Slashdot Mirror
Ask the W3C's RAND Point Man
Danny Weitzner is Director of the World Wide Web Consortium's Technology and Society activities, which means he's in charge of handling reactions to a W3C proposal that would allow "Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory" (hence "RAND") license fees to be charged for use of W3C-endorsed standards that are covered by patents or other trade restrictions. Many prominent Free Software and Open Source people are firmly against RAND; RMS has even emailed me personally several times, asking me to post a link to this anti-RAND story (in which he is quoted). Slashdot has mentioned this controversy before, because we, too, feel it's important.. But Danny is the person at W3C who is dealing directly with all of this, so he's the person we should question. So ask away, one question per post as usual, and we'll post Danny's answers to 10 of the highest-moderated questions as soon as he gets them back to us.
Tom.
Oh arse
Doesn't the idea of charging to use the standards combine the worst features of both? Doesn't doing so severely compromise the respectability of the process?
Carefree highway, let me slip away on you.
Seems to me that patents and trade restrictions are the antithesis of standards. Charging people for a something makes it less likely that they will use it, no?
(Then again, there is Windows. Never mind.)
Do you feel that this is a "cheat" for anyone who helped devise a standard that is not part of the W3C?
I also feel the W3C will find this ultimately counter productive to it's purpose. People don't like to have to pay licenses to conform to a standard that their end-users and target audiences don't know about. jimbob@aol.com really isn't going to know the difference between a W3C-certified site and one that isn't, and I can't imagine most people paying for a standards system that does not add any value to the experience.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
how could you even allow such a proposal ? after all, the W3C was founded by a guy who gave away all his work without patenting it to death and the result is the web as we know it. has the W3C forgotten its origins or is it no longer representing the world wide web in general ? is it a sham ?
It seems to me that most opponents of the current proposal would be satisfied if there was some guarantee that all non-free specs could be implemented in free software without paying royalties. Free software would require an irreversible license like the GPL, so that code cannot be turned into proprietary products which would escape the royalty radar. This would easily allow implementations of all new W3C-coordinated specifications in open-source software, while you would have to pay royalties for closed-source, commercial software.
I can see no reason not to do that, other than hidden interests. So why don't you do it?
No, buddy, shame on you for being one of the panicked people who would rather that we live in a nation obsessed with terrorism.
Every generation of Americans has its tragedy, and this is ours; Instead of wallowing in self-pity, we need to suck it up and get back to our lives, rather than becoming obsessed with Osama bin Loser.
Get over it. This is Slashdot. If you don't want to hear about W3 standards, go back to Stileproject.
Got Rhinos?
Examples of abuse that I would want to avoid include the Fiasco with the licensing fees for implementing .GIF files many years AFTER they became a standard, and the recent action by MS to enforce a two year upgrade cycle for use of their software in businesses, when many companies are much more comfortable with a three or four year upgrade cycle. (ZDNet has had several articles critical in the extreme of that action)
I would very much prefer the situation to be similar, say, to domain name registration, where many parties can provide that service.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
It's always been my opinion that standards are something developed for the general free use of the public. Standards are often decided upon by organizations such as NIST, IEEE, academia, etc.
Patents on the other hand aren't standards in my opinion. Commercial companies have traditionally been the ones pushing for patents and when they obtain one, they charge users of it a license fee.
A lot of patents are very useful and deserve to be standards, but I feel they should have the fees removed before it can be called a 'standard.' The patent can still stand after something has been standardized, but I dont think people should be charged to use it.
What's your call on opinions like mine that are carried by many individuals here at slashdot?
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
Isn't that statement at best naive? The Internet and Web were originally designed with the idea of free and open communication. Today, there are powerful forces that would like to see open communication closed down and the Web turned over entirely to commercial pursuits. If a RAND policy is adopted for Web standards, won't the next move by those commercial entites be to create as many propriatry standards as possible and force them on the entire Web community (using hammers such as DMCA), like it or not?
sPh
What's reasonable for me, or for any other small, independant developer, is probably not what's reasonable for, say, Adobe, Microsoft or Macromedia. So will they be allowed to pay "unreasonabley" low liscensing fees, or will I be asked to pay "unreasonably" high fees? It seems that "reasonable" is in the eye of the beholder.
Nope, no sig
Your views on these scriptures are very interesting. You must consider the culture of the time. Way back then, the only other religion available to the Jews was idol worship, and the only idol worshippers sacrificed their children to the idols. When it says God turned Lot's wife into a pillar of salt for turning back, turning back means trying to go back to the city of evil.
One of the strongest criticisms of organizations such as ISO and ITU is that they charge exhorbitant fees to even read, much less implement, their standards. Some government entites have even gone so far as to incorporate proprietary standards into laws, such that individuals have to right to read the laws that they can be jailed for violating (e.g. Veeck vs. City of Austin).
The Web and Internet have always been unique in having their standards freely available for review and implementation. Is is a good thing for W3C to seek to emulate the "closed source" standards bodies?
sPh
I have two questions:
1. How can you have non-discriminatory licensing from platform vendors? If Microsoft charges itself a $25 license fee and offers the technology to everyone else for the same $25, that is not non-discriminatory. For Microsoft, it's merely account-shuffling. For everyone else, it's out-of-pocket.
2. Why support fiefdoms with RAND? Why not refuse to even consider any standard that the submitters have not already agreed to license freely for Web use (ie, even if they have patents, you have secured free use) and to indemnify the W3C and Web users against any claims by patent holders whose patent applications the submitters were aware of?
One of two issues here:
1.) You forgot to click the "Post Anonymous" button
2.) You forgot to log into your troll account
j00 R s0 UN-1337!! I Fart on you!
Quality straight pr0n goes here
Murder your own family and friends if any one of them attempts to persuade you to abandon Christianity.
Deuteronomy13
I'm not religious, but how does something written several thousand years before Christ mention Christianity?
While perhaps the "free beer" aspect of open source can coexist with some royalty arrangement (let's say royalties cannot exceed 1% of sales and sales = 0 is allowed), how do you think you can resolve the "free speech" aspect? What kind of open source license will be required for any software built on top of the standard?
That's what we say, of course: The Bible is a worthless collection of fairy tales that only reflects the culture at the time when it was written. That means it should have absolutely no relevance in judging moral questions, other than occasional inspiration from the "good parts".
Now, why this was posted in a thread on the W3C, I don't know ..
If the RAND patent proposal is adopted by the W3C, there has been much discussion in the open source/free software community about forking the standards process, to preserve patent-free web standards. This fork would create a new standards body as a competitor to the W3C.
Can you please define exactly what it means for licensing terms to be "non-descriminatory", since the definition has a huge bearing on open source software?
For example which, if any, of the following examples would be non-descriminatory?
A) Fixed per-unit licensing costs. Let's say, for example, $1.00 per unit shipped. While this would be non-descriminatory in some senses, it would also prohibit free software and hence be descriminatory in other ways.
B) Licensing fees only for non-free software. While this method would not descriminate against open source, it could be seen as "descriminating" against closed-source software since they would be the only ones paying licensing fees.
C) Percent-of-price fees. For example, 5% of the price of shipped units. This would seem to be fair since the same licensing terms would apply to everyone, but in practice it would be similar to B) and hence seen as descriminatory.
D) Free for everyone to use. This would seem to be the only license which cannot be viewed as descriminating against someone. On the other hand, I'm fairly certain that this is not what is intended when the W3C uses the term "RAND".
Any insight into this would be greatly appreciated, I'm sure.
How will W3C ensure that a company with a patent on a particular technology stay within the RAND standards set forth for that technology?
