particularly when combined with the way notice for this fundamental change was slipped under everyone's radar.

FYI, Slashcode adds spaces to any word over a certain length so that the tables line up properly. When you have a long URL like that, you should do an href, like this.

If you need to know how to do an href, you can go here.

Cheers!

Okay, it's after the deadline, but in mailing list

Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 23:51:42 -0600 (MDT)
Message-Id: <200110010551.XAA04108@aztec.santafe.edu>
From: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
Subject: W3C patent policy

If the World-Wide Web is indeed to remain "world-wide", it must not
depend on restricted standards. The W3C cannot prevent others from
developing or using restricted standards, but it should not lend its
name to them.

Therefore, the W3C should adopt a policy that all important standards
must have free patent licenses (and thus allow free software).
Perhaps there are some standards for specialized kinds of
business-to-business communication which are sufficiently unimportant
that it may not be disastrous if they are patented. These standards
do not really deserve the term "world-wide", but they may still be
worth the W3C's attention. But standards that really are of
world-wide importance must be free.

The "back-door RAND" problem pointed out by Adam Warner is especially
crucial. When the W3C decides that a certain standard ought to be
patent-free, no circumstances should be allowed to annul that
decision.

Aside from these substantive changes in policy, the W3C should also
stop using the term "reasonable and non-discriminatory", because that
term white-washes a class of licenses that are normally neither
reasonable nor non-discriminatory. It is true that they do not
discriminate against any specific person, but they do discriminate
against the free software community, and that makes them unreasonable.

I suggest the term "uniform fee only", or UFO for short, as a replacement for
"reasonable and non-discriminatory".

The number of comments is now over 650! It might be the last minute, but I think W3C will perk up and listen.

Forgive me, I left a space in the URL in the parent message...

Try this link http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-patentpoli cy-comment/2001Sep instead.

It should work.

The funny (scary) thing is that the minimal response over the past two months before everyone found out about this was mostly SPAM. Follow the link above, scroll down and look at the oldest archived comments. Like this one...

The number of comments is now over 650! It might be the last minute, but I think W3C will perk up and listen.

Forgive me, I left a space in the URL in the parent message...

Try this link http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-patentpoli cy-comment/2001Sep instead.

It should work.

The funny (scary) thing is that the minimal response over the past two months before everyone found out about this was mostly SPAM. Follow the link above, scroll down and look at the oldest archived comments. Like this one...

Is the current SVG standard encumbered by patents?

Yes it is. Apple, IBM, Kodak and Quark license their patents to use with SVG only under the discussed RAND terms. Check out the details at http://www.w3.org/2001/07/SVG10-IPR-statements.htm l

My Comment to the www-patentpolicy-comment list

We can sit here and talk about it all day, or we can do something...

-jerdenn

My Comment to the www-patentpolicy-comment list

We can sit here and talk about it all day, or we can do something...

-jerdenn

No one should be surprised by the change in patent information. Look at the membership structure of the W3C. We can compare it to the membership structure of the IETF, a group I think everyone would consider open and "free."

First, in the W3C, membership is only offered to organizations. In the IETF, all individuals can participate in the Working Groups; any individual can generate a RFC.

Second, in the W3C, membership costs either $5000 or $50,000. IETF membership is free. It does cost money to attend an IETF meeting, but that cost is around $500; well within the reach of any serious developer.

Control of working groups in the IETF (and the IESG) is based on technical ability or desire. In theory, you don't really have to be a prior participant in the IETF to run a working group. (But it helps. A lot.) In the W3C, you must be a member (paying $5000 or $50,000), in order to run a WG.

In the IETF, decisions are made on rough consensus. In the W3C, decisions are also made based on consensus with elaborate procedural systems. It's interesting to compare and contrast the amount of procedural information on the W3C's web site versus the IETF's web site.

In general, all IETF working material is open and accessible to the public. You can read RFCs as they are being written; you can read, post, and comment on IETF mailing lists. W3C working material is not open to the public.

Companies may ask if the IETF is unfriendly towards business. I do not think this is the case. Look at Cisco. Cisco has certainly participated in the IETF; they are very involved in the development of several IETF standards. However, Cisco still has the ability to develop their own proprietary protocols and still has the ability to make secret agreements with other companies.

