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Act Now To Sidestep A W3C Patent Pitfall
Here is what the Free Software Foundation says on its front page about this bug:
"The W3C 'Royalty-Free' patent policy proposal does not protect the rights of the Free Software community to full participation in the implementation and extension of web standards. Please read more on this issue and send a comment to the W3C."
Part of the effort that moved the W3C to its present position was a furious outpouring of comments in opposition to the original proposal of the Englobulators:
- www.w3.org/2001/ppwg
- www.w3.org/2001/10/patent-response
- lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-patentpolicy-comment
- lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-patentpolicy-comment/2001Oct/thread.html
The fix needed right now is a small fix. But the W3C must again be reminded with what jealous vigor we guard our right to build our Web the way we have built it down to this day, using free software. The bug appears in Item 3 of Section 3, titled 'W3C Royalty-Free (RF) Licensing Requirements,' of the present proposal.
This Item allows for a supposedly free grant to use a patent to be so restricted that a piece of Web infrastructure software might be encumbered if used for some non-Web use. Since the GPL does not allow such encumbrancing, GPL-ed Web software re-purposed for non-Web use could not be legally freely redistributed. Please read the Free Software Foundation's page on this bug.
Here is the official Last Call for Comments.
If you write a comment in your own words, for repair of the bug, it will help. I shall write in, and I shall argue against adoption of the buggy sub-section. I shall also suggest an extension of the deadline for comments.
The FSF wants the W3C to force anyone wishing to use a patent as part of a web standard to give a royalty free license to everyone no matter what the use of the patented technology including non-web software. I don't see how non-web software is any of W3C's concern. Nor do I see how the FSF forcing this issue is going to make the web world better.
If the FSF wants all software free, great! But, let's not waste everyone's time fighting in the wrong forums.
Also of note:
Working Draft, W3C Patent Policy...
Abstract:
...When in doubt, think for yourself.
But web licenses have different problems and agendas to software licenses. The web depends on open standards being used across the board to fully work. As soon as some parties go off and create their own proprietary extensions, and then build a considerable presence on the web, the freedom of users who don't wish to use this extension, or who cannot, is severely limited. This has been one of the problems with technologies like Flash, though happily the problems are being ironed out by Macromedia and web designers.
So you've got to ensure that commercial entities can incorporate the standards in their software, yes (I don't think anyone was suggesting the contrary; perhaps the LGPL, designed for libraries with just the sort of get-out clauses you seem to suggets by implication). But you also have to provide a strong incentive for people who extend the protocls to ensure compatability, and where it becomes necessary, to open the new standards they are creating.
And those are taken from just the top 22 posts in the list...
"Truth is not decided by majority vote" consensus gentium -- Norman Geisler
A spec isn't source code. When you apply the GPL to a DOCUMENT rather than to a piece of code, all it ends up meaning is that you can't make a closed extension to that document, not that you can't use the standard it describes in commercial closed software. (So let's say that hypothetically the document describing HTTP was GPL'ed. That wouldn't mean all software implementing HTTP would have to be GPL'ed, as you seem to be trying to imply. It would mean if someone takes that HTTP-describing document and decides to branch a new version of it that has additional proprietary commands in it, that that new document would have to be GPLed.)
GPL-ing the standards document doesn't "infect" software that implements what that document describes unless you cut & paste the text of the document verbatim into that software's source code. (And, NO, saying something like, "/* This next bit of code implements part 3 of the whatsihoosit compliance document */" doesn't count as "including" that document in the code.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Considering you intentionally block the W3C validator
I can't help but think that's about the stupidest thing /. has ever done (though I may be wrong). I mean, what's the point? Lame jokes about the crappy output of your Perl scripts got you down? How about fixing it instead??
You can't GPL a specification, that doesn't make any sense. You can GPL a document which contains a specification, but to protect the specification itself, you would have to patent it.
The GPL has nothing to do with patents, it has to do with copyright. If patents try to assert control over copy-rights, then the GPL has something to say.
If that is it, I suppose an illustration of the implementation and the problem, would be that if GIFs were part of the standard, then we could read them from the web, and generate them for the web, but using the software for non-web purposes would be restricted?
I think what they're saying here is that people could patent use of software outside the domain of the web, and use the patented technology as part of the web standard... crippling implementations of free software in such a way that they cannot evolve beyond the web. Could intranets be a problem?
I don't really get it, as a patent is a patent is a patent. There are plenty of things free software can't do now just because of patents. This may actually be to our bennefit as patent-encumbured technologies would have to shed control if they wanted to be incorporated into the web...
Insert obligatory "patents are stupid" comment here.
So I'll paste a bit from the fsf site:
Here's a detailed step-by-step example that shows how this problem could play out:
Programmer P downloads the Konqueror web browser, receiving it under terms of GPL.
P learns of a new web standard that requires exercising a technique for parsing URLs that is patented by Corporation C. C has licensed the patent under an RF, non-exclusive license, but with a "field of use" restriction that says the license can be used to "implement the standard". The standard, as it turns out, covers only what browsers must do with URLs, and says nothing about the server side or clients that aren't user browsers.
