Why would I want to use electricity to produce hydrogen which will net less electricity upon recombination than it required to split in the first place? Why wouldn't I direct the electricity straight into a battery? Even if there was a more effecient way to get pure hydrogen (I guess this heating system would produce it as a by product?) - why wouldn't I recombine it for electricity right away and use that to power my house and my electric car? Can anyone explain why a tank full of hydrogen is better than a battery?
I only check my email a few times a day but Instant Messages are checked immediately. It should be obvious that you shouldn't use the same IM for work as you do for play. Your coworkers should know to only use IM when they need your immediate attention - if an answer to something can wait a couple of hours they should send you an email and only IM you if you haven't responded within the needed timeframe. If you're coworkers can't use this responsibly, ask them to use email for all non-urgent communication and explain that you will check it every X hours and then block them from IM if they don't behave.
The 3 most common forms of disruptive work communication I've encountered are
1) The person can't correctly evaluate the urgency of their communication 2) The person failed to request communication before it became urgent 3) The person requires an inordinate amount of help with their work
I'm a software developer but I would imagine that for most other R&D work your team lead or project manager is ultimately responsible for managing those problems.
There have been a few people offering very reasonable explanations as to why the President would have received more votes this year than past years. Please note, however, that on the very front page of the study, it clearly states that these statistical anomalies were found in electronic voting precincts, but not in paper ballot precincts. Please read before commenting.
I think the article makes a mistake in focusing the legality of the issue on the definition of "derivative works". While the GPL does cover the allowed uses of derivative works, the issue of 'linking' is addressed seperately. Even if a work is not "derived" from the GPL'd source, the GPL does still prohibit linking to it by commercial products. Whether or not that is enforceable and/or fair is another matter.
Someone else mentioned on this thread that linking to another library was like playing someone else's movie in the background of your own movie without consent. I disagree, if the commercial product is not specifically distributing the GPL'd library as a bundled component, then your situation is much more analagous to selling someone a car and telling the industry they can't make paint that will be used on said car. This is a completely unenforceable situation - you mean to tell me that my call to sqrt() in math.h is in breach of your license because the user happened to have the GNU math.h installed? I don't think so. Not to mention that this is a limitation of the end user's freedoms equal to those of the commercial EULAs to which we so vehemently object.
So while your barking to keep commercial software from even thinking about GPL'd code, remember not to complain when Blizzard can't release the next installation of StarCraft on Linux because they can't spend the time to duplicate all of your GPL'd libraries.
And now I'm going to rant about the GPL in general. You can skip this part as it's not technically on topic.
What used to be a hobby has become a religious movement. This segregationist attitude toward Free and Commercial software will only hinder the adoption of free software. Unfortunately GNU has become such a buzzword that developers are releasing their code under the GPL without fully understanding the limits they are imposing on the usefullness of their code. I also personally enjoy being able to get paid for coding and am not inclined to contribute to a world where that would not be impossible. I also feel that GNU's GPL statement is not made in the interest of the world at-large, but instead in the interest of spreading the name of their particular clique.
I prefer to use my talents to contribute to the world instead of a particular group. That means producing code that is usable by both individual developers and corporate entities who wish to use their resources to make greater improvements. Providing this freedom does not allow a corporate body to steal control of the project from me any more than forking my own branch of the OpenBSD kernel allows me to steal control of OpenBSD from Theo. Indeed, it gives me even more leverage over those that use my product as a recognized producer of worthwhile software.
To those of you pondering how to release your own works I would pose a more extreme example; would you want advances in cancer research to be licensed as off-limits to coporate entities? How quickly do you think that would kill all research in that area?
Am I the only one who noticed that this article never stated that there was a threat from a robot invasion as so many of the posts have been about.
The article states that there is a threat that society will blur the line between what is a machine and what is a human being, as human beings implant technology into themselves and robots become more lifelike. There were no such claims of a human/robot war or humans being subjected to slavery.
