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W3C Seeks Feedback on VoiceXML

Posted by michael on from the play-nicely dept.

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"

6 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. HP changes its declaration to royalty-free by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 4, Informative
    HP will change its declaration in this matter to royalty-free in accordance with the royalty-free-only patent policy that HP urged on W3C.

    Thanks

    Bruce

    --
    Bruce Perens.
  2. Confused Why they want *That* by 4of12 · · Score: 3, Funny

    I thought that feedback was one of the biggest problems with voices. My ears still ring from a Who concert years ago!

    --
    "Provided by the management for your protection."
  3. We needed this four years ago by cnkeller · · Score: 3, Funny
    "I'm being slashdotted!" was the cry from web servers everywhere....

    Sorry couldn't resist.

    --

    there are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots

  4. Announcing open source VoiceXML interpreter by First+Person · · Score: 4, Informative

    OpenVXI 2.0 was released just last week. According to the message on the VXI-discuss mailing list:

    OpenVXI is a portable open source library that interprets the VoiceXML 1.0 dialog markup language. It provides a full implementation of the VoiceXML 1.0 specification, including all required features and nearly all optional features. Where the VoiceXML 1.0 specification is vague or incomplete, OpenVXI follows industry direction to fill the gaps.

    See http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu:/openvxi/ for details and source and binary downloads.

    There is currently support for Windows (binaries are included) and Linux. Developers are currently working to add Solaris and Mac OS X.

    NOTE: This is a VoiceXML interpreter. A real system would require a full speech recognition engine and a full text-to-speech implementation. SpeechWorks International ships a commercial version which connects to their recognizer and TTS products. This is a good playground for experimentation.

    --
    Given one hour to live, the student replied: "I'd spend it with professor FP who can make an hour seem like a lifetime."
  5. Re:W3C policy by Gid1 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  6. Holy crap by fobbman · · Score: 3, Funny

    It is usually the pr0n business that implements new technology, both on the Internet and home multimedia fronts. While it could be really cool to have those nekkid pictures talking to me, the idea of all of those pop-ups literally screaming out at me a dozen at a time would really freak me out.