No other company will implement the standard and pay a royalty to the original company who can turn around and break the standard (or possibly change it) for whatever reason.
Netscape and IE are the de facto standards bodies these days; the browser wars are over and the days when standards were needed are over too. Apart from a gang of standards barrack-room lawyers going "Oh, I use WebFart 2000 because it's standards compliant blah blah blah", nobody cares anymore.
So my question is; why are you giving up the last shred of self-respect you might have had as a lobby group against the encroachment of the IE monopoly as a de facto standard, by turning yourself into a shill group for the same bunch of corporate interests? To preserve the fig-leaf of the "importance of standards"? Isn't that rather like destroying the village to save it?
-- the most controversial site on the Web
The W3C must realize that ANY fee no, matter how reasonable they may seem, would have the effect of not allowing free and open source developers to participate.
I am sure that you are aware of the fact that the internet as we all know and love/hate it was developed by free and open source software.
Certain commercial developers, have been trying to convert the internet from, "...the greatest democratizing medium..." (ACLU vs. Reno) into yet another commercial morass where they can reap the maximum profit from the unsuspecting populous.
Given that, why would the W3C even concieve of a proposition that favors corporate purse strings over the greater good of the common man, and the internet itself?
We have seen governments try to regulate what we can say (CDA, CDA II, COPA), corporations what we can do (DMCA, SSSCA, DRM) and even ICANN with the warped sense of justice embodied in its UDRP. Does the common internet user now have to be leery of standards bodies like the W3C, which appears to favor corporate interests?
Just my $0.02 (Canadian, before taxes)
I really have to wonder what the motives are behind this. There must be some hidden pressure on the W3C for them to take this stance.
My guess is that Microsoft or Sun may be the culprit. They want to own a standard, and will apply pressure to whoever it takes to succeed.
Danny, is there something going on behind the scenes that brought this proposal forth?
Given the predeliction of the US Attorney General Ashcroft to previous actions, and the actions taken by the US Congress and Senate, isn't this pretty much a waste of time?
I mean, look, MSFT gave more money to Bush than Gore, and bought the election. Combine that with Disney's work on extending copyright terms, and biotech/pharmaceutical work on extending patent terms, and it seems as if the W3C can say anything it wants and the US will just torpedo it, so that the patent and license holders can squeeze more revenue.
A case in point, WinXP and MSFT Select licensing terms which double (or triple) costs for consumers.
So why bother?
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
I chair a JEDEC committee. JEDEC's legal office reserves the right to define "reasonable" in our RAND clause.
Since all of our standards apply to hardware with well-understood costs of manufacture, the royalty structure most often adopted is "fixed percent of OEM price." This is a necessity in a market where semiconductor prices drop with Moore's Law, and a trivial royalty one day dominates the price the next.
In software terms, the same terms would be "fixed percent of sale price." The astute reader will observe that this allows continued distribution of free (gratis) software w/o royalty encumberance, even if it causes RMS to break out in a rash.
The alternatives, as we've already seen, can be as extreme as one-time charges in the millions of dollars. For Microsoft, able to amortize a flat-fee across hundreds of millions of units, the royalty would indeed be "reasonable." For Joe Startup, it would be prohibitive.
So, my question: what prospects do we have that RAND will be clarified, preferably with guidelines such as "percent of ASP," but at least with exclusion of abominations such as flat-fee?
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
The Internet appears to be working quite well on an patent-free platform, what do users gain by changing this model? Plenty of protected file formats are already in use - Real Media, Windows Media, Quicktime - to the benefit of the parent companies even though the underlying transport mechanism is public domain. How will the Internet become better for the user by changing this? Or conversly, why shouldn't this be seen as a depressingly typical attempt on the part of group of companies to control the Internet through the force of intellectual property patents instead of innovation?
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?
I don't believe that it is a question of whether this decision would cause a fork, my question is how you think that this decision will effect the "digital divide". Will it become just another hoop for preventing the under-privileged and neglected from self publishing?
In a medium which in some cases defines co-operation, why allow companies to hijack that medium? I feel safe creating products which rely on standards because I know no one will come after me for using them, or take over a project that I work on.
As a business, the risk of using patented standards is very real, even with RAND terms, because RAND is open to debate (aka litigation), and the cost of litigation often means it's better to settle for not quite RAND than full RAND. Open source recognizes that, and is unlikey to EVER start encumbering software with even RAND terms.
Why does the W3C feel so powerless to simply require companies to disclose and allow full and free use of any patented technologies they have? Is it because these groups are mainly made UP of companies, who can't see the forest for the individual money trees they all are hoping to grow? Is there so little recongition in the idea of the common good, we all sacrifice a little to win a lot?
And what quality are these patents? BT has patented hyperlinks after all, Altavista claims almost all search technology. Symantic auto-updates from web and the list goes on. Do we want to reward this crap?
How strongly will the W3C enforce terms? It's easy to squash litigation at the root by dis-allowing RAND. No muss no fuss. But once the barn door is open and companies are stampeding for the cash, is the W3C going to stand up for developers to insure full RAND?
Finally, as a solution to endless discusion over patents, RAND seems like a poor choice. A strong patent free record, and a commitment to future full and free standards would seem to eliminate that area of debate more than opening the door to the cash jackpot would. Why is there not more of a focus on reducing the time spent on the legal BS angle rather than encouraging it with RAND?
It is readily apparent that there is a faction within the W3C that is trying to cash in on corporate patents. I see no other motivation for the W3C to even consider adopting such a policy. I'm sure they've had much pressure for years to make this kind of move. From companies such as Microsoft, Sun, and others. These corporate sloths have been trying for years to get the W3C to adopt their patented products under these kinds of guidelines. It looks like now that this could become a reality.
I wouldn't be surprised if the folks over at the FSF have something to do with this as well. This is the kind of thing that the FSF always harps on. Staunch FSF supporters have always felt that the FSF software model should extend to standardization. Which I think is bunk.
If this policy is adopted, we will definitely see a competing standards body to take its place.
We'll end up with the FSF version of the W3C, and the OSS version of the W3C.
IMHO, this is a really bad thing. This move by the W3C would cause an even greater fragment in the open source community.
That's not something we need in the open-source community. We've got enough challenges as it is.
That quote is part of the Christian Bible. Therefore it is part of the Christian faith.
1. that is not a quote
2. that is part of the old testiment.
Christianity is not mentioned until the new
testiment when it is given as the reason
why sacrificing animals in temples is no
longer needed: becuase Jesus gave His life
to atone for our sins
perhaps you should try to understand what you're trying to criticize before you criticize it
The WWW as well as Gopher, FTP, Telnet, WAIS, Archie and Veronica before it have been based on free tools that have come out of university environments -- anybody with enough technical know-how has access to the standards by which these tools operate, and can thus write programs that communciate via these standards. Many of these programmers are in educational settings where they work with little or no financial support. In addition, some of the most predominant software for the Web today is available without licensing fees -- take Apache for example.
It seems to me that adding royalties to the cost of writing software that interoperates with other W3C software is a specific threat to this sort of development, because what may be "reasonable and non-discriminatory" to a $100M business may be thoroughly out-of-reach and prohibitively expensive for 4 college students working on their senior project. As a result, rather than invigorating development, adding royalties would seem to slow it down by denying the ability to develop to the very people who have gotten us to where we are today. What mechanisms are there in the proposal to protect the ability of those who have been producing high-quality freeware to continue to do so?
If the w3c want to use patented technology in
standards, what are they going to do about
patents that only exist in the promiscuous US
patent system and would never be granted in
other countries. Or even the other way around.