I must completely agree here. I have long thought that the Write Once Run Anywhere motto was just Sun propoganda meant to prey upon the technically illiterate. I'll admit though it has been a successful marketing ploy.
I choose to program in Java because it is a clean language with a well thought out API and I'm less afraid of Sun trapping me into their product model than M$. The cross-platform independance was not a deciding factor.
The reality is that I don't care if my binary will run across multiple platforms. As long as I don't have to modify my source code for my BSD app to run on Windows, I am a happy camper. As a developer, this would mean that I would have to compile my program 4 times instead of once and distribute 4 binaries instead of one. The minor convenience of having one binary isn't worth the performance cost. This is especially true in arena's, like GUI work, where Java lags behind.
Slashdot was quick to judge every other news source for printing this article but it seems that Slashdot was the only one to break any form of journalistic code of ethics with this one.
The stories written about this new claim, say nothing more than that, some unknown scientist is making a claim and this is what he showed us. There was no qualitative analysis at all. Nothing to try and intentionally lead the reader into believing the scientist's claims. In fact, it even mentions that these claims have been made in the past and have been found to be nonsense. The only qualitative comment of any sort was the typical "if this is true it could change the world" comment, which is used in every scientific journal no matter how secure.
Yet it was Slashdot who posted the title "News Media Scammed by 'Free Energy' Hoax". A title that intentionally misleads the reader into thinking that there is some evidence which disproves this scientist's claims. There was no evidence, however, only the pure conjecture of someone whos scientific credentials are questionable.
If we read on, the very next post on stemcell research makes some very interesting claims. But, in normal Slashdot style, it was approached with just a hint of skepticism and a 'let's just wait and see the proof' mentality. As opposed to the previous post, who, despite all of its appeals for proof, had its mind already made up and was more than willing to tell you why.
All this talk of the second law of physics, etc, etc. Perhaps the machine is able to produce energy from oxygen molecules? Certainly that wouldn't violate the second law of physics.
But it is not this righteous and unbased denouncement that has me so amused. What has me amused is that almost every single Slashdot post followed suit in ridiculing the obsurdity of the claim. Again, not in a midly skeptical, probably-not, wait-and-see tone, but as if the scientific community had already issued its verdict on this as a fraud and that the mere _possibility_ of such a claim was so outlandish that it could be dismissed outright.
Just another testament to the fact that people are sheep no matter where you go.
So much of our common electronics produce radiation (ever use a microwave?) that the government imposes regulations on what a product can emmit. However, from electric towers being cited for causing cancer to the possibility that cell phones induce brain tumors, whether current regulations put us anywhere near the safety zone is very debateable.
Throwing in my 2-cents. Below is my response to the W3C Public Response. Remember to keep emailing them with your opinions and well formulated argumentation.
-jon
Patent Policy Working Group;
I would like to start of by saying that I am pleased to see that, in the W3C response, you acknowledge the importance of the open source community and individual developer in the evolution of what is now the Internet. However, I disagree immensely with the assertion that continued and substantial growth may only come from a change in policy to use patented technologies. I also disagree that the W3C may sidestep the important ideological debate behind the exists of patents in general. The decisions you are faced with making are those decisions that will best benefit the entire community. Whether or not allowing patent enforcement best meets those goals is the same question posed by the original lawmakers. However, instead of entering an ideological debate I will only speak to the empirical evidence as it pertains to the Internet.
Firstly, the W3C itself acknowledges the importance of the Open Source community in making the web what it is today. Not only is the Open Source community to be acknowledged, but ever first time web developer that contributed his part to the overall wealth of content available on the web. It was the availability of unlicensed technology that made this possible. If the telnet, FTP, or HTTP protocol had been patented during inception, they would have been quickly abandoned in favor of other unencumbered technologies. It has been observed time and time again that the industry will not support a communication medium that you must pay to use. The HTTP standard was observed for the very reason that it did allow everyone to communicate freely and without hindrance. To entrench yourself in a system under the pretense of free and open communication and then drastically change the rules is an extremely irresponsible practice. In fact, those encumbered standards that have been adopted by the community today have largely been because of an existing entrenchment of technology; not because of the objective validity of the standard. If the W3C tried this during its earlier years, the industry would have abandoned it. It is also questionable whether or not the W3C is indeed entrenched enough in the current system to be immune to an aggregate industry backlash.