In short, membership in the W3C has always been primarily by businesses. In fact, there is no way for an individual to join the W3C. Anyone surprised by an extreme pro-business slant of the W3C is not really familiar with the W3C's nature.

[You might wonder why companies don't control the IETF as much as they control the W3C. My theory is that the W3C works on items much more relevant to the end user. A mass-market consumer is much more amazed by SVG than they are by packet switching. Companies have a strong interest in controlling what the mass-market consumer sees.]

(Refs: W3C Membership, IETF Web site)

linuxtoday. have submitted this to slashdot - hopefully it wont get rejected. last day for comments is today (sep 30 2001). and thats final. this sucks. apologies for posting this, but i dont know how long my submission will sit in a queue.

Send your level headed comments to :
www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org

Read current archives at:
archives

I am pleased that Slashdot has finally posted a comment about this issue. I am disappointed that my Saturday submission to Slashdot was discarded, that time is now running out and the issue now appears so obtuse.

http://www.openphd.net/W3C_Patent_Policy/draft.xht ml

This new Slashdot submission tells us to see this this link (written by Scott Peterson of HP):

http://www.aful.org/pipermail/patents/2001-August/ 002341.html

---Quote---
That a particular path has been chosen before is not itself of great help in judging the appropriateness of taking that path in some other situation -- the different context may make the choice less appropriate, or, indeed, the prior choice may have been a poor one.

The primary value that I see in noting the prior use of RAND-based policies is that it may be helpful to look to what the experience has been where that choice has been made. I believe that there are significant context differences that must be considered, so I am skeptical about simple extrapolation from that past experience. However, I think that one's analysis could be more complete by considering this history.
---End Quote---

I sincerely hope this doesn't mean Scott Peterson of HP is trying to tell us royalty-free standards may no longer be appropriate for the WWW. They have served us so well.

You should visit the W3C Backgrounder and FAQ that are also cited by me. It helps this Slashdot submission make sense:

http://www.w3.org/2001/08/patentnews

http://www.w3.org/2001/08/16-PP-FAQ.html

"RAND means that someone may or may not need to pay a fee, and that it is at the discretion of the license holder."

So yes we are talking about the prospect of future fee-based W3C WWW standards.

RAND also envisages the prospect of licensing audits:

RAND "may include reasonable, customary terms relating to operation or maintenance of the license relationship such as the following: audit (when relevant to fees), choice of law, and dispute resolution."

As part of the theoretical underpinning of this new policy we are also told: "On the other hand, there are other technologies, typically higher level, where it might be appropriate to accept fee-bearing requirements in a Recommendation. It is worth restating that, as of today, W3C is not aware of any fee-based license required for any of its Recommendations. Thus, there is an established history of RF [Royalty Free]."

So again the W3C are telling us that it "might be appropriate to accept fee-bearing requirements in a Recommendation."

If you think Scott Peterson has convinced you see this recent post to the W3C Patent Policy archive:

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-patentpoli cy-comment/2001Sep/0011.html

In particular "It is true that some standards bodies operate successfully under RAND rules, and that some standards requiring licensing have been adopted without apparently serious damage. However, this has happened mostly in cases, such as consumer electronics or semiconductor manufacture, where a few large companies with enormous capital investments make essentially all of the products. In such a situation, patent licensing does not greatly increase the already large barriers to entry. This does not describe the environment in which W3C recommendations are used; in software, patent licensing costs (including administrative costs) may frequently exceed all other costs involved in developing a product."

Readers may be interested to know that I was approached by LinuxToday to put the document I wrote in full on their Web Site:

http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-09 -30-001-20-NW-CY

I didn't even need to submit it to them. By Slashdot initially ignoring my submission I think they did a disservice to their readers. This is an important issue for the future development of the World Wide Web.

Regards,
Adam Warner

I am pleased that Slashdot has finally posted a comment about this issue. I am disappointed that my Saturday submission to Slashdot was discarded, that time is now running out and the issue now appears so obtuse.

http://www.openphd.net/W3C_Patent_Policy/draft.xht ml

This new Slashdot submission tells us to see this this link (written by Scott Peterson of HP):

http://www.aful.org/pipermail/patents/2001-August/ 002341.html

---Quote---
That a particular path has been chosen before is not itself of great help in judging the appropriateness of taking that path in some other situation -- the different context may make the choice less appropriate, or, indeed, the prior choice may have been a poor one.