Won't that turn the world wide web into a us only
web or at least split it into lots of separate
entities?
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
Many parts of the Third World are attempting to join the information age. Typically they are strapped for resources, and so far the ability to get on the internet with minimum barriers to entry has been key for them. The availability of free software has been essential. Not just free for use, but free for them to enter the development process, both to meet local needs and to build their technical base.
Doesn't patent encumbrance of W3C standards constitute another barrier to entry for poorer nations?
Even if we are willing to give them all copies of some proprietary web browser, aren't we still standing in the way of their developing their own technical expertise, because they won't have access to and use of the source code.
Doesn't it come across just a little like (Pardon the inflammatory language, but it exaggerates the argument appropriately.) fat Western capitalist pigs trying to keep the Third World down?
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
How far reaching are the proposed fees for standards? For instance, could developers be required to pay a fee for using HTML? Who will decide what sorts of things fees will be charged for?
I'm concerned that this will require small developers to fight tooth and nail each time a new and further reaching idea of "standards" comes up.
People from the W3C have "acknowledged" that the Internet's growth has been due to open standards.
This isn't not even half the story. The Internet would not exist without open standards promoted by bodies like the IETF and W3C (until now).
In the 1980's and early 1990's there were a number of network protocols in use: DECNet, VINES, NETBIOS/NETBEUI (shudder), IPX/SPX, SNA, and more. None of them initially would have been as scalable as TCP/IP, however, if any of them had been truly open, it might have been possible to fix them.
But none of those other protocols were open... and where are they now? Nowhere.
It's the same situation for hypertext protocols. People and companies have proposed substantial improvments onto existing protocols. A notable example of this is Hyper-G, which was then commercialized by Hyperwave.com. It fixes a lot of problems with navigation, and stuff like broken links. However, there was never a free and open implementation, and so it has languished in obscurity for the last 5 years.
My question to the W3C is this: Do they have any evidence that proprietary protocols will foster continued growth of the Internet and the applications that run on top of it?
SSCA, DMCA, ATA, .. it's almost as if a certain big company, knowing it can't compete by fair means, has to compete by foul. Since this certain big company has recently submitted certain deja vu technologies to standards boards, then remarked to certain Free implementors that they're all but wasting their time.. wouldn't it be good for them if open standards weren't even open any more?
Hellooo, Mr Berners-Lee? Where is your "kindly English village vicar trying to get people to sit down and talk rather than fight" image that's given W3C such an honourable position for so many years?
I for one, like to respect web (AnythingML) standards. But I will see no reason to, if W3C becomes just another bastion of corporate interests. For example, both morally and practically (inability to write universal Free implementations), there would be no difference between using HonestlyProprietaryML and PretendsToBeOpenButStringsAttachedML.
Sincerely,
-- Tom
Despite the common cry of "free as in beer", as heard throughout Slashdot, people do need to make money. I know that's a strange thing to hear when you're engulfed in open source, but it's true. Believe it or not, some people like to eat meals on a regular basis. Some wackos even like to have a roof over their heard. And the extremists tend to enjoy outlandish living, such as owning a home and a car.
Seriously though, if any person is going to devote a good chunk of his time/life to developing a solid architecture that millions of people are going to use to make thier lives easier, shouldn't they be compensated? Standards are great, they're needed to get everybody on the same page. Have a million instant messaging programs is great, but not if they can't talk to one another. You can't get caught up in thinking that if its a standard, you should have every right to slap your own interface on top of it. A standard is something that has been well thought and discussed and determined to be the best solution for a specific task at the present time. People put work into these things. MP3 is a standard, yet you still have to pay Fraunhoffer (probably spelled incorrectly).
I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that would give away their time just for the recognition, and there's nothing wrong with that. Just don't become jealous of people that choose money instead of an eternal reference in that "Thanks to" section of somebody's code comments.
Don't you think there's the danger of so many patents being included in web standards that the big companies sponsoring this could just kiss the W3C goodbye and create an oligopoly with their own standard? Step by step they would take control away until it's irrelevant to be W3C-compliant.
If you ask me, the one reason the W3C is important today is because it works on open standards.
In other words: Isn't the W3C shooting its own foot?
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in r
NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD
article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there
the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead,its corpse turned over to another charnel house.
All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick nd its long term survival prospects ar
survive at all it will be among OS hobbyist dabblers. *BSD continues to dec
*BS is dying tical purposes, *BSD is dead.
"No, Danny, no!"
sulli
RTFJ.
More of these corporate-inspired initiatives should have these cute, fluffy names. If the DMCA had been called "Great System in Which Everyone is Better Off", nobody would have had a problem with it, right?
__
Do ya feel happy-go-lucky, punk?
Remember we're only talking about use here, meaning implementation, not access to standards documents. Remember that a patent puts the document in the public domain, but puts the technology under use restrictions. You can't patent something secretly. :-)
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
On the surface, this appears to be a terrible situation.
If you read a little further into the case, it doesn't seem like miscarriage of justice.
SBCCI and the like are non-profit corporations that earn money by publishing building standard codes. Cities then buy copies of the codes, and incorporate them into law, which is much easier than creating huge volumes of building codes by oneself.
You're allowed to look at the building codes for free; you can go to the city office. You can even make copies there. However, you're not allowed to publish copies the building code.
Do a web search to find out more about this case.
At any rate, that situation doesn't apply to what we're discussing with the W3C. The building codes themselves aren't proprietary... anyone is allowed to build a building according to the code.
damn, beat me to it!
(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?
sulli
RTFJ.
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.
Currently there is a set of people who rely on and benefit from the standards documented and/or created by the W3C. Will the RAND policy benefit all the people in this set? If not, will those who don't benefit be harmed? If so, can you tell us what group of people that might be and why their harm doesn't concern your organization?
324006
Right now, anyone with bandwidth and hardware can engage in Net publishing/information exchange without paying any IP royalties, unless they want to move into specific proprietary extensions (e.g., a full-blown RealAudio server). If you go to a scheme in which fees will be associated with some standards, will you discriminate between core standards - which should arguably always be without fee - and peripheral standards - where a fee for a special-purpose extension presents no impediment for general-purpose Internet publishing/exchange, because such technologies are truly external to common use?
The greatest danger is if fees are allowed for standards which become incorporated into whatever the major browsers happen to be a few years from now, and it becomes impossible to present Web content/communications which integrates smoothly and 'professionally' with those browsers without effectively being taxed. This would be a Microsoft-style licensing scheme extended across most of the Net. It would be like a 'free press' in which dissenting opinions could be published - but only on mimeograph machines.
Keep in mind, you're not talking about creating new technologies, but about which iteration of an existing concept should be standardized on. There is always an 'open' route available to a desired end. Should selection of standards be allowed to effectively tax the many for the few? Why pave the road towards such a future?
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
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?
1. We should use the Brazil standard. This means that there is no such thing as intellectual property beyond a period of 2-3 years, after which it becomes public domain. This also implies that patenting the Genome is illegal, as it is already public domain and a prior work (copyright God (TM)). Thus, the only RAND possible is one of zero cents, levied equally on all participants.
2. Bill Gates already bought out the W3C vote, so it's a done deal. They all got options already.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
With software, however, there is no need for the creator to do anything other than make their product available. Software is nothing other than the passing of knowledge. Knowledge is inherently free (as in beer). Imposition of software patent fees thus forces a fee structure on a process that previously had no such inherent requirement.
How does the W3C reconcile the difference in the inherent natures of hardware and software in it's rationalization?