Secondly, we should take a look at the growth of the Web and the Internet today. The technologies being produced continue to expand on the content and quality of services provided without the need to introduce patent endorsement into public specification. To do so would not only limit the amount of technology being produced but would serve to further curtail the education of the masses who are trying to enter the industry. We must ask ourselves if the Internet really requires that public standards organizations endorse patented technologies. Most of us believe that answer to be no; the web will continue to experience continued growth without such action on the part of public standards bodies. In fact, we can see today how the prolific and unrestrained issuing of patents has actually disrupted the business of meaningful contributors to the industry (For example: The one-click shopping nonsense). If the W3C were to actually endorse the use of patented technologies, it would only serve to promote this current trend of abuse.
The W3C also makes reference to other large standards entities in an attempt to justify this new policy. Specifically, in section 4 of the W3C public response, you cited section 10.3.2 of IETF's Internet Standards Process. However, one should make note of the preceding section (10.3.1) that outlines the rules of contribution.
l. Some works (e.g. works of the U.S. Government) are not subject to copyright. However, to the extent that the submission is or may be subject to copyright, the contributor, the organization he represents (if any) and the owners of any proprietary rights in the contribution, grant an unlimited perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty-free, world-wide right and license to the ISOC and the IETF under any copyrights in the contribution. This license includes the right to copy, publish and distribute the contribution in any way, and to prepare derivative works that are based on or incorporate all or part of the contribution, the license to such derivative works to be of the same scope as the license of the original contribution.
I have personally observed no such verbiage within the proposed W3C Patent Policy that indicates the sincere preference to use only technologies that are freely available for implementation by all. Such mentality can be cited frequently throughout the IETF draft.
I again respectfully request that the W3C decide against the addition of the proposed Patent Policy.
Jonathan Kennedy
Programmer/Analyst - SIG Development
jonathan.kennedy@billserv.com
Below is the letter that I sent to the W3C address for comment on the Patent Policy. Feel free to rip commentary from it. Hopefully if enough people write, the W3C will recognize that the people who make up the industry will not be pleased with such an action.
This should not come as a suprise, however. Any medium that grows in popularity will be targeted for exploitation. Therefore, if such actions persist, which they probably will, I would propose that a new standard be born. A standard that does not contain the frills and robustness for media that the web does, but makes it easy and efficient for raw information to be exchanged. Through being unapealing to the masses does one gain more invulnerability to exploitation.
-Jonathan
From www-patentpolicy-comment-request@tux.w3.org
Mon Oct 1 11:16:00 2001
Thank for taking the time to comment on the proposed W3C Patent Policy.
A response to the issue(s) you raise will be included in the disposition
of comments to be used by the Patent Policy Working Group in preparing a
final proposal.
Thanks again,
Danny Weitzner
Patent Policy WG Chair
From: Jonathan Kennedy
To: "'www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org'"
Subject: Patent Policy Threatens Technological Advancement
Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 10:13:15 -0500
The new patent policy under consideration by the W3C currently threatens the
advancement and quality of product being brought to the market today by
internet developers. The use of patented technology will prove to benefit no
one except the current corporate entities that have the biggest market share
of browser sales. Without substantial gains in capitol, emergent
technologies will not be allowed to flourish on the web. Such a standard
would also undercut the existence of Not For Profit, Open Source projects
that aim toward providing a quality product for all users. These projects
work mainly on volunteered time and without any capital what-so-ever. To
standardize on patented technologies would not hinder development of open
source technologies, but destroy them outright.