P implements this technique in Konqueror, and seeks to redistribute the modified version on his website so that other users can benefit from Konqueror now complying with the standard. If he does, he is bound by the GPL under copyright law, because he is redistributing a modified version.
However, he knows full well of a condition on that code that contradicts the GPL (violating Section 7) -- namely, he knows that C's patent license prohibits folks from taking his URL parsing code and putting it into, say, a search engine. Therefore, under GPL Section 7, he is prohibited from redistribution.
You might think that he can simply assign his copyright to the existing copyright holder of Konqueror let distribution happen from that source. They could distribute under GPL, but they would be granting a self-contradicting license. Nothing (to my knowledge, but IANAL) prohibits someone from distributing copyrighted works under licenses that make no sense and are self-contradictory. However, it is certainly true that those who receive distribution of the works are stuck and can't undertake further distribution or modification themselves.
The way I understand it is that it can create a weird situation. Suppose I write code to parse Yahoo pages to extract information from them. Suppose that Yahoo uses some technology licensed in this way on their site. Now they can stop me because it's not a web browser.
Jesus christ..
I hate being Mr-RMS-protector and GPL-Anti-Basher, but the amount of bad "information" and people throwing completely unrelated things around infuriates me.
As some others have tried to say, this has nothing to do with the GPL putting the idea in some sort of "forced distribution" form as the author of the original comment would have you believe.
The GPL doesn't put restrictions on the distribution of ideas, only their implementations.
Here's an analogy as I see it:
Say I'd patented the idea of drawing pictures on a computer screen, and up until now the web (and computers in general) were only text base. Yes I'm stretching, but go with me for a second. I want to put pictures in a W3C standard, but I don't want to give up my right to charge money for my one-handed picture-viewing slideshow program. I submit it to the W3C standard and say "It's okay for people to use my patented idea for free for web applications." Now someone goes and makes a graphics-enabled web browser and distributes it under the GPL. Someone else then takes that GPL code and turns it into a GPL'd one-handed slideshow program -- a right the GPL affords them. Suddenly they are in violation of my patent. But the original author of the graphical web browser didn't break my patent, and the person who modified it into the slideshow program didn't disobey the license on the web browser..
And that's the problem being addressed as I see it. Note how it has nothing to do with the GPL "virally infecting" the patented idea?
Next time, read the article (and perhaps the GPL) before getting on your little pedastal. Thank you, please drive thru.
Seriously, you have no clue what you're talking about. This has nothing to do with GPLing the standard (if that were even possible).
It's about allowing the standard to be implemented using GPL'd software. That's it. Nothing about limiting non-GPL implementations.
Note that most (all?) common web protocols can and are implemented in both GPL'd and commercial software. These guys are just trying to make sure that this continues to be true.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
For example the Open Source Definiton says:
>A monopoly over the Internet is just
>as bad in the hands of OSS developers
>as it would be in the hands of Microsoft.
How? Tell me how that would be worse... If OSS dominated the web, you would be able to use any OS to access the web, and not have to pay for it. People would be able to not worry about strange patent limitations and being sued for single-click patents. The GPL places no restrictions on content created on the web, so anything on the web would be on the web in such a scenario. Any company that wanted to make a closed source application would not be prohibited, or secretly (or blatently, as the case may be) shut out of the standards committee.
So tell me how the web would be worse if it were dominated by the OSS instead of MS. Or shut up.
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
The point he is trying to make, in my case, is that companies may, under the current policy, use the said clause to specifically sabotage a GPLed piece of software that is trying to implement a standard.
An example of this would be if a commercial corporation (call it company X) comes up with a new piece of technology (call it WWW++ for here), which instantly becomes a hit. So, there is a big push for WWW++ to become a web standard, and company X agrees that they have the write to us WWW++, but only in terms of web development. However, since this is incompatible with the GPL, what this would mean is that anything trying to implement WWW++ cannot be licensed under the GPL. Therefore, singlehandedly by making a popular web standard, a company can say that this web standard cannot be used under certain licenses. We all know companies which would like to do this.
What is being proposed instead, would take away that clause. It would not harm commercial implementations of the standard at all. In fact, commercial implementations would even benifit from the removal of the clause because it would give them more freedom of action. What the removal of the clause would do is ultimately give developers more freedom to work with the next generation web standards, to foster the kind of innovativeness on the part of the developers without having to constantly looking for patent violations, and to continue the tradition of the free web as much as possible.
This Item allows for a supposedly free grant to use a patent to be so restricted that a piece of Web infrastructure software might be encumbered if used for some non-Web use.
The issue for me as an architect (I have written IETF, W3C and OASIS standards) is that I don't necessarily own all the IP that I need to address a problem. If I need to get an IP owner to donate their property for the common good my job is easiest if I have to ask for as little as is necessary for the particular purpose.
Equally when I hold the IP I see little point in giving away more than I need to for the purpose of the Web specification even though my company does not regard patent licensing as a revenue stream. The point is that I might need some IP held by a party that deals in the non-Internet world. I will have an easier time negotiating a license for Internet use if I have some bargaining chips.