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
Standards that are true standards are decided by the majority that use the standards. If standards with RAND licensing come into being, will web sites adopt the new standard if a free alternative is available? I think that where there are standards with RAND licensing a second free unoffical standard will be developed. How will you avoid that from happening?
As a consumer of standards, I like them because it prevents me from becoming locked in to a solution from any one vendor.
Standards drive adoption.
Lets say a corporation develops some functionality which would be highly usefull to the internet community in general. They would like to see this functionality become widely adopted as a standard, so that it will become widely adopted, with their implementation being one of the first, and hopefully from their POV, defacto.
Currently, this corporation must decide if they are willing to give up any patent rights on their invention in order for it to become standardized and widely adopted. The benefit of standardization and wide adoption is a very strong force in driving corporations to contribute (patent free) the benefits of their R&D to the internet community.
Do you not think that if a corporation can now succeed in having a technology standardized and adopted without forgoing patent rights, that this would result in companies that would otherwise have contributed technology to the community (patent free) changing that stance?
What was the rationale of the W3C in chosing this issue for switching to a process which allows less (rather than more) opportunity for public response?
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
I would like to question the term "Non Discriminatory", as it tries to convey a false sense of democracy. Let me do it with a simple hypothetical example: I open a club, admittance to which is "Non Discriminatory". The only conditions are an entrance fee of US $1.000.000 and a monthly service fee of US $10.000, anyone able to pay the fees is welcome.
Obviously this ends up excluding 99.99...% of the population, and makes it clear that using the expression "Non Discriminatory" is just a smokescreen to cover my legal butt, while making sure that I only get the billionaires I really want in my club.
The RAND policy follows exactly the same underhanded practices: it "requires" charging Free Software projects royalties because not doing so would be "discriminatory" against the poor corporations. Well, it's always nice to know that someone is looking after the interests of the poor Microsofts and IBMs of this world. Their rights would otherwise be trampled on by the evil hordes of Free Software, wouldn't they?
So my specific question, based on the above argument is: how can you really defend this use of the term "Non Discriminatory"? Discrimination is a more complex issue than simply saying "apply the same rule to everyone", as proportinal taxes have long shown. Your committee is full of lawyers who I'm sure know these issues well. So is it just a smokescreen, or do you have other more solid arguments to defend this idea?
The goal of a standard is to allow a level of conformity in a given process. Conformity in software development is a requirement for success.
How can we expect standards to remain if the people who develop mew software have to license everything they use in thier software?
In these days of multiple functionality, you will often see a mail server built with POP3, SMTP, IMAP, LDAP and webmail. If each of these protocols were patented, how much would it cost a developer to create a new mail server?
If this new patent policy is used in W3C, open source developers will not stop developing software (as seems to be the wishes of some large companies), they will simply find another standard to use.
- The web was started by, and is still largely compromised of, people who don't earn a dime for their work. Independent web sites, universities, etc., do not usually make a profit from their sites. Forcing them to pay royalties would essentially be the equivalent of a cease-and-desist.
- Not everyone is in a position to pay royalties. Groups in our country, let alone other countries, are still being introduced to the web. Royalties would only deter them. Not to mention that only a few countries actually *recognize* the types of patents which RAND would try to enforce.
- Surely this would apply to the US federal government. If suddenly they have to pay royalties for their myriad of websites, where is that money going to come from? US Taxpayers, like you and I.
- What may be reasonable to some, is not reasonable to others. This has been noted already, but what may be a "fair" fee to a company like Microsoft would not be a "fair" fee to myself, a freelance developer.
- If the W3C becomes a group that tries to enforce royalties on existing web standards, their plan will backfire, and alternate standards (not to mention groups!) will crop up. Not only could this be the end of the internet as we know it, but it would be the end of the W3C as an established leadership that we try to follow.
Plain & Simple: RAND would not serve those that started and continue to develop the internet. Passing RAND will have disastrous consequences.For those of you who prefer to ignore facts. Let me remind you that IBM is behind RAND. How can they claim to be supportive of the Open Source movement while at the same time doing something exactly the opposite of what Open Source preaches???
As a developer why should I consider using your RAND standards over the proprietary standards of the vendor of my choice? What exactly would be the difference? Many proprietary standards don't even require a fee.
I can understand why some of the organizations that make up the W3C would be interested in RAND standards. After all, it allows them to use the W3C to shill for their business. New FOOGazo technology is a W3C standard, just $1.95 per download!
Just because this sort of an arrangement is good for the large software development companies with their piles of patents doesn't make it a good thing for the developers that have, up until this point, relied on the W3C for guidance in which standards to use. Most developers that use the W3C guidelines don't work for commercial software companies. We work for corporations that have moved to web development because it is an easy way to cut costs. That being the case, why would you alienate your users by pushing RAND standards?
You can't ever know if an idea is the subject of a USPTO patent application
In every other civilized country you can tell if a patent has been applied for on an invention. In the US the PTO encourages patent ambushes. The 'inventor' applies for a patent, then works to get their idea adopted in a standard. There is no means whatsoever by which the standards body can check to see if their spec is encumbered.
The USPTO excuse is that an inventor should not have to reveal their trade secrets when they apply for a patent, thus risking the loss of trade secret protection if the patent is denied. This argument is utterly bogus, as is evidenced by the fact that every other PTO has a public review period. The real reason the USPTO hates the idea is that they would have to do respond to the objections filled which would be a lot more expensive than their current policy of grant everythin that isn't a perpetual motion machine.
Someone can read the draft standard and apply for a patent on it
This happens quite frequently. The most eggregious case being applying for a continuation of an existing patent application, thus gaining the benefit of a filling date that was prior to anybody on earth including the 'inventor' having invented the invention. One of the worst cases of this scam being the Lemelson patent claim covering bar codes which everyone agrees he had absolutely nothing to do with the invention of.
The USPTO grants ridicuolously overbroad patents which are obvious to a novice in the art.
The chopped logic the PTO uses to defend their negligence is that the legal 'standard' for 'obvious' is not that of English but a different language called patenteese. However when the value of granting 20 year monopolies for trivial inventions is attacked the USPTO immediately asserts that patents are not granted for 'obvious' inventions. So what is it, is the bar low or high?
What this means for the W3C process is that there are certain areas in which there is no unencumbered solution.
What does W3C do? Should they refuse to allow any work at all in those areas? RMS would certainly prefer that option, however RMS is a fanatic for whom the idea of paying for software for any reason whatsoever is a theological evil.
The IETF has faced this problem in the past, with the RSA/Diffie Hellman patents for example. PEM was not possible without some form of public key crypto and Public Key Partners had the whole field locked up.
The DRM area is pretty much a patent deadlock area. There is no approach that is not encumbered by multiple patents, even those based on thirty year old technology. Go figure what that says about the competence of the USPTO.
Patent policy for companies is hard. I would like nothing better than that software patents be abolished in their entirety, despite owning several of the paradigmatic ones. However given that patents do exist, I can't afford to disarm unless everyone else does. I need my patent collateral in case I need access to someone else's IP.
If you think you have seen this before, you have. It is exactly the same concept as Mutually Assured Destruction.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
How is usage of the web going to be improved for users as a result of the implementation of this new policy? And, as a followup, if there's no clear perception of the impact, why is this policy being put into place?
mp
"The secret to strong security: less reliance on secrets." -- Whitfield Diffie
Can you give some examples of these "higher-level services," and characterize the extent that W3C has already provided recommendations in these areas? Would work on standards for higher-level services requiring RAND terms be considered an expansion in the scope of typical W3C activites to date? Under this proposal could RAND terms end up applying to "core" and "lower-level" services as well?