The primary value that I see in noting the prior use of RAND-based policies is that it may be helpful to look to what the experience has been where that choice has been made. I believe that there are significant context differences that must be considered, so I am skeptical about simple extrapolation from that past experience. However, I think that one's analysis could be more complete by considering this history.
---End Quote---

I sincerely hope this doesn't mean Scott Peterson of HP is trying to tell us royalty-free standards may no longer be appropriate for the WWW. They have served us so well.

You should visit the W3C Backgrounder and FAQ that are also cited by me. It helps this Slashdot submission make sense:

http://www.w3.org/2001/08/patentnews

http://www.w3.org/2001/08/16-PP-FAQ.html

"RAND means that someone may or may not need to pay a fee, and that it is at the discretion of the license holder."

So yes we are talking about the prospect of future fee-based W3C WWW standards.

RAND also envisages the prospect of licensing audits:

RAND "may include reasonable, customary terms relating to operation or maintenance of the license relationship such as the following: audit (when relevant to fees), choice of law, and dispute resolution."

As part of the theoretical underpinning of this new policy we are also told: "On the other hand, there are other technologies, typically higher level, where it might be appropriate to accept fee-bearing requirements in a Recommendation. It is worth restating that, as of today, W3C is not aware of any fee-based license required for any of its Recommendations. Thus, there is an established history of RF [Royalty Free]."

So again the W3C are telling us that it "might be appropriate to accept fee-bearing requirements in a Recommendation."

If you think Scott Peterson has convinced you see this recent post to the W3C Patent Policy archive:

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-patentpoli cy-comment/2001Sep/0011.html

In particular "It is true that some standards bodies operate successfully under RAND rules, and that some standards requiring licensing have been adopted without apparently serious damage. However, this has happened mostly in cases, such as consumer electronics or semiconductor manufacture, where a few large companies with enormous capital investments make essentially all of the products. In such a situation, patent licensing does not greatly increase the already large barriers to entry. This does not describe the environment in which W3C recommendations are used; in software, patent licensing costs (including administrative costs) may frequently exceed all other costs involved in developing a product."

Readers may be interested to know that I was approached by LinuxToday to put the document I wrote in full on their Web Site:

http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-09 -30-001-20-NW-CY

I didn't even need to submit it to them. By Slashdot initially ignoring my submission I think they did a disservice to their readers. This is an important issue for the future development of the World Wide Web.

Regards,
Adam Warner

I am pleased that Slashdot has finally posted a comment about this issue. I am disappointed that my Saturday submission to Slashdot was discarded, that time is now running out and the issue now appears so obtuse.

http://www.openphd.net/W3C_Patent_Policy/draft.xht ml

This new Slashdot submission tells us to see this this link (written by Scott Peterson of HP):

http://www.aful.org/pipermail/patents/2001-August/ 002341.html

---Quote---
That a particular path has been chosen before is not itself of great help in judging the appropriateness of taking that path in some other situation -- the different context may make the choice less appropriate, or, indeed, the prior choice may have been a poor one.

The primary value that I see in noting the prior use of RAND-based policies is that it may be helpful to look to what the experience has been where that choice has been made. I believe that there are significant context differences that must be considered, so I am skeptical about simple extrapolation from that past experience. However, I think that one's analysis could be more complete by considering this history.
---End Quote---

I sincerely hope this doesn't mean Scott Peterson of HP is trying to tell us royalty-free standards may no longer be appropriate for the WWW. They have served us so well.

You should visit the W3C Backgrounder and FAQ that are also cited by me. It helps this Slashdot submission make sense:

http://www.w3.org/2001/08/patentnews

http://www.w3.org/2001/08/16-PP-FAQ.html

"RAND means that someone may or may not need to pay a fee, and that it is at the discretion of the license holder."

So yes we are talking about the prospect of future fee-based W3C WWW standards.

RAND also envisages the prospect of licensing audits:

RAND "may include reasonable, customary terms relating to operation or maintenance of the license relationship such as the following: audit (when relevant to fees), choice of law, and dispute resolution."