The FSF reading on the situation is 100% about their ideology and has nothing to do with real needs as far as I am concerned. Open Source software is not imune to the patent system. If you modify any open source software sufficiently you will run into a patent infringement.
If you apply the FSF "logic" you would have to stop distributing gzip because someone could modify it so that it infringed the Unisys LZ patents.
The W3C does not have a monopoly on standards making and in fact is already seeing a lot of the standards work migrating from to OASIS. Dealing with the cumbersome W3C process and formatting conventions is bad enough without additional IP roadblocks being errected.
At the end of the day the IP policy is utterly irrelevant since nobody is going to use the specification unless the IP terms are acceptable and they are going to determine what is acceptable, not Tim and certainly not RMS. To date that has generally meant 'free as in beer' however there are many applications where that is simply not achievable, if you want to do voice browsing you will run into IP issues and your choice will be do something encumbered or don't do it at all.
Don't do it at all may be the FSF answer, but he does not pay $57,500 a year for W3C membership dues. The point that Tim has missed is that the W3C membership is already annoyed on the value for money front, W3C is way more expensive to join than OASIS where we pay $10K. We are also far from happy on the bogus process front, it took me almost a year to get a W3C working group started. I am not happy with a set of document publication rules that are 'standards based' but turn out to mean that you can only edit standards with one editor.
The last thing W3C needs to do at this stage is to reopen the IP issue with the membership.
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Jay Sulzberger is the one on the right with the beanie:k =327588
No, really.
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLin
I don't see the problem. Patents are about usage, not duplication. They prevent usage of a device or technique without a license. The GPL is about duplication, not usage. It prevents/requires restrictions on duplication and redistribution in whole and in part.
Even if it weren't that way, the worst case scenario is you'd need a different "free" license than the GPL for the code which was patent encumbered. Folks, the GPL is not holy doctrine. Its a convenient way to gift code with more of an ability to force your morals on the recipient than public domain offers. Its nothing more.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Bzzt -- there's no such thing as a specification that's GPLed, or at least I've never seen such a beast. Your post isn't very clear, but it seems you believe that the FSF is trying to promote standards that permit only GPLed implementations -- which isn't even close to what's going on.
The W3C has adopted a limp-wristed patent policy which would allow a patented technology X into web standards, so long as it was licensed for free use within the context of the relevant web technologies -- but no one, not even commercial entities, would be able to write software which imitated X outside the realm of the WWW. That's bad for everybody except the lawyers.
The only thing this even has to do with the GPL is that the GPL can't be applied to software which is restricted by patents in this way.
The GPL is not an unrestricted license.
True, the GPL does not remove all restrictions which copyright law imposes. How is that relevant to the matter at hand? The matter at hand (I think) is whether we should ensure that standards are implementable by free/Libre software.
I would tend to oppose the use of a standard in which the specification is GPL'd ...
The GPL doesn't really make sense when we're talking about something like a document. That's why the FSF folks came up with their free document license. Again, there seems to be no connection to the matter at hand. Now look at the next paragraph:
If the author of a GPL'd work wishes to submit the protocol involved as a standard, then let him submit it as FREE. He can keep the code GPL'd, but the standard must be free for use -- even by commercial entities.
This seems to confirm the confusion that the earlier lines hinted at. This talks about restrictions on the text of standards, rather than restrictions on the use of standards.
This post seems to me to be off-topic. It is tangentially related, perhaps, but it definitely doesn't advance the discussion.
It might be considered inflammatory, and it almost seems to be deliberately confused, as if it were intended to provoke impassioned responses. In short, it has a smell of troll, or simple ignorance. Now, look at the moderation:
Moderation Totals: Insightful=3, Informative=1, Overrated=1, Total=5.
Three insightfuls and an informative? Moderators, if you don't know, don't moderate. Somebody with some mod points should tack on a couple more Overrated's, too.
See what I've been reading.
Let me try to make it clearer with an example. Ford owns the copyright to the Ford cars. But that doesn't mean that Toyota can't also make a Toyota car.
But if Ford has a patent required for making *any* car (e.g. a component or standard required by law), Toyota is screwed.
This is about patents in internet standards which would prevent any GPL implementation. I don't understand what you're trying to say. Is ISS illegal because Apache exists? NO. But would Apache be illegal if Microsoft/ISS had a patent on HTTP? YES!
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
So that the code rights remain the same but any original data structure or algorithm in the program automatically go into the public domain.
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
That is not quite right, we never relased any code under the GPL. We released the libwww code as public domain, it is not GPL, it is not BSD, it is public domain.
When GPL was being discussed it was in the context of 'make it free', the GPL was rejected because it did not make the cern code free in the ways we wanted it to be free. We explicitly wanted browsers to be included with computers as a cost free part of the basic operating system. Remember that at the time (91) Mosaic had not even appeared, let alone Netscape. The point is that Tim never wanted the viral aspect and dropped the GNU angle as soon as it was explained to him.
