Slashdot Mirror
W3C Ponders RAND Again
simonstl writes "Three unnamed W3C participants have suggested a new RAND policy that would let the W3C into the business of charging royalties for patent-encumbered specs. No consensus yet, but they sure seem to keep trying."
One minute the W3C are complaining about people who don't stick to their standards, and the next they're stating that using the standards might cost you money. Its madness.
The web was built on open and unrestricted standards, yet the people in charge seem keen to bow to pressure from a few special interest groups (and does anyone believe the proposers of this licensing aren't massive corporations with deep pockets) and cut off the thing that made it grow in the first place. I despair, sometimes.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Now I am fully of the happily coexist school of free vs. commercial software, but it strikes me as a little fishy that the organization responsible for setting the standards that everyone supposedly has to follow on the web will also stand to make a profit off of those standards. Doesn't exactly make for unbiased decision making.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
To the Slashdot discussion that appeared on how webmasters were coding mostly for Microsoft Internet Explorer.
I mean, IE already does not respect the W3C standards as well as it should. And it is the dominant force on the net today.
If W3C was to charge money for some IP, what can prevent MS from saying: "Fsck off, we will set the standards, because we are the standard"?
Think about it. And be afraid. Be very afraid.
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Unless I misunderstood, they are not saying that they would consider charging for IP. It appears to me that they were discussing how to handle standards proposals that included licensable, royalty work. That the normal(?) process is to break a specification into non-royalty works and royalty works in such a way that the non-royalty works would not depend on the royalty works and that the royalty works would be farmed out to another organization.
"When non-royalty-free IPR is discovered in a W3C Working Group, a Patent Advisory Group (PAG) might have a number of possible outcomes. The proposal suggests that the Working Group's specification could be split in two. "Core" work to be licensed royalty-free would be produced as a W3C Recommendation. "Extensions" that may require royalties could be done at W3C or by another standards organization."
The question appeared to be if that should continue. Of if W3C could work on the royalty works as well or if they could not go through the trouble of splitting the proposal and work on the entire thing.
"One person suggested Extensions work be dropped. Some said work at the other standards organization needs to be a cooperative effort with W3C. One person suggested a hybrid all produced at W3C. One asked if the Core/Extensions split makes Extensions work less important than Core. The consensus seemed to be that specs built on top of Core work are valuable and that standardizing them is important."
I have to use this cause I can't afford a real sig...
From: dank@kegel.com2 6/#sec-Exception
which says
"In the event a patent has been disclosed that may be essential,
but is not available on RF terms, then a Patent Advisory Group
(PAG) will be launched to resolve the conflict."
implies that RAND will be used only when a patent is truly
essential. But the proposal you mentioned above talks about
extensions. By definition, an extension is not essential.
Therefore the W3C's existing public statements don't support
the kind of exception proposal you mentioned.
If I understand correctly, the W3C's position on RAND as described in http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-patent-policy-200202
You are aware you're treading on very dangerous ground here, I'm sure. Care to identify the three participants who are eager to introduce extensions that require royalty payments? - Dan
I need to buy this guy a beer and a pizza because he replies to the heart of the matter. What part of NO did a few members not understand from the last time they tried going this way. Well, let me reiterate, NO, NO, NO. I'd love to join W3C and kick some ass over there but unfortunately I don't have the $5,750 to cover their 'affiliate' membership fee. Bastards!
We all know RAND is incompatible with open source. Without open source, there would be no W3C! If every open source browser stopped supporting new standards, there would be only one dominant browser. That one browser shows no intentions of adhearing to the W3C's standards. How can the W3C not see this?!? Without open source, they are DEAD!
No, this is not about W3C staff wanting RAND specifications.
It's about what to do if we're working on a specification that the community (including the open source community) needs/wants, and we discover that some aspect of it is covered by software patents.