However, I am appalled to think that this might actually be the agenda of
such a proposal. The W3C made advancement in the 3.0 HTML specification. It
should be noted that while open source projects continued to work toward
compliance, those that held the biggest share in the market continued to
produce their own me-centric specifications, disregarding any conformance to
the public standard. With the publication of 3.2 standard, all of the
coherence in the original 3.0 specification was lost. Instead of pushing
forward with those rules that would serve to advance the quality of
technologies produced, the 3.2 "standard" simply legitimized the
uncompetitive practices of those business that ignored the 3.0 standard.
This was also a blow to those open source projects that had been working
toward conformance, but were now not in adherence to the specification.
Now we are going to further legitimize such practices by not only accepting
them, but by giving them all of the power they need to continue to drown the
market with incompatible technologies. That which has made the web the
powerful medium that it is today is its reliance on non-proprietary
protocols. In other words, technology that people can freely use to
contribute to the community at any time. The introduction of such a policy
threatens to tie the hands of those amongst us that care the most about the
_quality_ of software being distributed to the masses. To publicly endorse
the use of patented formats and protocols is an irresponsible abuse of power
that was given to the W3C in good faith that it would stay in conformance
with its stated goals of leading the web "to its full potential by
developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its
interoperability".
I am aghast to think that the community that I and other developers have
worked so hard to develop to become simply an amalgamation of
corporate-centric payware in which a developer can no longer write software
for the masses unless he has the backing of a huge corporate conglomeration.
I am also aghast to see how it would destroy the ability of any other
businesses to enter the market, because even if you do have money, patented
technology _does not have to be shared_. The endorsement of patented
technology would only serve to benefit a handful of few while discouraging
the introduction of interoperable, quality technologies to the masses. I
respectfully request that the W3C rethink its current position as a
community leader and abandon the notion of advocating standards that would
tie the hands of all but a select few.
Jonathan A. Kennedy
Programmer/Analyst - SIG Development
jonathan.kennedy@billserv.com
Slashdot Mirror
Why would I want to use electricity to produce hydrogen which will net less electricity upon recombination than it required to split in the first place? Why wouldn't I direct the electricity straight into a battery? Even if there was a more effecient way to get pure hydrogen (I guess this heating system would produce it as a by product?) - why wouldn't I recombine it for electricity right away and use that to power my house and my electric car? Can anyone explain why a tank full of hydrogen is better than a battery?
I only check my email a few times a day but Instant Messages are checked immediately. It should be obvious that you shouldn't use the same IM for work as you do for play. Your coworkers should know to only use IM when they need your immediate attention - if an answer to something can wait a couple of hours they should send you an email and only IM you if you haven't responded within the needed timeframe. If you're coworkers can't use this responsibly, ask them to use email for all non-urgent communication and explain that you will check it every X hours and then block them from IM if they don't behave.
The 3 most common forms of disruptive work communication I've encountered are
1) The person can't correctly evaluate the urgency of their communication
2) The person failed to request communication before it became urgent
3) The person requires an inordinate amount of help with their work
I'm a software developer but I would imagine that for most other R&D work your team lead or project manager is ultimately responsible for managing those problems.
There have been a few people offering very reasonable explanations as to why the President would have received more votes this year than past years. Please note, however, that on the very front page of the study, it clearly states that these statistical anomalies were found in electronic voting precincts, but not in paper ballot precincts. Please read before commenting.
I think the article makes a mistake in focusing the legality of the issue on the definition of "derivative works". While the GPL does cover the allowed uses of derivative works, the issue of 'linking' is addressed seperately. Even if a work is not "derived" from the GPL'd source, the GPL does still prohibit linking to it by commercial products. Whether or not that is enforceable and/or fair is another matter.