In the end the public domain route was in large part dictated by political expediency. Explaining GPL or BSD to cern management would have taken a lot more time and led to more opportunity for confusion. Putting the code in the public domain was something they could understand - it had already been done with much of the CERN libraries.
The mistake that was made was public domain rather than BSD. If we had gone BSD then Mosaic would have been required to state that it used CERN code (60% of the Mosaic code was code from CERN used without attribution). That in turn would have meant that IE would have a credit. As it was the mainstream media did not recognize Tim as the true father of the Web until about 1996, and then only as a result of a major PR campaign led by MIT.
I would certainly advise researchers to use the BSD license in their code. I would strongly advise against the GPL if you want your ideas to be taken up by industry.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
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You don't know what you are talking about.
The GPL does not in any way restrict standards.
It is patents appearing in standards that restricts the use of standards.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Quite simply, nothing in the article or the submission said anything about GPLing the W3C standard. It just pointed out a legal inconsistency between the new W3C patent requirements and the ABILITY to write your own GPLed implementation of future W3C standards.
I think you didn't read and/or fully understand the issue.
I repeat:
I think you didn't read and/or fully understand the issue.
This is not about GPL, any specific license, etc. This is about standards that have been defined by W3C being patentable in non-web use.
A simple example, as I understand would be
- W3C adopts a method for special content delivery patented by company A as a standard
- W3C policy states that this standard is now freely implementable by anyone for use via web (item 3) only
- W3C isn't involved in non-web delivery;
- Hence, company A is free to claim its patent rights for implementation and distribution of its patented delivery method via e-mail, file sharing client, instant messenger, etc.
Now, you may agree or disagree with the submitter or the FSF, but taking a shot at GPL isn't warranted because that's not what is at stake. You have completely missed the point.
Well, I did my part - I wrote up a message explaining why I felt the section should go, and mailed it off.
I got back an automated response saying the message had been accepted, then a seperate message saying that I would have to visit here to give permission to post the message to the mailing list and store it. However, trying out that link gives me the message:
Error: There is no message with id: 3a9041e823e02419d0f7ddd1223cf918b8a3e226. Please make sure you have cut and pasted the URI correctly.
So, good luck to those trying to remove the offending wording if those opposed can't even submit persistent comments!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Wonderfully put.
Education is the silver bullet.
Currently, the last comment I see is three days old: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-patentpoli cy-comment/2002Dec/
I hope Slashdot's last-minute comments aren't headed into the bitbucket.
Okay, who's the moron out there that believes a post asserting a difference between GPLing of spec documents verses actual code is somehow "offtopic" under a post that's about GPLing specs infecting closed code, which in turn was under an article about GPLing spec documents? The only way to be more on-topic would be to be the person submitting the original article. But whether or not something is on-topic has nothing to do with whether or not you agree that it's true.
Is someone moderating posts at random here?
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Look at MP3s. MP3s have patent encumbrances that make them fundamentally incompatible with the GPL. Thus a company like Red Hat cannot legally use and distribute MP3 player software under the GPL without getting sued (unless they pay license fees to Thompson or whoever it is that has the MP3 patents). The proliferation of Free Software (and other free-as-in-herpes tools) for using MP3s are the primary reason that MP3 has become such a widely adopted standard. The Free Software community helped make profits for a company that obfuscated what their patents claims until their standards caught on, then tried to rape money from everyone who touched it.
Quite simply, nobody needs patents on things like SVG, HTML and so on to compete as a commercial company. If they tell you they do, they are lying. On the other hand, Free Software (at least GPLed software, and that's one of the most common Free Software licenses out there) CANNOT EXIST if standards are patent-encumbered under the current proposal. Realistically, your proposal that patent-free standards would give a monopoly to OSS developers is outrageous and unbelievable on the face of it.
Why can't the companies compete on the merits of their products, and if they want a proprietary, patented format for something, let them have it, but there's no need for the W3C to codify it as a standard and thereby endorse it. If they need proprietary intellectual property, let them patent supporting technologies that somehow complement the standard, not the technology that forms part of the standard itself.
From the FSF's Position on Proposed W3 Consortium "Royalty-Free" Patent Policy:
Joe: Hey Hank, watch my service compress voice traffic using mpeg technology!
Hank: No, no, Joe! Don't do that!
(Richard Stallman bursts through the wall of the office, ten feet tall and snarling viciously)
Stallman: Who did it? Who's the dirty cur who's putting patented technologies into web services on my internet?
Err... yes, that's it, I see... if we let free software implement web standards legally, then the OSS "faction" will... seize control, or
FFFII SWpat working group takes action on very similar issues.
http://swpat.ffii.org
and even more important there is a very successful petition against software patents:
http://www.noepatents.org
Internet standards published by the W3C are meant for everybody in the world to adhere to and use; that's the point of having Internet standards. Now, what good are those standards if some people can't adhere to them because the standard requires the use of royalty-encumbered patented concepts? If you want everybody in the world to adopt your idea as a standard, you have to give them access to it...
