W3C Seeks Feedback on VoiceXML

Janet Daly of W3C sent along a note about the VoiceXML 2.0 draft specification. As you may recall, VoiceXML is useful to make your web server speak. Daly points out that as things stand, many members have declared that they have patents related to the standard and would require royalty payments. Like the other W3C/patent issues we've posted about recently, they're seeking public feedback.

jdaly writes: "Today, W3C announced that VoiceXML 2.0 has been issued as a first public Working Draft. Press materials went across various wire services. Rather than send simply a press release here, W3C would like to give more specific information of interest to Slashdot readers. Of note is a section from the "Status of the document" section of VoiceXML 2.0 draft:

"This document seeks Member and public comment on both the technical design and the patent licensing issues arising out of the disclosure and licensing statements that have been made. Our decision to publish this first public working draft has been made to secure early comments from the community, but does not imply that all questions of patent licensing have been resolved or clarified. They must be resolved or work on this document in W3C will stop.

As things stand at the time of publication of this specification, implementations conforming to this specification may require royalty bearing licenses for essential IPR. Further information can be found in the patent disclosures page. The patent policy for W3C as a whole is under wide discussion. A set of commitments by all participants in the Voice Browser Activity to royalty free is a possibility for the future but has NOT been made at time of publication."

As IPR issues are important to Slashdot readers, we are striving to make this information available to them as soon as possible. W3C strongly encourages those with an interest in this specification to consider using the comment list, www-voice@w3.org, which is archived. There is no deadline for comments on a first public Working Draft.

Regards, Janet Daly, W3C"

Comments

Re:W3C policy

[Gid1]

I back the view that the code _should_ be patented, but guaranteed royalty-free. AFAICR, Oracle stick to this policy. Even better, to transfer the patent to the W3C in trust.

The reason being that obtaining a patent is far easier than not owning it and then having to prove prior art in court when some disreputable company patents it later and sues you (the inventor)!

Defensive patenting, basically.

Re:Who needs royalties?

[fonebone]

Sorry, another post was posted while I was typing mine, announcing an open source VoiceXML interpreter. I suppose I spoke about 2 minutes too soon =)

Here's the link for OpenVXI 2.0.

VoiceXML--bane of the new generation!

[The Panther!]

I'm sure people out there need text to speech technology. I'm sure that VXML would be used by some niche that desperately needs it.

I'm also sure that it'll never take over the internet, because it's a different medium, and has the same drawbacks as other spoken media, both citizen band and broadcast. Audio is linear, the web is random access. If you are interested in a portion of a web page, you will skip to that portion immediately, am I right? Besides, audio is almost as intrusive as Flash and Shockwave, only with VXML, it'll be a patented standard. The last thing I like is web sites with noise on them. If I wanted a multimedia experience, I'd play a good game, not Joe Generic's lame attempt at an interactive web page. I surf for information, not for a memorable experience.

Hmmph. Seems to me W3C should be documenting emerging standards, not creating them.

VXML has a purpose and a future

[jone1941]

The issue here isn't that they can't release a new VXML spec. It is that the new spec will logically include ideas that have been patented by other companies.

The big problem is that VXML is currently at 1.0 and companies are pantenting extensions to that spec. Here is a prime example of how rather than getting involved with creating the spec and helping to push out new revisions, the companies start patenting every obvious thing missing from the 1.0 specification. This is obviously going to prevent further revision implementations from emerging from any company that isn't as rich as HP or IBM or MS etc.

As for the usefulness of VXML whoever posted this story missed the boat. VXML isn't used to make your server speak it is used to quickly create a IVR system. This is really a useful ability that few slashdotters have realized.