Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

W3C Policy To Favor Royalty-Free Patents Only

Posted by timothy on from the good-guys-in-the-corner-pocket dept.

A report on NewsForge notes that the Last Call Working Draft of the World Wide Web Consortium's patent policy has reversed the possibility found in earlier drafts of allowing patents in Web standards which required "Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory" (RAND) licensing fees. This draft is the result of the vote by the W3C's patent policy board mentioned last month, which came after a proposed loosening of the royalty-free standards in the Fall of 2001.

5 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Nice, but by Duderstadt · · Score: 4, Interesting
    While I commend the W3C for demanding royalty-free licenses, I am not exactly sure that this makes a great deal of difference at this time.

    There are, AFAIK, currently dozens (hundreds?) of closed and open source implementations of virtually every defined W3C specification, all royalty free. Just as an example, I have used four or five XML/XSL parsers, some OSS, some not. Am I wrong about this?

    Perhaps someone out there can inform me if RAND licences are required to implement any of the existing W3C specs?

  2. Heh? SVG? by justsomebody · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I hope this puts flash out of bussines. It would be time for SVG to replace standard flash.

    Let the proprietary follow free standards.

    --
    Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
  3. Better yet get rid of Patents on Software. by BoomerSooner · · Score: 5, Interesting

    How nice would that be? I've yet to see patents do a damn thing but stifle innovation. How the fuck can someone interpret a law written in the 1800's to apply to 21st Century society.

    All laws should expire, if they are worthy they will be renewed (could you imagine the crisis if murder was legal for a day?).

  4. Royalty free - how 'bout JPG, for example? by Weaselmancer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From the article: The draft policy now provides that all patents necessary to implement W3C specifications must be "royalty-free".

    What does this imply for the now patented and non-royalty-free JPG and GIF? If I read this right (IANAL), I believe it says that only royalty-free patents can be a part of spec. In a nutshell, it appears JPG and GIF are SOL.

    I think it would be great if W3C took a stand against abusive patents. This could be a really good thing, in disguise.

    Weaselmancer

    --
    Weaselmancer
    rediculous.
  5. Re:This is good, but... by rusty0101 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Nothing says you have to follow standards. Unless you market the product as "Standards Based." Even then...

    --
    You never know...