The bad assumption is that the GPL is infallible and thus immutable.
If the clause would lead to a situation where you can't release standard-compliant software under the GPL...
Don't use the GPL for the software.
Problem solved.
Am I the only one who thinks accomodating a particular software license is pretty low on the list of considerations when writing a standard?
The FSF "Everything must work with the GPL or else" is a very... Seatle Corporation perspective.
paintball
It's not that the W3C Team want to see software patents or encumbered specifications. But we can't make them go away.
So the question becomes, how do we survive, and how does the Web survive, and move forward, in a world with software patents?
Part of that involves negotiation with the large companies who hold the largest patent portfolios: it would be almost useless trying to publish a patent policy document if the holders of most of the patents didn't agree to it. So there are some pretty complex constraints.
Simply writing to say, software patents are bad, isn't going to help much. But if you have solid constructive ideas on how to change things, or on how to come to consensus and agreement both with GPL implementations of specifications and with the need that large organizations have stated they have, to keep patents for "deefensive use", I think that would be very helpful.
Of course, just writing to say you like the current draft patent policy, or that you want to see some specific change, or that you don't like it and why, is also helpful, although it does add work for W3C staff, who are obliged to reply to every comment!
If you really want to make a difference, write to your political representative - congressperson, member of european parliament, MP, etc. - and say that software patents are bad for business, are bad for research, are bad for the future of the world, and will cause Orcs to attack Helm's Deep.
Well, maybe Helm's Deep isn't about patents, and not everyone agrees patents (or orcs!) are bad, But if you want software patents to go away you need to be heard. The DMCA had approx. 300 public comments; writing really does make a difference.
Disclaimer: I am XML Activity Lead at W3C.
Live barefoot!
free engravings/woodcuts
Nor does it make it impossible for GPL software to make use of the patents. If you want to use a patent in GPL software, put that routine under the MIT license, which does not have the GPL's language regarding patents, and can link with GPL work. This work-around was suggested by Eben Moglen.
This doesn't mean I support software patents. I think they should be eliminated. But we can't eliminate software patents through W3C - only through legislatures.
I'll end this with a plea to Jay Sulzberger. Jay, you are working to destroy two years of work by myself, Eben Moglen, and Larry Rosen. You didn't participate in the patent policy working group. I didn't see you volunteer. You don't sufficiently understand the issues yet. Please help us get the current W3C policy accepted, so that things will get better instead of worse.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Like I said, I'm willing to accept the terms of the current agreement on patent licensing policy by the W3C, but I still think it's worth noting the potential problems created by this policy and I appreciate the fact that somebody brings them up. And I don't see how making a stink with the government will help - while I agree that software patents are generally a bad thing, I don't see why the only way to keep patents out of the standards process is to ban software patents entirely (not going to happen in the US anytime soon).
I believe you meant zealous.
:-)
Have a great new year, Tim!
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
The W3C has never been a standards body. They have been a bunch of people that came in after the fact and "defined a standard" -- poorly. Out side of some of the Open browsers no one in the real world cares about W3C's web standards and the only other thing they did was XLM which anyone who understands real computer science will know is a nasty way to pass info around since file corruption errors diverge into two states one eats up infinite memory, the other infinite time.
I don't care what w3c does and the sooner they shoot themselves in the foot (or head) in order to suck up to any sort of funding they can find, the sooner the real world will totally ignore them and I can stop explaining to comsci newbies why these people are doing evil but ignorable things.
I could write more, but you get the picture.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Holy shit, this had me laughing for ten minutes... if you scroll down that page you'll find the NYLUG guys in a lot of errmm... interesting situations.
Lawsuits are a sign of freedom. They're a sign that the government has decided to leave as much as possible to the free market and the law of contract and tort, and not to come in with a big wet fucking nanny
If freedom is a lack of government (aka, anarchy), just remember that this whole debate is about patents, which are a product of the government. Thus, by your logic, they represent a loss of freedom, and so your whole rant becomes meaningless.
For every post, there is an equal and opposite re-post.
The OSD would apply to patents that the licensor owns. I reject the notion that some third party can make your software non-OSD-compliant by filing for a patent. If we let that happen, there'd be no Open Source software at all.
If you're trying to establish which software provides certain freedoms then whether it's the author or someone else who has restricted those freedoms is irrelevant. What's the point of being able to identify something as being "open source software" if potentially none of the freedoms that are supposedly the characteristics of open source software are in fact present?
I reject the notion that some third party can make your software non-OSD-compliant by filing for a patent. If we let that happen, there'd be no Open Source software at all.
I don't care whether or not it's "OSD-compliant" I care whether I have the freedoms that that implies.
You seem to be trying to apply the definition in such a way as to ignore whether it achieves anything (and yes I know who wrote the definition).
Nice photograph! And you Slashdotters wonder why Real People don't take Linux seriously? Doooorks!
The original poster never said the code was released under GPL or BSD. In fact, he said it was released as public domain. If you can't read a simple Slashdot post and respond intelligently, how can you expect me to take you seriously?