Having Microsoft in the w3c patent policy working group is a bit like having the al Qaeda join NATO to promote anti-terrorism.
If a technology is truly deserving of a patent, then we shouldn't need standards for its use: the patent will instruct us in the use of the technology, and there won't be any alternatives.
If there are implementation details that need be specified, then the patent holder--as both the owner and the beneficiary of the patent--should specify them, as Phillips did for the audio cassette format, and Sony did for the CD format.
If a technology isn't truly innovative; if it shouldn't have been patented in the first place, but it was, because, well, because the U.S. patent system is broken, then there will be other ways to solve the problem. In this case, we need a standard to specify which of the available alternatives we will use. Obviously, we should choose an alternative which is not patented.
In short, a standards body should regard patents as damage, and route around them.
- SWM
I would like to ask why this committee is so heavily biased towards the legal side in its makeup. Of course there should be lawyers there, since it deals with legal issues. But these issues have a tremendous impact on technology --in particular on its free exchange. Yet the members come from the IP departments of huge corporations, with little visible representation of technical people from the free software world.
The W3C is setting up a standard which will potentially harm many free software projects, yet is not giving that side any true voice in the drafting committee. I find it hard to believe that this was not a deliberate decision driven by corporate interests.
This attitude is sad, short sighted, and at the very least ungrateful. It avoids acknowledging the extent to which the free software world has contributed to the very existence and success of the internet as we know it.
Geez, at least one person saw the humor.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Open source and free software is very common on the web today-- free browsers, servers, and anything else vaguely connected to the web and the internet are very widely used.
The very distribution terms of free software make them fundamentally incompatable with any standard whose licensing requires a fee. Some licenses explicitly forbid the use of algorithms burdened by patents, while others may "just" face the practical problem that the software is widely distributed for no charge, and often isn't even written by a for-profit company.
Given the prevalance and importance of free and open source software on the Web, and given the fundamental incompatability of such software with a standard that requires any licensing fee, how can any such standard be called "reasonable and non-discriminatory"? How would the W3C argue that any "RAND" standards at all requiring licensing fees do not descriminate against a large and important fraction of the web sofwtare out there today, specifically free and open-source software? (This is not a rhetorical question-- I really want to know what the W3C would say in answer to this latter question.)
-Rob
1. Microsoft "invents" HTTP replacement
2. Microsoft patents its "work"
3. Microsoft proposes its patented "work" as standard
4. Corporate part of the W3C approves MS HTTP 1.0
5. Apache dies
The "Patent Policy FAQ" was authored exclusively by representatives of Fortune 500 companies (2 from Apple Computer, 2 from Microsoft, and one from Hewlett-Packard).
Wouldn't this lead one to think that the policy favors the interests of large companies?
Why weren't small companies and academia involved in writing the FAQ?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
While I was generally impressed with your argument, you dropped at least one blatant inaccuracy in there which hurts the credibility of the rest of your argument.
You write >
This is blatantly untrue; RMS himself made his living for years by selling software for money. In the early days of emacs he survived by charging for copies of it on (presumably) floppy disks, and I believe you can still buy CDs of "the GNU system" from the FSF.
RMS has plenty of faults that can be criticized, and can certainly be legitimately described as a fanatic. But argue with what he actually says, not with strawmen.
On an unrelated note... you write:
>
How about offering a "public license" on your patents? Something like the following, with appropriate legalese:
"You may use this patented technology in any product, provided that you make publically available all other patents used in the same product, either under the same terms as this license or on a royalty-free and nondiscriminatory basis. If you do not have permission to do this for all other patents used in the product, you may not use this patented technology at all."
Offering the above license would seem to preserve the patent for use defensively, while still permitting its use in Free Software *and* promoting the use of the same license by other people. It would be kind of a GPL for patents. What do you think?
from your website (www.w3c.org), one of the key points of the w3c's mission is:
" 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.
".
my question is this:
if the RAND measure passes, will it affect this statement?
The first quoted section should have contained your comments about RMS thinking paying for software is evil, and the second should have contained your claim that you can't "disarm unilaterally". Sorry.
From article on lisa.org:
> The opposition to RAND contains a who's who list
> of people in the open source software community:
> Alex Cox (Linux Kernel), Jeremy Allison (Samba),
> Tim Bray (editor of XML 1.0), Ken Coar (Apache
> Foundation), Alan Cox (Linux Kernel), John
> (..)
Now we have a proof - there's more than one Alan Cox.
I understand the debate about Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). OK, so piss on SVG. Who needs it? If we all can't use it without violating a patent, then do without it - just don't do it! Let's keep going on with what is available to be implemented by all, and piss on the rest. So my question is, Why?
The argument that this method will *require* patent holders to come forward early in the process and identify their patents is pure bullshit. Surely we all realize that many patent holders, or potential patent holders, are not work group participants of the W3C, or even members of the W3C. So how will they be compelled to come forward? It just won't work - the W3C can still be sandbagged by a 'submarine patent even with this venal proposal adopted, so once again the question is: Why do it?
The W3C has, somewhat unintentionally, become a central clearinghouse that defines how humans fundamentally communicate with each other in this digital age. As a result, it is necessarily the W3C's responsibility to pay attention to how their actions affect society.
I would like to know, both from a W3C standpoint, and from your own personal belief, how you feel that RAND will improve human society. Also, do you feel that it is befitting a standards organization to approve a standard that is patented?
Which is more important in such a case, that the patent is honored, which could kill the standard or even cause hardship for those who can't afford it, or that the standard is released royalty free so that all of humanity can benefit? How do you reconcile this statement with W3C's role in society?
Thanks,
Jim McCracken
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
Has it ever been proposed that W3C adopt a policy 180 degrees out of phase with RAND? In essence, have you ever considered saying, as a matter of policy, that NO patented material will ever be incorporated into standards? If not, do you think this would ease the problem of companies filing patents for trivial innovations?
WTF?
cat
In fact, standards which require royalty payments discriminate against a group that has been and continues to be instrumental in the creation and growth of the Internet, and a group which powers many aspects of the Internet today, namely the Open Source or Free Software community.
In my opinion, one of the core tests for a proposed standard should be whether it can be implemented under an Open Source license such as the GNU Public License. The fact that HTTP was such a standard permitted the creation of the Apache web server which, according to a recent Netcraft survey, provides 60% of all websites on the Internet, over twice that of its closest rival, Microsoft (see http://www.netcraft.com/survey/).
By endorsing "RAND" standards, the W3C is acting as little more than a business development department for the corporation to whom royalties must be paid - and this is completely inappropriate for an organization whose goal is to "lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its interoperability".
I would be very interested in your response to this viewpoint.
Ian Clarke
Coordinator - The Freenet Project
Chief Technology Officer - Uprizer Inc.
aye, the big difference between cristianatiy and jewish is jews beleave the savior hasn;t came yet, and christians beleave it has.
Yep.
No, you are the biggest idiot on /. This guy may be a troll-o-rama, but this particular comment is right on the money.
2. The companies that own the IP want fiefdoms. This is where they get their control and money. They use whatever influence/tricks they have to convence standards bodies to use their patents so they can get control, and through control profits. Submarine patents are dirty business, so companies are avoiding it now (except Rambus). Now they want to work above board and make it just plain acceptable.
As to why the W3C would accept this position has more to do with the influence/pressure being placed on them rather than any moral fiber (or lack there of). They had a good stand not using patents, but lots of pressure wares you down after a while.
The really stupid part is that those greedy types that are begging for all this are blinding themselves to what they are opening themselves up to. Sure, they get their patent accepted. But everyone else gets theirs accepted as well. Now your patent gives you one advantage, but all the other patented standards just set you back lots.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
Are you aware of these, basic and simple facts and contradictions ?
