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W3C Considers Royalty-Bound Patents In Web Standards
Svartalf writes: "There's a report on Linux Today about a proposed loosening of requirements on patented technologies being submitted for W3C consideration. Called RAND, short for 'reasonable and non-discriminatory,' it basically changes the position of W3C with respects to patents. This is a real problem as all of you know, considering that we've had all kinds of fun with other 'reasonable' licensing (MP3 and GIF come immediately to mind) -- the cutoff for comments is tomorrow (9-30) so if you want to get them in do it NOW." September 30 is now today rather than tomorrow. The same issue was raised in a post yesterday as well, but many readers have submitted news of this Linux Today piece. Reader WhyDoubt points out that comments on the change are archived on the W3C's site, including this pithy comment from Alan Cox. Do you think that fee-bound patents have a place in the standards promulgated by the W3C? Read the Patent Policy Working Group's FAQ, then add your comment.
Well, I had already sent my comments before this appeared on slashdot.
Please, dont just comment on this board; go ahead and send that email with your level- headed-non-profane thoughts.
This certainly looks like a sneak-it-in approach with such a short public comment periond - especially for something this large.
Hopefully some prudent arguments can be made to convince the W3C folks.
Said after pointing out the secretive and rule violating manner this happened and rightly snearing at how this will contribute the purpose of the organization, interoperability. His prediction:
This would mean SVG became a multi-vendor consortium pushing a private specification. But let's face it - with the patents involved - that is precisely what it is.
And so the internet becomes TV as all are shoved out to be replace by three or four big broadcasters. Can it happen? Sure it can, just look at all the empty TV and radio spectrum. There is no technical or real economic reason the airwaves are filled with nothing but comercial noise or static. It's a problem with bad laws.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Yes, but the only reason the modern electronics industry got off the ground is that people blatently violated those very patents. (I heard Jack Kilby say this in a recent talk.)
Second, the FET was patented in 1927, and it is this that makes modern computers go, not the BJT of which you speak. The original patent holder didn't make a damn dime. (Yes, it was because he couldn't make one, only design one.)
The transistor is a staple of modern electronics because it is superior technology. The concern about the W3C is that inferior technology will become standard as corporations push for profits. This isn't very far fetched (Microsoft), and that is why we Slashdotters are worried.
What, exactly, is WRONG with the current web standard? HOW IS IT BROKEN? It already does anything that we would need.
Can we exchange text on the web, already, of any arbitrary type and format? Yes.
Can we exchange images on the web, already, of any number of supported types? Yes.
Can we run backend scripts, already, to add functionality (such as, say, to implement a discussion board?). Yes.
Sound? Yes. Video? Yes. etc etc.
In fact the only niches for patented 'standard extensions' all involve commerce.
It's not very trendy to say so, but virtually all of the basic infrastructure technologies we're now using were developed at government expense. From TCP/IP to HTTP itself (Berners-Lee was on Supercollider funds at CERN when he developed it), WE paid for these inventions. Which makes them COMMONS which makes them OURS to share however we choose. Period.
Honestly, what business does Corporate America have using cynical exploitation of patent law to co-opt what was developed with taxpayer money? Can anyone without secret (or not so secret) fantasies of being the next Bill Gates really give me a logical, non-theological reason why we should let that happen?
I have grown so weary of even having to argue this anymore.
:M
Trasistors are hardware, not software. The issue here is software patents and open standards.
The whole point of an open standard is that anyone can implement it. If we allow the use of patents in open standards, then they cannot be implemented by just anyone, you need a license, or a whole bunch of licenses, to implement it. Furthermore, as far as I understand it companies aren't legally obligated to license a patent to any particular party, so if they decide that they don't want you, in particular, competing with them they might decide not to license it to you. All it takes is one company on the list to do this and you can *never* implement that "open standard."
We should expect this to destroy the usefulness of open standards and bring a big step back to the days when software companies had total control over your computing experience. The Internet itself only exists because of the adoption of an open, non-patented standard, TCP/IP. Imagine if Microsoft, for example, had a patent pending on TCP/IP, where would we be now? Every little Internet app author would have to fork out cash to them, probably on a yearly basis.
I think that the W3C incorporating a "non-discriminatory" license to patents does just the opposite -
Lets take a look at open source, shall we?
According to a Netcraft survey (http://www.netcraft.com/survey/) taken in July 2001, 60% of the internet's web servers STILL RUN APACHE. The reasons for this? It is fast, cheap, and secure. The reason it is all three of these is it is OPEN SOURCE. If the W3C began considering patented technology for standards, and incorporated those standards into core web systems (example: secure, uncopyable web page) then, if that technology uses some server-side component, Apache, the LONG TIME leader in web servers, would be LEFT OUT IN THE COLD and hence, discriminated against.
Granted, that may the whole point for this move - the authors are from some of the largest IT companies in the US - Microsoft (well, their IP law firm), Apple Computer, and HP. That's fine. It is also counter to the goals of the W3C.
(quoting from http://www.w3.org/Consortium/#goals)
"W3C's long term goals for the Web are:
1) Universal Access: To make the Web accessible to all by promoting technologies that take into account the vast differences in culture, education, ability, material resources, and physical limitations of users on all continents;
2) Semantic Web : To develop a software environment that permits each user to make the best use of the resources available on the Web;
3) Web of Trust : To guide the Web's development with careful consideration for the novel legal, commercial, and social issues raised by this technology."
So unless the W3C wants to become a hypocrisy and a joke, either this proposal has to go, or the original goals have to go. I'd hate to see the goals change. W3C has provided an amazing service to the web community, and if its goals change, I'm afraid that service would cease to exist.
Don't get me wrong - I am a small business owner and as a small business owner I understand the value of intellectual property as much as if not more than a large company. If my business model is based on my IP, then with it I make money, without it, I fall into the (if I'm not mistaken) 95% of companies that close their doors within the first five years of existence. HOWEVER, I don't think that STANDARDS should be based on patented technologies unless the patent owner freely licenses it to anyone who uses the standard.
quis custodiet ipsos custodes - Juvenal