Now, let's get to the matter of whether a license is OSD-compliant or not. In Open Source licensing, a copyright holder conveys rights to others. The OSD specifies what rights that copyright holder must convey for their license to be considered Open Source. The copyright holder doesn't have any control regarding the patent rights of third parties. Thus, I don't see any point in requiring the copyright holder to first obtain a non-scope-limited license, applying to everyone in the world, to every patent that the software might infringe upon. I dare you to even find out what patents those would be for any non-trivial program. Patent searches are never provably exhaustive. Thus, I could contend, following your rationale, that no software is Open Source, because all non-trivial software submitted as Open Source is potentially infringing of an issued patent. So, my contention is that the OSD would indeed not achieve anything if your rationale was followed.
Now, there is a potential pernicious case in which the copyright holder has a license that the community doesn't, and thus can make use of community-submitted code that others can not. If the copyright holder uses that license to their advantage, by working in collusion with the patent holder to deny commercial use of the code to others, I would contend that the copyright holder does have at least partial control and that the software in question might well not be considered Open Source. I don't yet know what to do about this.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
let the W3C screw themselves.... lets stop using them as the voice of standards.......
Standards are what the majority agree upon, not what some committee decides the majority should be forced to use.
The only power they have is what people give them.
If they screw up........ Then thyey aren't the standard....
What the backup plan? In case they do sell out..
If the companies are so big-headed and self-centered that they'd walk out on W3C and set up their own "standard", let them. They won't find it all that easy, in fact there's a good chance that they'll get nowhere and just be marginalized.
Compromise is sensible and reasonable when creating technical specifications, but to knowingly open the door to an entire class of future patent claims is not, and to acceed to their "we'll leave" blackmail is entirely unacceptable.
Don't be pushed down that road, Bruce.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Looking at the public comments Jay links to, it appears this campaign has been successful in inducing many people to write in favor of changing those terms in the standards.
It seems to me, however, that Bruce Perens, in the many posts you see above, is right. That is, these standards are as good as it gets.
So -- write saying you support them, to counterbalance all the previous trigger-happy or (IMO) zealous individuals.
It's not really possible to raise a stink with government about software patents and to expect a viable solution to the problem, unless there is a concrete, visible and professional banner under which the case can be brought. Without that, the words have no impact whatsoever when smothered by the high-profile workload on the desks of most legislators. We lack that at the moment.
With regard to the W3C issue, I'm just worried that bending to the patent wishes of the corporates here actually enshrines even further the current patent malaise.
I get a very bad sense of foreboding. One day they will come back after some patent issue blows up and tell you that "You endorsed it."
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Here are more coherent comments:
0 2111 4/ .
/
.
To All Members of the Free Software and Open Source Community,
For the past two years, I've been working on the W3C patent policy on
your behalf, to make it safe for Free Software to implement W3C standards.
Now, I'm worried that we could lose that fight, not because of the patent
holders, but because of our own community.
There's a long discussion below. I'm asking you to do something once you
read that discussion: Please write to
and tell them something like this (please elaborate - everyone discounts
rubber-stamp comments):
To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
Subject: Approve of draft policy - disapprove of software patenting.
I request that W3C approve the draft patent policy, because it's a
compromise that protects the right of Open Source / Free Software
programmers to implement W3C standards.
And you may want to add this:
I object to software patents, and support efforts to eliminate them
at the legislative level.
Now, to the discussion.
Three representatives of the Free Software / Open Source community:
myself, Larry Rosen of the Open Source Initiative, and Eben Moglen of
the Free Software Foundation, worked on the W3C patent policy for two
years. We spent between 1/8 and 1/4 of our time on the project for all
of that time, participating in many face-to-face meetings and conference
calls. Across the table were some companies that, I feel, wanted to
"farm" their own patents in W3C standards and would have erected
lucrative "toll-booths" to collect royalties from every implementor of
web standards. If they had their way, we would have been locked
out.
We got you the best deal we could get. It's not everything we want,
and it can't be. The draft policy is at
http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-patent-policy-20
The proposed W3C patent policy grants a royalty-free right for everyone
to practice patents that are embedded in the standard by W3C members who
own those patents. It prevents "patent farming", the biggest problem
that faced us. The problem is that the patent grant is limited - it only
applies to code that actually implements the standard. This is called a
"field-of-use" limitation. The problem this creates for the Free Software
community is that other uses of the same patent in our code, for anything
but implementing the standard, could be covered by royalties.
I object to software patents entirely, and many of you do as well. Why,
then, did I (on your behalf) approve of a policy containing that
limitation, and why am I asking you to support it?
The answer is simple. Patent holders won't continue their membership
in W3C if that membership forces them to give up their patent rights
for non-standards-related applications. They will instead move their
standards-making activities to other organizations that allow them to
charge patent royalties on the standards. And we will have lost.
It comes down to what we can compel people to do, and what they won't
stand for. The patent holders want the W3C brand on their standards,
and will give up something for that. If we ask them to give up more,
they'll do without the W3C brand, and we have no way to control what
standards organization they move to. If we wish to fight software patents
outside of standards, I think our only choice is to do so at the legislative
level.
