Slashdot Mirror
W3C Poised To Release New Patent Policy
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."
I thought Bezos already had this patent...
We don't need a new proposal for dealing with patents, we need to abandon patents altogether.
Europeans: the EU patents vote will be held on June 18th.
Don't wait for you opinion to be asked, it won't be.
Don't wait for the open debate, there isn't any.
Don't waif for someone else to do it. *Very* few people are doing anything.
The deal:
There are 626 MEPs that are going to vote on *your* rights, most of them will have never heard the bad effects of Software Patents. They have been asked to "unify", "harmonise" and "remove legal grey areas" from the European Patent Convention (EPC, article 52). Unless educated, they are going to say "yes" to patents. (M$ have patented their video format in the US, we are never allowed to write a player for their format. Promoting progress?)
Germany has 99 MEPs
GB, France, and Italy have 87 MEPs each.
Ireland has 15
(I can't remember the other countries of the top of my head)
Get informed, read the (lengthy) docs at ffii.org and contact your MEPs.
Ciaran O'Riordan
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
An industry "standard" can't BE a standard unless anyone in the industry can use it.
Of course, that is contrary to the trend, which is to closed "standards" even blessed by the Feds. For instance: IBOC digital AM/FM radio, adopted by the FCC, and something ALL stations will have to eventually install... It's owned by ONE company, iBiquity, and stations have to pay ROYALTIES to use it.
Corporatism != Free Market
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
With open source software do software patents really matter any more?
..., patent ..., or patent pending..., but who really cares.
Take any software patent for example. Sure, it's patented, but some enterprising young college student (anyone for this matter) makes their own implementation of the patent and releases it on the web as Open Source (and/or Free) software anonymously. That implementation turns out to be really rather decent and becomes widespread, perhaps more widespread than the "official" implementation. Improvements and additions are added (anonymously) and the unofficial becomes the unofficial-official.
Are the users of the unofficial implementation liable for patent infringement? I'd say no, but I'm not a lawyer. Is the creator liable? Probably, but who'll ever know?
More pragmatically, would the patent holder go after users of the unofficial implementation? I'd say a more emphatic NO. Maybe if they're a Fortune 500, but in that case who really cares since that realm might as well be on Mars.
Most pragmatically, would most users of that implementation care that it was technically illegal. I'd say a most emphatic no.
People using software are mostly individuals and small to medium sized businesses. Without going through a detailed prisoners-dilemma analysis I'd say the odds are you won't get in trouble using a technically illegal implementation and so you shouldn't worry overmuch that you're small corporation will get sued out of existance. In fact, the potential profits will outweigh such potential risk making it a practical no-brainer.
I see web sites all the time with source that says copyright
I'm going to get modded down by all the people who are of the mindset that copyright and patents are handed down by god for the benefit of the holder to the detriment of the user. But in reality the space for copyright and patent in the digital age is zero, nada, zip, nothing.
I view digital violation of copyrights and patents (especially of software) as the new "natural" order and civil disobedience at its most right. I think most other long-time 'net users do as well and are waiting impatiently for the rest of the world to catch up.
That means whatever policy the W3C comes up with is irrelevant before it goes into print and this whole discussion is moot.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
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.
All the news reports I saw mentioned royalty-free. This is the first I've heard about an exception.
I did, made some money, and released it into the wild. It's a simple tool, with a new twist.( no need for details, it's a weird industrial niche tool) I invented it, designed it, took it to a machine shop, took all my spare loot, had as many as I could afford made, sold them easily, and that's it. I only made a few hundred bucks from it. I didn't get a patent, although I could have, but for several reasons I didn't. It's too expensive and hard right off the bat, it's insane complicated expensive nutso. I had no desire to make zillions of dollars from it, it was neat enough to see so many people go YES, and adopt it. It's in the wild now, and I know several other companies developed and built their own models, and I have no idea how many thousands are out there in daily use, but that's cool. I even one time saw someone who doesn't even know me using one of my tools on a tv news clip! that was a hoot! When I have the time and space and spare loot and opportunity, I have several more practical ideas kicking around in the old noodle here. I'll probably do the same thing as I did with the other one. I don't code, but I can build things, and design. And I like sharing, it's a nice concept. Yes, it would be sorta nice to make some more money from these efforts, I am perpetually sorta kinda dirt poor, but... I guess that isn't as important to me. Why, I don't know, but I've always been that way. Every time in the past I fixated on "making money" as my primary life goal I noticed it sort of got out of hand quickly, it was changing me to something I don't like to see in other people. So I don't do that anymore. That's as close as I can describe it.
heard an interesting discussion along these lines the other day. when someone is so fixated on food, we say they have an eating disorder, they are gluttonous, that this can be bad. when someone is so fixated on sex that they go nuts with it, go overboard, when it becomes their main goal, when they lose respect for others and themselves, then we say they become perverse, perhaps, it's considered as not a healthy thing, they've gone beyond what is healthy. When someone has a drink, that's ok, no biggee, when someone drinks every day, it can indicate something, when they are drunk every day, all day long, we say they are alcoholic, and this isn't a good thing.
Now, if someone makes some money, that's OK. when someone is fixated on it, when it overcomes all their other primary goals, we call it 'being a successful businessman", give them awards, call them "mr ceo".
Why in the other cases is excessive/compulsive uncontrollable behavior bad, but when it comes to accumulation of money and profits-at-any-cost it automagically becomes "good"? From where I stand, all those are illnesses, the latter called "greed" and "love of money".