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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.
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.
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.
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
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
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?
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.
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 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,
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.
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
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
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/
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?
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.
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"
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...
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.
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.
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