Someone else mentioned on this thread that linking to another library was like playing someone else's movie in the background of your own movie without consent. I disagree, if the commercial product is not specifically distributing the GPL'd library as a bundled component, then your situation is much more analagous to selling someone a car and telling the industry they can't make paint that will be used on said car. This is a completely unenforceable situation - you mean to tell me that my call to sqrt() in math.h is in breach of your license because the user happened to have the GNU math.h installed? I don't think so. Not to mention that this is a limitation of the end user's freedoms equal to those of the commercial EULAs to which we so vehemently object.
So while your barking to keep commercial software from even thinking about GPL'd code, remember not to complain when Blizzard can't release the next installation of StarCraft on Linux because they can't spend the time to duplicate all of your GPL'd libraries.
And now I'm going to rant about the GPL in general. You can skip this part as it's not technically on topic.
What used to be a hobby has become a religious movement. This segregationist attitude toward Free and Commercial software will only hinder the adoption of free software. Unfortunately GNU has become such a buzzword that developers are releasing their code under the GPL without fully understanding the limits they are imposing on the usefullness of their code. I also personally enjoy being able to get paid for coding and am not inclined to contribute to a world where that would not be impossible. I also feel that GNU's GPL statement is not made in the interest of the world at-large, but instead in the interest of spreading the name of their particular clique.
I prefer to use my talents to contribute to the world instead of a particular group. That means producing code that is usable by both individual developers and corporate entities who wish to use their resources to make greater improvements. Providing this freedom does not allow a corporate body to steal control of the project from me any more than forking my own branch of the OpenBSD kernel allows me to steal control of OpenBSD from Theo. Indeed, it gives me even more leverage over those that use my product as a recognized producer of worthwhile software.
To those of you pondering how to release your own works I would pose a more extreme example; would you want advances in cancer research to be licensed as off-limits to coporate entities? How quickly do you think that would kill all research in that area?
Am I the only one who noticed that this article never stated that there was a threat from a robot invasion as so many of the posts have been about.
The article states that there is a threat that society will blur the line between what is a machine and what is a human being, as human beings implant technology into themselves and robots become more lifelike. There were no such claims of a human/robot war or humans being subjected to slavery.
RTFM people.
I must completely agree here. I have long thought that the Write Once Run Anywhere motto was just Sun propoganda meant to prey upon the technically illiterate. I'll admit though it has been a successful marketing ploy. I choose to program in Java because it is a clean language with a well thought out API and I'm less afraid of Sun trapping me into their product model than M$. The cross-platform independance was not a deciding factor. The reality is that I don't care if my binary will run across multiple platforms. As long as I don't have to modify my source code for my BSD app to run on Windows, I am a happy camper. As a developer, this would mean that I would have to compile my program 4 times instead of once and distribute 4 binaries instead of one. The minor convenience of having one binary isn't worth the performance cost. This is especially true in arena's, like GUI work, where Java lags behind.
Slashdot was quick to judge every other news source for printing this article but it seems that Slashdot was the only one to break any form of journalistic code of ethics with this one. The stories written about this new claim, say nothing more than that, some unknown scientist is making a claim and this is what he showed us. There was no qualitative analysis at all. Nothing to try and intentionally lead the reader into believing the scientist's claims. In fact, it even mentions that these claims have been made in the past and have been found to be nonsense. The only qualitative comment of any sort was the typical "if this is true it could change the world" comment, which is used in every scientific journal no matter how secure. Yet it was Slashdot who posted the title "News Media Scammed by 'Free Energy' Hoax". A title that intentionally misleads the reader into thinking that there is some evidence which disproves this scientist's claims. There was no evidence, however, only the pure conjecture of someone whos scientific credentials are questionable. If we read on, the very next post on stemcell research makes some very interesting claims. But, in normal Slashdot style, it was approached with just a hint of skepticism and a 'let's just wait and see the proof' mentality. As opposed to the previous post, who, despite all of its appeals for proof, had its mind already made up and was more than willing to tell you why. All this talk of the second law of physics, etc, etc. Perhaps the machine is able to produce energy from oxygen molecules? Certainly that wouldn't violate the second law of physics. But it is not this righteous and unbased denouncement that has me so amused. What has me amused is that almost every single Slashdot post followed suit in ridiculing the obsurdity of the claim. Again, not in a midly skeptical, probably-not, wait-and-see tone, but as if the scientific community had already issued its verdict on this as a fraud and that the mere _possibility_ of such a claim was so outlandish that it could be dismissed outright. Just another testament to the fact that people are sheep no matter where you go.