The field-of-use limitation presents special problems regarding the GPL,
because the GPL disallows a field-of-use-limited patent license. There is a
work-around for this. The code that makes use of the patented principle
must be under the MIT license, which allows a scope-limited patent
license. That may be linked into GPL code and distributed. I'm less than
comfortable with this, but my discomfort arises from the basic injustice
of software patents. A work-around is the best we can do in this case.
FSF, by its tenets, was bound to protest the field-of-use-limitation.
I respect that protest, as it is rooted an a belief that I share - that
software patents are fundamentally wrong. However, if the Free Software
Open Source community comes out against the W3C patent policy, and the
patent holders who want unlimited rights to charge royalties come out
against it, just who will speak for it? The result will be that W3C
will fail to give final approval to the policy, and we will not even have
the limited protection from software patents that we've won. Thus, I
have to ask you _not_ to do what FSF asks this time. Of course, this
disagreement does not diminish my respect of FSF, and I will continue
to work with them as I have on many projects for years.
Thus, I'd like you to write that email now. It's very important that W3C
see support for the draft policy, or we'll be back to the old, bad policy
again. Thanks!
As always, please feel free to call me to discuss this at 510-526-1165
(California time) or write me at bruce@perens.com
Thanks
Bruce Perens
Bruce Perens.
The GPL doesn't allow the author to encumber licenced software with restrictions, such as limiting the reuse of patent-encumbered code to web use only.
It wouldn't allow anyone not paying royalties to the patent owner to implement the functionality for non-web use, whether the license is GPL, BSD, or any of your own proprietary licenses.
Therefor the GPL zealots want these patents to be released for use in any application.
Ahh, from now on, stylesheets are patented by company A, Javascript is patented by company B, DHTML is patented by company C. You can't write e-mails using any of those unless you pay a royalty of 2 cents per line of code per message to each company, plus their annual fee of $5,000.
It is true that GPL deals with patents in a certain way; but, this is irrelevant, since the issue affects all software implementing patented functionality, no matter under which license.
In summary, The FSF has a problem with their own licence, the GPL, blocking them from using technologies that are being made freely available for use on the web.
Finally, your point seems to be - yay, trash GPL! - yay, trash GPL! Instead of discussing and arguing for or against the argument made in the original story.
Remember the admonition do moderators: focus on moderating up, not down. Moderation wars generally strike me as silly. I try to walk away from them.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
There is no place for a patent in an "open standard", period.
The current proposal offers to admit patented techniques into the
W3 standards if a special grant is made allowing the technique
to be used with the web.
This is wrong-headed for two reasons.
First, it would not be fair to a patent holder if the W3C, in the
future, extended the definition of "web infrastructure" to include
new technologies and techniques which may not now be considered
part of the web infrastructure. The W3C therefore would not be
allowed to extend and build on the current standards in the future.
It is crucial that the W3C be permitted to build on its current
standards, and so this barrier to innovation and progress must
be cast aside. Thus there is an unresolvable conflict between
the interests of the patent holder and the future interests of
the web community, and as a result, patent restricted techniques
have no place in the standards of the W3C.
Second, it limits the development of web infrastructure. For it
is by outside innovation and creativity that the infrastructure
of the web has been constructed: much of it passed to the W3C
from outside hands. Successful and innovative techniques have
been widely adopted and subsequently standardized. Almost all
of the core standards of the W3C were derived thus.
By limiting development to approved "web infrastructures" only
this leading edge of creativity will be blunted: no innovation
will occur ahead of the standards curve, for that work shall
be considered not a part of the "web infrastructure" and
therefore subject to the restrictive patent.
In order that the W3C members and general public receive the
benefit of outside innovation it is critical that innovators
be permitted to extend and experiment with W3C technologies
in any way they like--pushing out the definition and scope
of "web infrastrcuture" as they go, in unforseen ways.
The current policy is therefore shortsighted and may even
ultimately doom the W3C to irrelevance, as creativivity and
innovation is directed elsewhere, and innovation on the web
infrastructure itself withers away.
The current policy is therefore shortsighted, unhelpeful,
suicidal, and unfair. It ought to be abandoned: patented
techniques may enrich their innovators justly, but ought
not to be considered for inclusion in a W3C standard.
Justin Chen-Wells
In the other direction, we could end up with patented capabilities that are required (or just popular) on servers, but suddenly only allowed on clients or middleware made by the mega-corp that owns the patent.
The horrid implications that the bug in this clause could cause for everybody (except for the patent owners) is only spotlighted by it's obvious conflict with the GPL. If this clause is made GPL-compatible, it will create freedom for all developers and users.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
Hey I told the MS people they should have presented that stuff but they weren't listening.
Even wierder they spent a lot of time and money propagating the wierd claim that network effects do not exist, the QWERTY keyboard was best and VHS won on the merits. They paid the "Independent Institute", a crank tank $100,000 to try to give that idea credibility.