1) The Free/Open Source community is the best, and most sincere standard supporter and W3C allied
2) Patents are NOT compatible with Free/Open Source software ? plain and simple ! there is no known way to avoid that.
3) Hence if RAND is adopted, the Free/Open Source community, will have no choice but fork the standard which contain patented materiel, or even worse, will create a rival organisation ? which will be very bad for the Web, or will be those which probably prevail in the end, as the history of the Net has proved that many times.
Since so many in this community have expressed their dismay at the proposed RAND policy, what are the chances that the W3C will consider an alternate policy?
My proposal is this (also sent to the W3C via their comment mechanism):
* Parties involved in standards creation must divulge all intellectual property claims pertaining to the standard that they know about. This includes third-party claims if they are aware of them. (This covers the advance warning which the W3C appears to desire.)
* The W3C will not confirm the standard unless and until all IP claimants have granted a free and perpetual license to use the IP in implementing the standard. Such licenses must cover all methods of access for documents created using the standard, and must cover both access and creation methods for said documents. (i.e. they cannot be limited to HTTP access, and they cannot be read-only. This provision ensures that the standard can truly be standard and unencumbered.)
* Like JEDEC, parties involved in this standards-making practice agree to license IP used in W3C standards under these terms. Parties who do not divulge their IP in advance per this contract are nonetheless bound by their participation into granting the license. (This prevents a long standards process from being derailed after certification by a hostile participating party).
Would this policy be an acceptable alternative?
Also, I would agree with another poster's question - are there good examples of patents which would force a less-functional standard?
Let us live so that when we come to die, even the undertaker will be sorry -- Mark Twain
What are the realistic outcomes of the W3C/RAND process? Bruce Perens has argued that RAND actually discriminates against open source, and argued for RF (Royalty Free) in its place, but several well-informed people say that the W3C is unlikely to adopt RF. If RAND is not ND (Non-Discriminatory) and RF is not acceptable to the W3C, what else could happen?
I do not consider that something is a standard if its usage is limited and controlled. So when I refer to "standards" below, I'm talking about specifications, API's, etc. which are proprietary, and by be subject to the right to use being withdrawn, whether for non-payment of fees, or for any other reason.
Why should W3C "standards" be given any credence if they aren't standards? Why should not some other body be created, that would build genuine standards? How would this be worse than accepting an arbitrarily imposed (from the developers point of view) limitation?
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
... charging only the commericial outfilts? It's ridiculous to charge open-source efforts like Mozilla to conform to standards pushed by the W3C. But I have no problem with charging people who make money from selling / pushing their web browsers. They obviously have the money for it.
It seems to me that this is yet another attempt to take control of something out of the hands of the end user.
It goes like this: We have got a hold of you by the shorts, you have no choise in the matter. So turn in the Jews or join them in the camp.
ANYTHING that FORCES people to do anything comes down to that. Usually what you are forced to do is usually not that bad (eg: follow the driving laws or loose your drivers license) but the result is the same, a MORALLY EVIL THING happens. It is just a matter of degree.
Another Anarchist
Do you remember the GIF patent? Unisys actually did go after software users, not just developers.
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.
"Corrupting our youth one mind at a time"
Also, will libwww and Jigsaw continue to be patent free packages or will W3C RAND acceptance eventually require license fees be payed to legally use these W3C software packages?
Is this an attempt to gain the w3c standards body some amount of credibility, since to this point there standards have been, at best, ignored, or possibly skewed in order to favor tools that would best be labelled as vaporware. What value does the w3c and its standards bring, and what use is there in a sanctioning practice that's only goal is to keep a standards body from completely evaporating due to its standards' lateness, lack of innovation, and irrelevance?
For the past ten (fifteen?) years RMS has been living in his office at 545 Tech Square. The most appropriate term to describe him is a techno-hippy.
I did not make the claim that RMS's position on paying for software was consistent, far from it. So identification of an inconsistency between RMS's behavior and his theology does not contradict my argument. My point is that RMS is an absolutist and his opposition to any attempt to compromise with reality on the issue can be taken as inevitable.
On the open license front, we have put significant IP into the public domain recently. As for licensing our patents, the problem there is that the license you suggest is not compatible with Royalty Free.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
One of the unstated but vehement reasons for objections to such developments as the W3C RAND proposal, I feel, is the intuition that they demand a "previous condition of servitude" as a prerequisite for full and proper participation in the Internet. How do you answer those whose unstated gut response is that RAND would demand that they enslave themselves to the patent owners before they might use the Internet?
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
The words "reasonable and non-discriminatory", in this context, would hopefully suggest that the w3c are rightly concerned about the effects of licensing on this interoperability. But they are fuzzy and subjective terms - I would have thought a standards committee would have sufficient experience to teach them that such terms are a major disadvantage in defining a policy which will affect millions of people world-wide.
In my view, the words "reasonable and non-discriminatory" are best interpreted to mean "guaranteed to be open and free to use by all".
The GPL is an excellent example of a license which meets the aspirations indicated by "reasonable and non-discriminatory". It is so because it does not impose restrictions on who can use what is licensed.
Indeed, this approach is the ONLY reasonable one in a world where interoperability is paramount - any restrictions, financial or otherwise, on the users of "standards" issued under a lesser license do not meet the definition "reasonable and non-discriminatory" and will have a negative impact on the usability and effectiveness of the technologies they are ostensibly set up to enhance.
If the w3c don't insist on real openness (and straight-talking in their own descriptive terms) they are not only damaging severely their own credibility, they are inflicting major damage on the cultures and artisans who have played a large part in creating the major public good we have in the web today. Therefore they are harming that public good. We all lose.
It hardly seems the w3c will be doing a good job of fulfilling their obligations in maintaining that public good if they are prepared to endorse standards which may be impossible to implement on the most popular web server on the Internet for the simple reason that no money is available to pay the license fees, or that will be impossible to implement on new browser software for the same reason. Such licenses, in the context of interoperability, can only be described as "reasonable" by a lawyer or a liar.
So my question is: why don't the w3c simply require that the licenses concerned meet the standards exemplified by the GPL, or, if that is their intent, why don't they use words which are less Orwellian and less susceptible to subtle changes of meaning and interpretation? Personally I would prefer the words "No-fee and unrestricted use", which have the advantage of saying what they mean.
.sigs: Just Say No!
Then came along another group which we will call XFree group. They wanted to make X better too but they also wanted the unhappy people and the don't care people to be willing to use their additions. A couple other groups which we can call the KDE developers and GNOME developers groups also wanted the unhappy people and don't care people to use their additions. So, these groups didn't demand royality payments.
Will, the OSF group decided they didn't like just setting standards for only the happy OSF members and wanted to set standards for more people like the three non-royality groups where. So, they tried changing their name to OpenGroup to convince people that paying royalitys for a standard is good. But the number of people happier with the other three group's additions continued to grow. So, finally, the OpenGroup gave in and made some of their stuff royality free for non-royality use and gave up on continue with their other stuff. In the end, the three other groups controlled a more widely used standard than the offical standards body.
So, what is the moral of the story? I guess it is, if you accept RAND, what percentage of people will be happy enough with the RAND additions to pay for it, what percentage will flat out refuse, what percentage won't care about the additions and just assume use a non-standard free addition instead? Is the people who will be happy about RAND costs in the majority or minority? Is there another group that would better cater to the majority should the W3C choose a royality "standard" that the majority would perfer not to pay for?