So much of our common electronics produce radiation (ever use a microwave?) that the government imposes regulations on what a product can emmit. However, from electric towers being cited for causing cancer to the possibility that cell phones induce brain tumors, whether current regulations put us anywhere near the safety zone is very debateable.
Throwing in my 2-cents. Below is my response to the W3C Public Response. Remember to keep emailing them with your opinions and well formulated argumentation.
-jon
Patent Policy Working Group;
I would like to start of by saying that I am pleased to see that, in the W3C response, you acknowledge the importance of the open source community and individual developer in the evolution of what is now the Internet. However, I disagree immensely with the assertion that continued and substantial growth may only come from a change in policy to use patented technologies. I also disagree that the W3C may sidestep the important ideological debate behind the exists of patents in general. The decisions you are faced with making are those decisions that will best benefit the entire community. Whether or not allowing patent enforcement best meets those goals is the same question posed by the original lawmakers. However, instead of entering an ideological debate I will only speak to the empirical evidence as it pertains to the Internet.
Firstly, the W3C itself acknowledges the importance of the Open Source community in making the web what it is today. Not only is the Open Source community to be acknowledged, but ever first time web developer that contributed his part to the overall wealth of content available on the web. It was the availability of unlicensed technology that made this possible. If the telnet, FTP, or HTTP protocol had been patented during inception, they would have been quickly abandoned in favor of other unencumbered technologies. It has been observed time and time again that the industry will not support a communication medium that you must pay to use. The HTTP standard was observed for the very reason that it did allow everyone to communicate freely and without hindrance. To entrench yourself in a system under the pretense of free and open communication and then drastically change the rules is an extremely irresponsible practice. In fact, those encumbered standards that have been adopted by the community today have largely been because of an existing entrenchment of technology; not because of the objective validity of the standard. If the W3C tried this during its earlier years, the industry would have abandoned it. It is also questionable whether or not the W3C is indeed entrenched enough in the current system to be immune to an aggregate industry backlash.
Secondly, we should take a look at the growth of the Web and the Internet today. The technologies being produced continue to expand on the content and quality of services provided without the need to introduce patent endorsement into public specification. To do so would not only limit the amount of technology being produced but would serve to further curtail the education of the masses who are trying to enter the industry. We must ask ourselves if the Internet really requires that public standards organizations endorse patented technologies. Most of us believe that answer to be no; the web will continue to experience continued growth without such action on the part of public standards bodies. In fact, we can see today how the prolific and unrestrained issuing of patents has actually disrupted the business of meaningful contributors to the industry (For example: The one-click shopping nonsense). If the W3C were to actually endorse the use of patented technologies, it would only serve to promote this current trend of abuse.
The W3C also makes reference to other large standards entities in an attempt to justify this new policy. Specifically, in section 4 of the W3C public response, you cited section 10.3.2 of IETF's Internet Standards Process. However, one should make note of the preceding section (10.3.1) that outlines the rules of contribution.
l. Some works (e.g. works of the U.S. Government) are not subject to copyright. However, to the extent that the submission is or may be subject to copyright, the contributor, the organization he represents (if any) and the owners of any proprietary rights in the contribution, grant an unlimited perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty-free, world-wide right and license to the ISOC and the IETF under any copyrights in the contribution. This license includes the right to copy, publish and distribute the contribution in any way, and to prepare derivative works that are based on or incorporate all or part of the contribution, the license to such derivative works to be of the same scope as the license of the original contribution.
