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W3C Revises Patent Royalty Policy
Jeff Heaton writes: "Looks like W3C is backing down on allowing companies to charge royalties for technologies that are incorporated into a W3C standard. In a controversial proposal made public last fall, the consortium debated whether to allow companies to charge royalty fees if their technologies are used in a standard." The new draft is online.
So patented, royalty producing material can be freely incorporated into web standards now and it is completely endorsed by W3? How long before web browsers have a meter built-in that shows you how much the current website you are visiting is charging you to park there?
This may just be business, but its starting to smell like a garbage dump to me.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
Pretty often, really. But only when it's based on fear, ignorance, or spite. When the public outcry is based on a rational reason, it almost never gets heard. Probably because so many people don't take the time to think rationally, preferring to simply accept whatever is spoon-fed them by [RIAA|MPAA|Government|etc.] right up until it nails them personally.
Pretty much everyone, however, has an emotional response to inflammatory rhetoric. Just look at how people respond on everyone's favorite site whenever some sort of pro-[Windows|MS|Proprietary software|etc.] comment gets posted.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
"There is still an open question of what's going to happen in the case that we run into tech that's only available for a fee. That could happen regardless of what our policy is. We still have to sort out what happens in that exceptional case," he said. God only knows how many non-standard "features" that IE implements. This fact has failed to crash the net. I assume if browser makers wished to do the same with patented technology, they certainly could. It would probably be hard to keep giving the things away, though.