I personally think we can give W3C's compettor a name. Lets call them ISC. Or maybe we should call them Mozilla-nites or better yet, lets call them GNU'ist. Is it written in stone that the IETF will be accepting of a RAND friendly W3C? Do you think the latest version of Konqueror will havethe latest W3C royality RAND features or IETF RFCs or Mozilla group recommended enhancements or Free Software Foundation purposed additions? Is RAND helping the W3C or the making of another OpenGroup?
Didn't anyone notice that Open Source and Free software will be inherently incompatible with any RAND-covered standard, and thus will inevitably force a schism?
Several people including Chris Lilley of W3C and myself have suggested on the comments list that if W3C publishes a Recommendation with patent claims, it should do more than simply listing the claimants, as was done in the SVG spec. There should be at least some commentary that identifies exactly what patents are involved and exactly what part of the Recommendation might infringe on them. The SVG Recommendation lists two patent numbers, and ten other companies who simply say that they have intellectual property that might be infringed by the SVG Recommendation.
Do you agree that W3C should include this type of extra information in any Recommendation that depends on RAND patents (I prefer to call them UFAD for unfair and discriminatory, though)?
I am sure that the W3C is attempting to develop a policy which is "fair" to all the parties. My understanding is that the RAND policy would apply only to a party which participates in the development of the standard, but not to any independent, uninvolved party.
To simplify the issue at the heart of my question, let's assume that all parties are dealing in good faith and comply with relevant disclosure rules.
1. Participants in the standards process have a related patent application on file prior to participation in the standards effort.
2. Non-participants have patent applications already on file that cover the standards related work.
Assuming that one goal of any standards activity should be (make that shall be ) to not disadvantage those who put in the blood-sweat-and-tears to develop the standard, then....
How does W3C envison their Intellectual Property process and RAND such that participants in the standards process are not disadvantaged competitively by having the value of their intellectual property reduced or destroyed because they elect to participate in the standards group?
I would like to hear what the W3C will do when Apache
is patched to forbid serving up content that conforms
to these patented "standards". I predict coders will
make this change to insulate themselves from patent
infringement claims by those members that are currently
pushing the RAND approach.
yahoo? SERIOUSly?
BHAHAHAHAHAH
um, my question. Why?
You can tell because it's barbed prick is wedged firmly in Danny Weitzner ass.
As has been uncovered elsewhere, IBM wants everybody to pay for WSDL.
IBM has a rich legacy of fucking over humanity. Hell, they provided the calculus for Nazi genocide.
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.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
They had a good stand not using patents, but lots of pressure wares you down after a while.
What pressure are we talking about here? I assume you mean large software corps pressuring them. What do the corps have as leverage though? Why can't the W3C just tell them to take a flying leap?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
It seems to me that the existence of a RAND licensing model for W3C standards is not at question at all. The comment period that has been opened by the W3C is for comments regarding how the RAND licensing model should work, not whether the W3C should have (or not have) a way of creating standars that include patented ideas. So my question is : Is there still any chance that the W3C might decide not to promote standards that are not royalty free ? or is a RAND licensing model pretty much a done deal ? only that the details on how it is going to work are beeing discussed.
[This seems to me rather important because the comment period seems to have been created to allow the people to comment on how the RAND licensing model should work. On the other hand, most of the comments that have been posted are focused on the whether a licensing model where patents are allowed should exist at all. If a licensing model that allows patents is a done deal, the open source community should start working on a solution that works for them right away.]
I'm totally lost as to why it is necessary in the first place to arrange for non-discriminatory access. When Open Source is left out of the picture anyway, why not leave it to the market place what Intellectual Property is worth?
Bert Driehuis -- All I asked was a friggin' rotatin' chair. Throw me a bone here, people.
The W3C mission statement asserts that "By promoting interoperability and encouraging an open forum for discussion, W3C commits to leading the technical evolution of the Web." I expect the consortium recognizes that the web's technical evolution also involves the legal and political environment it develops in.
As such, is the W3C committed to leading the evolution of these non-technical aspects of the web to ensure that the web develops towards W3C goals (including universal access, interoperability, and decentralization)? Or, as the proposed RAND policy indicates, does the consortium abdicate its leadership role in the relevant social/political arena and accept the "industry" status quo, especially on something as important as the treatment of intellectual property in standards?
If you believe the W3C does have a leadership role to play beyond mere technical specifications, how does the proposed RAND policy fit with the all of the consortium's goals for the evolution of the web?
"Fickt nicht mit dem Raketemensch!" - Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow
A Consortium is a group of entities/people/companies/whatever consorting/sharing/talking/discussing things. If the W3C started charging, it would be its own entity with interests to protect, and members would no longer have the same motivation for participation. Things would be different, but how?
Have the original reasons for involvement in the W3C been reviewed and rejected? What is the justifying logic in the W3C charter and how does that play into the fees issue?
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
This is admittedly a US-centric question since I realize that other countries have different attitudes towards patents. But here in the USA, our constitution says that only limited time exclusivity priveledges may be granted and that too only to "promote the progress of science and the useful arts" by encouraging the publication of what would otherwise be kept trade secrets. This strikes me as a reasonable attitude.
In the context of the World Wide Web, it seems that the standardization process itself enforces publication to ensure interoperability. And moreover, the network effects and gain in acceptance made possible by an impartial third party standardization process give a strong incentive to technology developers to participate in the standardization process, and thereby publish specifications at least at the interface level.
So any incentive that the patent monopoly might have provided for publication of the interface is much less necessary. Why does the committee think that requiring patent holders to grant a royalty free license to anyone implementing the standard interface is unreasonable in the context of the web? If they have any claims that broad, they clearly do not serve the public policy intentions of the patent process in the context of the WWW.
Developers are free to keep any innovative technical details of how they implement a product that meets that interface secret. They're also free to get a patent on their particular innovations (if they are truly innovative) in these implementations. In fact, it seems to make sense to require patent-holders to grant a royalty-free license to at least one particular unencumbered reference implementation of the complete standard. After all, if no such implementation exists, then the patent is again effectively on the standard itself.
And if no such implementation exists at the time of the standard's adoption, why does the committee feel it is unreasonable to require the patent holders to grant royalty free licenses to all free software developers who so generously offer to create such a reference implementation? (e.g. Mozilla)
He used to be Australian, but to buy TV stations (I believe, might have been some other media asset) he needed to be a US citizen. Surprise, surprise, he became one.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
The only way the RAND policy can be Reasonable and
Non-Discriminatory, if it takes only as much money
from the user as they can gain monetarily from the
Patented standard. That is if it is Microsoft that
is using the standard then they should be paying a
very large amount of money because they would gain
the most. If it is a small company like Redhat,
they can make very little money so they should
be charged less. While free software developers
don't make any money, so they should not be
charged any money.
This is the only way it can be reasonable
and non-discriminatory. I am very much for having
RAND licensing but unless its really RAND, we
should rather not have it. I know my scheme is
too complicated in practise but any RAND scheme
should have a simplified version of the above,
and free software should get the standard free,
otherwise web will not be free anymore.
My question is can we expect the RAND licensing
to reasonable and non-discriminatory to every
body involved including the Free Software people?
IBM, the great supporter of Linux, is also engaged in obtaining many software patents.
If you are being generous to IBM, and other people like the that stand on both sides of the Patent vs. Free Software divide, you can believe that they are doing this in order to defend themselves from the patents of others.
On that basis, you cannot insist that they simply give up Patents on technologies that are to be included in a future standard.
That being the case, perhaps it would be better to make the RAND process define "reasonable" to be that they may only ask for a license fee from people who first attempt to extract a license fee from them, for any patent, whether related or not.