I have personally observed no such verbiage within the proposed W3C Patent Policy that indicates the sincere preference to use only technologies that are freely available for implementation by all. Such mentality can be cited frequently throughout the IETF draft.
I again respectfully request that the W3C decide against the addition of the proposed Patent Policy.
Jonathan Kennedy
Programmer/Analyst - SIG Development
jonathan.kennedy@billserv.com
Below is the letter that I sent to the W3C address for comment on the Patent Policy. Feel free to rip commentary from it. Hopefully if enough people write, the W3C will recognize that the people who make up the industry will not be pleased with such an action.
This should not come as a suprise, however. Any medium that grows in popularity will be targeted for exploitation. Therefore, if such actions persist, which they probably will, I would propose that a new standard be born. A standard that does not contain the frills and robustness for media that the web does, but makes it easy and efficient for raw information to be exchanged. Through being unapealing to the masses does one gain more invulnerability to exploitation.
-Jonathan
From www-patentpolicy-comment-request@tux.w3.org
Mon Oct 1 11:16:00 2001
Thank for taking the time to comment on the proposed W3C Patent Policy.
A response to the issue(s) you raise will be included in the disposition
of comments to be used by the Patent Policy Working Group in preparing a
final proposal.
Thanks again,
Danny Weitzner
Patent Policy WG Chair
From: Jonathan Kennedy
To: "'www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org'"
Subject: Patent Policy Threatens Technological Advancement
Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 10:13:15 -0500
The new patent policy under consideration by the W3C currently threatens the
advancement and quality of product being brought to the market today by
internet developers. The use of patented technology will prove to benefit no
one except the current corporate entities that have the biggest market share
of browser sales. Without substantial gains in capitol, emergent
technologies will not be allowed to flourish on the web. Such a standard
would also undercut the existence of Not For Profit, Open Source projects
that aim toward providing a quality product for all users. These projects
work mainly on volunteered time and without any capital what-so-ever. To
standardize on patented technologies would not hinder development of open
source technologies, but destroy them outright.
However, I am appalled to think that this might actually be the agenda of
such a proposal. The W3C made advancement in the 3.0 HTML specification. It
should be noted that while open source projects continued to work toward
compliance, those that held the biggest share in the market continued to
produce their own me-centric specifications, disregarding any conformance to
the public standard. With the publication of 3.2 standard, all of the
coherence in the original 3.0 specification was lost. Instead of pushing
forward with those rules that would serve to advance the quality of
technologies produced, the 3.2 "standard" simply legitimized the
uncompetitive practices of those business that ignored the 3.0 standard.
This was also a blow to those open source projects that had been working
toward conformance, but were now not in adherence to the specification.
Now we are going to further legitimize such practices by not only accepting
them, but by giving them all of the power they need to continue to drown the
market with incompatible technologies. That which has made the web the
powerful medium that it is today is its reliance on non-proprietary
protocols. In other words, technology that people can freely use to
contribute to the community at any time. The introduction of such a policy
threatens to tie the hands of those amongst us that care the most about the
_quality_ of software being distributed to the masses. To publicly endorse
the use of patented formats and protocols is an irresponsible abuse of power
that was given to the W3C in good faith that it would stay in conformance
with its stated goals of leading the web "to its full potential by
developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its
interoperability".
I am aghast to think that the community that I and other developers have
worked so hard to develop to become simply an amalgamation of
corporate-centric payware in which a developer can no longer write software
for the masses unless he has the backing of a huge corporate conglomeration.
I am also aghast to see how it would destroy the ability of any other
businesses to enter the market, because even if you do have money, patented
technology _does not have to be shared_. The endorsement of patented
technology would only serve to benefit a handful of few while discouraging
the introduction of interoperable, quality technologies to the masses. I
respectfully request that the W3C rethink its current position as a
community leader and abandon the notion of advocating standards that would
tie the hands of all but a select few.
Jonathan A. Kennedy
Programmer/Analyst - SIG Development
jonathan.kennedy@billserv.com