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W3C Poised To Release New Patent Policy

Posted by timothy on from the weasel-avoidance dept.

egoff writes "According to ComputerWorld, the Patent Policy Working Group at the W3C is ready to release a new proposal for dealing with technology patents that get in the way of creating web standards. While making no comment, the W3C was seeking public input for its Royalty Free Patent Policy until April 30th."

3 of 112 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Rationale for new patent policy by molarmass192 · · Score: 4, Informative

    The W3C is a standards body. The patent-free policy is to allow OSS/free software to even EXIST. Even the slightest patent royalty immediately kills the possibility of (legal) free software. In a patent free ecosystem, for-profit and not-for-profit software compete on equal footing. Allow even one patent with royalty fees, even as low as $0.01 a unit, and that ecosystem is gone, free software cannot exist by definition, much less compete. As for your monopoly argument, you are blurring patents with software. A patent (in this case) is a concept or methodology. There is no grant of monopoly to OSS. A monopoly grant would be that all software that abides by W3C standards MUST be open sourced. There is no such implication here, in fact OSS is not even mentioned anywhere in the clause. Please tell me that this is a troll?

    --

    Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
  2. A patent is a monopoly by smiff · · Score: 4, Informative
    Free Software is great and all, but true freedom comes from not handing control of everything to one faction... something I would think would be obvious to other supporters of open source software. A monopoly over the Internet is just as bad in the hands of OSS developers as it would be in the hands of Microsoft.

    What part of the word monopoly do you not understand? A patent is a monopoly granted by the government. The whole purpose of an industry standard is that anybody can implement it. The point of a royalty-free patent standard is to insure that no monopoly power is exercised over W3C standards.

    If you allow RAND or other non-royalty-free patent policies, then open source software will be shut out of the standard. You may call that freedom. I call your words doublespeak.

  3. Re:What happened to royalty free? by russellini · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's not at all a last-minute compromise. The RAND exception has been a part of the PPWG policy since last February, at least. See http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-patent-policy-2002022 6/#sec-Exception.

    The current royalty-free policy is a shift from a previously announced August 2001) RAND policy. There were some (arguably) good reasons for a RAND policy; but the PPWG has decided that the only good reason for a RAND policy is if there is no way around the use of patented code.

    Hence the exception still exists as a useful remnant of what used to be the RAND rule. Weitzner stressed that it's tough to use because the PPWG doesnt want people to use it easily. And remember, Berners-Lee has to sign off on everything, and it would really take a lot for him to sign off on a RAND Recommendation.

    Also - a key part of the RAND exception is that the terms of the license (RAND or RF) must be clearly stated upfront. So they don't get submarined (a la Rambus - grrrr)