The bit I could never understand about that strategy was that denying network effects exist only makes sense if you think you can persuade the court that Microsoft is not a monopoly. Fat chance. Instead of trying that on they should have embraced the network effect and told the court that their O/S won because of it, i.e. was established legally.
The connection between the anti-trust suit and the W3C IP position is that Sun made an IP claim against Microsoft wrt Java which resulted in a $20million settlement. The argument that Sun has been making is 'Java is open, only we have the sole right to decide its future', in other words Java is not open and the whole community process is a sham. Java is only open in the limited sense that you can implement the standard without extensions, extending the standard lands you in a lawsuit.
So don't be suprised that other companies are now less willing to allow free and unencumbered use of their IP. After all Sun has been allowed a free ride on this front, they have proved that the open/proprietary model can work. So expect others to try it. Also expect others to make sure that they have plenty of IP in reserve so that if they are attacked they have material for a possible countersuit.
The W3C policy is the best that can be achieved in the current circumstances where Sun is using IP as a strategic lever wrt a purported "open" standard.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Aren't the things that are being patented algorithms? I suppose that and (to a much lesser extent) data-structures.
:-)
.... evil, much worse than just bad. They slice up the pie of human expression into proprietary slices, and then incarcerate us in them.
Bruce has the right angle on this I believe, but doesn't take it far enough --- maybe that's tactical though.
This is an area without any real uncertainties whatsoever. I've worked far too long in mathematics, science, electronic engineering, computer science, architecture, design, languages, programming and various other related things, to have any uncertainty about the meaning of the concepts underlying algorithms and software, so I may as well speak up. (:-) Any confusion out there stems purely from the use of multiple alternative terms and questionable or at least unhelpful forms of debate.
An algorithm is a recipe or method in the conventional non-computing sense (in other words, it is an expression of how something can be done). It can take numerous forms, from scrawlings on bits of paper, to bit patterns in electronic machines, poems cast out on the wind, chemical fluctuations across the myriad synapses of our brains, and countless others. The physical representation doesn't matter to the essence of an algorithm, and nor does the language used in that representation, including the language of mathematics.
Given this basic understanding, it's pretty simple to realize that there is no significant difference except in form and precision between the algorithm in a text book, its handwaved description on a patent application, a computer program defining it, the changes of process state while it's actually running, or an equivalent mathematical expression or proof of its specification. The algorithm is present in all cases, without fail. That is why software patents are so
There is only one additional issue in this area that deserves a few more words, and that is data structures as Bruce mentioned above. They are not a separate part of the picture. Algorithms are always referenced to the things that they manipulate, be they spoons of sugar, mathematical values, snippets of DNA, or composite data structures in programs or systems; without data to reference, an algorithm would be entirely meaningless or nonsensical. Conversely, a data structure on its own is totally without purpose, an arbitrary aggregate; it is algorithms that give it purpose and give meaning to its current state. In the patent debates then, one can pretty safely dismiss any attempt at separation -- they are both parts of the padlock being closed around our thoughts.
Good luck in W3C -- maybe it will help a little with the patent problem, at least as a stepping stone in the bigger fight.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
There was a power outage at MIT (note: it's in Cambridge, MA, not Redmond) where lists.w3.org is hosted. This was because of sheduled building work, and the date was published several weeks in advance.
I encourage you to try again -- most or all of the W3C systems seem to be running OK now.
You're also welcome to email me directly (liam at w3.org) if you want to understand more about what W3C does, or how it is organised to minimise the chance that one company can control specifications - or you can read our web site.
[Lam Quin, XML Activity Lead, W3C]
Live barefoot!
free engravings/woodcuts
Here's the comment I'm sending:
- - - - -
I'm writing to comment on the W3C Royalty-Free Patent Policy,
and the contentious issues surrounding patent restictions as
they relate to the GPL.
I understand that a great number of people are probably writing
to express that this draft should be rejected because they
disagree with software patents in general. I completely agree
that software patents are a bad thing, but the very name of the
W3C Royalty-Free Patent Policy places it quiet squarely in the
realm covering software patent of dealing with the fact that
software patents exist.
I'd suggest that arguements focusing on the fact that software
patents are bad should be heard as a voice crying out for the
need for a W3C Patent-Free Policy, but those voices are not
relevant to a discussion as to Royalty-Free status.
I urge the W3C to request public imput regarding patent constraints
as they relate to standards. There exists a widely held belief
that web standards should not be contrained by potentially
restrictive patents.
That said, I favor the ACCEPTANCE of this policy.
Bruce, you apparently have no idea what you sound like here.
I know you have put yourself on the line for software freedom time and time again but just because you couldn't do any better on your own in this particular instance doesn't mean others shouldn't be able to try themselves.
We've gotten the best policy that we can get from W3C without having the members walk off to another organization that lets them do what they want with their patents.
I think we should be told who is threaterning to walk away from W3C?
I find it very difficult to believe that a threat to walk away from W3C is anything other that a bluff, even (especially) the biggest players can not afford to walk away. History has twice proven proven that even a dominant supplier is not bigger than open standards.