In other words, the patents accepted into the RAND process can only be used to extract fees as a tit-for-tat response. Otherwise, they should be freely usable.
What do you think of this idea?
Debian: GNU/Linux done the Linux way
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:
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
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.
____
If you meet the wabbit on the woad...
Some forms of patent and other protective methods are used in the United States in a form that may be illegal in other countries.
How will the W3C approach this issue?
I realize there's an international code on dealing with patents but as far as I'm aware software patents have not yet been tested in this arena.
but I neither a lawyer nor a US citizen. And most issues around this so far has seemed to me to be US-centric.
Incorporating patented intellectual property in standards or norms is a tricky issue. Disclosure though is essential as the problem of submarine patents is real and scary (not to mention the fact that software patents are not a done deal in many jurisdictions)
:-)
There is another area which the W3C will have to adress soon though if they open the patents can of worm: copyrighted software.
Most software, if not all depending on the legislations, is copyrighted. Even open source/libre/free software is copyrighted. And to me the patent issue is only the tip of the problem, the main IP issue being the copyrights.
Software as long been used in IETF recommendations as reference implementations and they have a clear copyright policy for those programs. The recommendations themselves are always copyrights free, so far at least.
FOr most things like protocols and norms using tcp/ip technology, it is possible to describe the processes and operations using pseudo-code or other description technique, but there are situations where this is not practical. Audio and video codecs come to mind.
How does the W3C plan to adress the eventual inclusion of copyrighted software in the normative parts of standards?
Does the W3C plan to encourage during the darfting process the use of a BSD type licence (the GPL being unfortunately inaceptable here for obvious reasons) for software included as normative parts of standards?
How will the W3C adress the liability issues surrounding the attribution of licences to third parties? Or will the W3C leave users and implementers at the mercy of anyone claiming infringement?
Hey, just a couple questions I have to answer myself in real life
I am corrupt an greedy, so therefore I'd like my slice of the cake as well.
What is your procedure for including a patent of mine into the standard?
Do we go 50/50, or do you normally take a bigger cut?
I'm willing to go 80/20 in your favour, but only this if you can make it a key part of the standard so we can fleece a whole lot of people.
I don't currently have a patent, nor any good ideas, but that doesn't really matter, does it?
One more question, how do you deal with the men with nice suits and Italian accents trying to muscle into your turf?
"The best part? I became an ordained minister while not wearing pants." -- CleverNickName
My background, however, is as a student, and then volunteer involved in learning about, experimenting with, and deploying solutions using Internet related technologies. I first used the Internet in 1992, when I was a student at the University of Cape Town, on a VAX. When I first got access to Unix, it was PS2/AIX on an IBM PS/2 - hardly the most standard of platforms! An experience I still appreciate was being able to get help from the Internet at no cost, either in the form of conversations, or by referring to standards.
Soon after becoming familiar with Internet technologies, I got involved in building networks in schools, often 'scavenging' resources from existing school resources, and re-directing them towards fledgling networks, at a time when the utility of these networks was by no means established to the general public. I.e. no budget.
Now, I'm a consultant, I've got all the gadgets including Palm Pilot and credit cards. If necessary, I can pay a small fee to access something online - although the cost of things in US dollars generally stops me from doing this ($1 US = about R 9 right now). So there's discrimination already.
But in those days, I had (almost) no money and I had no credit card. My first decent modem was bought using an elaborate, and expensive, direct transfer of money to Canada, and shipped due to the good intentions of a friend of mine's Canadian prof. It took quite a while to organise, of course.
The reality for Internet developers is that they often want access to the standards, for reference purposes. The reality of developers in Africa is that they often face significant barriers in interaction with the US economy - lack of funds, difficulty in transferring funds, etc.
So, my question: Given the realities of the situation in Africa, and other parts of the world, how can any licensing fee ever be considered 'non-discriminatory'?
Peter
Why should somebody such as myself continue to contribute (as I have in the past) to ID's/RFC's
for free when in the future I will be charged for using the same standard's I've helped to develop?
The W2C currently has mind share amongst developers, because it is open. If it takes this course and goes 'closed' it loses this goodwill and will probably die as a standards body without considerable contributions in resources and finance from the vested proprietary interests. Since proprietary interests are not open by their nature this would be crying shame. I guess we will just have to start another Open Standards Consortium from scratch.
This list of Authors / Sponsors explains why.
Michele Herman, lawyer, Microsoft Standards Group.
Scott K. Peterson, lawyer, Hewlett-Packard.
Alan Kotok, associate chairman, W3C.
Carl Cargill, director of standards, Sun Microsystems.
Steve Nunn, lawyer and vice-president corporate resources, The Open Group.
Wanda Cox, scientist engineer global standards, Apple Computer.
W. Mike Deese, director of standards strategy, Microsoft.
Gib Ritenour, director technical standards and patent strategy, Nortel Networks.
Martin Ashton, head of technical due diligence and intellectual property, Reuters plc.
Chuck Adams, standards, IBM.
Jean-Francois Abramatic, chairman, W3C.
Mark DeLuca, IP lawyer and partner, Woodcock Washburn (for Microsoft).
Mari Georges, director of research and development, ILOG S.A.
Toon Groenendaal, Philips Electronics.
Ian Jacobs, computer scientist and author
aifProcess Documentaif, W3C.
Daniel Weitzner, lawyer and director technology and society, W3C.
Glen Johnson, Nortel Networks.
Tony E. Piotrowski, Philips Electronics.
Barry Rein, senior partner, Pennie & Edmonds lawyers (for W3C).
Helene Plotka Workman, Apple Computer.
Does RAND licensing discriminate against developers working in countries that allow patents on software and mathetical methods? It would seem very hard, if not impossible, to make RAND, reasonable and non-discriminatory on a world wide basis.
e.g. Wouldn't a US software developer would be at a greater disadvantage to a UK developer because of higher licensing fees?
I'm not saying that I approve of the W3C getting tied up with corporate interests (that, as many have already said, would lead to a de-democratization of the Web), but it would not mean the end of free web development, as some imply.
So let's see.. all those Christians who consider gays an abomination and use the Old Testament to back this up.. should look for something in the New Testament to back it up instead?
However in post-Internet world, it seems to me that the value of a new technology to the community is split -- some of the value derives from the intellectual property created by the company, and some of the value is from the network effect from the participation of the community.
How much of the value of TCP/IP is due to TCP/IP's technical merit -- the quality of its framing algorithm etc, and how much is due to the network effect of everyone using TCP/IP? Or how about HTML -- a valuable technology, but hardly anything special as far as technical merit or intellectual propety goes. The value of HTML derives mostly from its network effect.
I think these examples show that technical merit is not that imporant. The technology needs to be competent, but that's it. What does matter is that the technology as widely adopted as possible. Put another way, the n^2 term in Metcalf's law swamps the contribution of technical merit.
Question:
What do you think the percentage are for value created in the technical merit and network effect for Internet technologies such TCP/IP and HTML? How does the W3C balance adopting new technologies vs. attempting to create the largest possible network effect?
All this discussion of appropriate royalties (and a 5% of 0 [sales cost] being free) ignores the fact that you first NEED to negotiate with patent holder to obtain a license. Price isn't the only license term that is at issue. Patents are not compatible with standards. Royalty-free may be the lesser of the evils, not it HAS to be RFND (Royalty-free AND Non-Discriminatory)
As RMS will no doubt point out, "free" means "not encumbered", not "at no cost". If you have to pay money to someone else to sell a copy of this software, it's encumbered and therefore not "free" in the FSF meaning of the word.
Good piece of lateral thinking, though.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});