As part of the theoretical underpinning of this new policy we are also told: "On the other hand, there are other technologies, typically higher level, where it might be appropriate to accept fee-bearing requirements in a Recommendation. It is worth restating that, as of today, W3C is not aware of any fee-based license required for any of its Recommendations. Thus, there is an established history of RF [Royalty Free]."

So again the W3C are telling us that it "might be appropriate to accept fee-bearing requirements in a Recommendation."

If you think Scott Peterson has convinced you see this recent post to the W3C Patent Policy archive:

http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-patentpoli cy-comment/2001Sep/0011.html

In particular "It is true that some standards bodies operate successfully under RAND rules, and that some standards requiring licensing have been adopted without apparently serious damage. However, this has happened mostly in cases, such as consumer electronics or semiconductor manufacture, where a few large companies with enormous capital investments make essentially all of the products. In such a situation, patent licensing does not greatly increase the already large barriers to entry. This does not describe the environment in which W3C recommendations are used; in software, patent licensing costs (including administrative costs) may frequently exceed all other costs involved in developing a product."

Readers may be interested to know that I was approached by LinuxToday to put the document I wrote in full on their Web Site:

http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-09 -30-001-20-NW-CY

I didn't even need to submit it to them. By Slashdot initially ignoring my submission I think they did a disservice to their readers. This is an important issue for the future development of the World Wide Web.

Regards,
Adam Warner

However, I would like to pay sites like Salon with micropayments. Really, those ads do very little good. I mean, I would rather pay them directly what they get for each impression, than paying through the products I buy, since the marketing budgets really make the products more expensive. We really don't need marketing in the sense that we see now, what we need are databases with good information about different products.

Unfortunately, W3C closed their micropayments activity for now. There wasn't very much interested in it. However, we need this to fly, soon, or it may threaten the development of good, independent content on the web. If it can't be done within the W3C framework, someone else should get working on it.

The document character set for a particular page, HTML 4 or otherwise, is whatever is set by the page's creator in the Content-Type meta tag.

That's the character encoding, not the document character set. Numeric character references always refer to code positions in the document character set.

This would indicate that you should include a charset parameter in the Content-Type meta tag, in which case neither of the defaults (for HTML or HTTP) will come into play.

<meta http-equiv=> tags are a disgusting kluge. You should use the real HTTP header if at all possible.

The document character set for a particular page, HTML 4 or otherwise, is whatever is set by the page's creator in the Content-Type meta tag.

That's the character encoding, not the document character set. Numeric character references always refer to code positions in the document character set.

This would indicate that you should include a charset parameter in the Content-Type meta tag, in which case neither of the defaults (for HTML or HTTP) will come into play.

<meta http-equiv=> tags are a disgusting kluge. You should use the real HTTP header if at all possible.

The document character set for a particular page, HTML 4 or otherwise, is whatever is set by the page's creator in the Content-Type meta tag.

That's the character encoding, not the document character set. Numeric character references always refer to code positions in the document character set.

This would indicate that you should include a charset parameter in the Content-Type meta tag, in which case neither of the defaults (for HTML or HTTP) will come into play.

<meta http-equiv=> tags are a disgusting kluge. You should use the real HTTP header if at all possible.

Quick hint: use the source, Luke (Of the original /. page, that is) (ALT F3 in Opera):

S&#248;ren

http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/sgml/entities.html#h-24 .2.1

His site is unreadable to visitors using NS 4.0x...

Dan, please make your website complaint [enough] with standards so that all browsers can at least see the basic text.

A third way would be to detect the browser and send either a standards-compliant page or a "lobotomized-for-Nutscrape" page. I did this in the redesign of this commercial site and refined it a bit further when I redid my personal site. It's not that I personally care if people who continue using outdated, buggy software can access my site...for the dot-com site, accessibility was considered important enough to figure out a work-around.

Here's a test for you: pull up my site in Nutscrape 4.x and in another browser (Mozilla, IE, Lynx, Opera...it doesn't matter). Save the returned HTML (grab the stylesheet, too) to a file somewhere on your webserver and have W3C's validator check both. You'll see that one validates as HTML 4.01 Strict, while the other doesn't validate as anything. Now load the page that validated properly into Nutscrape and tell me what you get. It's a mess, isn't it? It displayed just fine in your other browser, though (unless your other browser was IE 2 or something similarly ancient).