In that case, you might not be able to have an open source implementation, and W3C has to ask, (1) should the work be dropped altogether, or (2) is there a central core that can be implemented freely, avoiding the patent? If so, should the non-free part still be standardised, and under what terms?
By making an extension to a specification, an implementation can conform without that (possibly non-free) extension, but at the same time w3C can require W3C member organizations to agree to "non-discriminatory" terms, i.e. forcing them to agree to licence the patent to their competitors.
That may be better than having no specification at all, I don't know.
Note: I work at W3C, and am not involved in the specific work mentioned, nor in the patent policy group.
Live barefoot!
free engravings/woodcuts
Don't get your panties in a wad just yet
Translation: "Be sufficiently cowed by my pre-emtive ad-homonim attack so as not to speak out on this important issue"
Unless I misunderstood, they are not saying that they would consider charging for IP.
This is deceptive semantics. It makes no difference whether it is the w3c charging a patent royalty, or Microsoft charging a patent royalty. If the royalty is requried to adhere to a w3c standard because the fools have incorporated patented material into the standard, then the damage is done regardless of who the web/browser authors have to pay the Vig to, and a once open and free (beer, speech) standard will have become much less open and very unfree, i.e. it will have become worse than worthless to the majority of small web publishers and free software authors, it will have become something to be actively avoided.
It appears to me that they were discussing how to handle standards proposals that included licensable, royalty work. That the normal(?) process is to break a specification into non-royalty works and royalty works in such a way that the non-royalty works would not depend on the royalty works and that the royalty works would be farmed out to another organization.
There is already a procedure in place: do not allow patent-encumbered works into open internet standards, period. As another poster pointed out, which part of No! No! No! didn't they understand the last time around? This is an attempt to change the procedure to allow something which, for very good reason, is disallowed now, i.e. the incorporation of patented procedures into w3c standards that will result in an open and free standard becoming encumbered, less open, and not free at all (in any sense).
In other words, this is yet another sordid attempt to sneak patented work into the standard through the back door, and it deserves every bit of derision and outrage it is getting.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I'm directly involved in one of the W3C standard efforts - VoiceXML - where RAND is in demand by some of the larger participants. The RAND issue is driven by two things:
1. Failing business at larger corporations. Companies like Motorola and Lucent are falling quickly, and they are looking to patent & license the technologies behind standards in a desperate attempt to increase revenue.
2. Microsoft. From the inside, it's obvious that Microsofts anti-open-source strategy is to "RAND"ify as many standards as they can. Privately, I can tell you that many of Microsofts RAND agreements require *$0.00* in payment, but are written in such a way that they prevent open source implementations.
Closed standards are not standards.
Proprietary standards are not standards.
Whether you want it or not, if you propose acceptance of RAND specifications, then you are proposing that the W3C cease to be a standards body.
The purpose of a standard is to define the way in which things should be done. If a patent prevents them from being done in some way, then that is not a possible standard way to do them. Something which had been a standard, if prevented from use by a patent, should be withdrawn, and the name made unuseable. (If names are trademarked, this means revoking all authorization to use the name. Otherwise it means revoking all authorization to use the name of the W3C in conjunction with the prior standard.)
Anything less is unacceptable. Patents are only allowable as long as they to not impede standard conforming usage.
"non-descriminatory" is a term created by companies that intend to descriminate. It is blatant camoflage, and should not be acceptable. Non-free specifications are not standards, and cannot become standards as long as they remain non-free. The concepts are in direct opposition. Proprietary is feasible, but there is a strong tendency to confuse proprietary with the right to be paid. So to be explicit here, if you must pay to use a specification, then it cannot qualify as a standard. Perhaps one would need to pay to be certified as standard compliant. That's a totally separate matter. The right to certify something as being W3C standard compliant must inevitably belong to the W3C, and perhaps it wouldn't be unreasonable for them to delegate that right to a third party. But charging for the use of a standard is incompatible with the concept of standards.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.