My mistake in not mentioning Glenn. He is the author of pngcrush, and maintains libpng, the PNG reference library.
Alongwith Daniel, Glenn participated very actively, questioning the validity of RAND, Apple's bitmask patent, and offered valuable insights and revelations. He deserves every bit of credit.
Blame my fuzzy brain on sleepless nights over the past twelve days:-)
For the month of August, a total of seven comments were sent, of which one was an announcement from Simon J. Hernandez, five were spam, and one from Hartmut Pilch asking if RAND and opensource would mix.
Over the next 29 days - one day short of the cutoff - only 24 relevant comments were made, most of them on the 29th.
On the last day, the community awoke. Their responses came in a torrent, 726 messages in less than 24 hours. Almost all the respondents expressed vociferous opposition to the inclusion of RAND in any W3C Recommendation. This continued well into the next day. Consequently, the W3C was obliged to extend the comment period to 11 October.
As of last count, 1568 messages have been posted for the month of October [spam constitutes a small percentage].
Daniel J. Weitzner of the W3C replied to the list yesterday, outlining the next steps in the process.
Many organisations such as HP, Mozilla, WASP and the OSI have asserted their opposition to RAND. Even Apple has reversed its stance on RAND licensing.
For more info, visit Adam Warner's website where you'll find resources, analyses and links.
My personal thanks to everyone who mailed in their opinions. Special credit is due to Daniel Phillips and Adam, both of whom have relentlessly pursued the debate over the days, unearthing key points in the process.
It's a pleasure to see the W3C respond in a constructive manner by appointing Bruce and Eben as Invited Experts. Hopefully, Open Source's presence will ensure the next draft is even-handed.
Slashdot Mirror
My mistake in not mentioning Glenn. He is the author of pngcrush, and maintains libpng, the PNG reference library.
Alongwith Daniel, Glenn participated very actively, questioning the validity of RAND, Apple's bitmask patent, and offered valuable insights and revelations. He deserves every bit of credit.
Blame my fuzzy brain on sleepless nights over the past twelve days :-)
Cheers,
Jason Antony
This Patent Policy Proposal was under development since October 1999. Discussion was confined to W3C Members.
The first working draft was compiled on 16 August. For feedback, a public comment mailing list was opened on the 10th of August, 2001. The deadline was set for 30 September.
For the month of August, a total of seven comments were sent, of which one was an announcement from Simon J. Hernandez, five were spam, and one from Hartmut Pilch asking if RAND and opensource would mix.
Over the next 29 days - one day short of the cutoff - only 24 relevant comments were made, most of them on the 29th.
On the last day, the community awoke. Their responses came in a torrent, 726 messages in less than 24 hours. Almost all the respondents expressed vociferous opposition to the inclusion of RAND in any W3C Recommendation. This continued well into the next day. Consequently, the W3C was obliged to extend the comment period to 11 October.
As of last count, 1568 messages have been posted for the month of October [spam constitutes a small percentage].
Daniel J. Weitzner of the W3C replied to the list yesterday, outlining the next steps in the process.
Many organisations such as HP, Mozilla, WASP and the OSI have asserted their opposition to RAND. Even Apple has reversed its stance on RAND licensing.
For more info, visit Adam Warner's website where you'll find resources, analyses and links.
My personal thanks to everyone who mailed in their opinions. Special credit is due to Daniel Phillips and Adam, both of whom have relentlessly pursued the debate over the days, unearthing key points in the process.
It's a pleasure to see the W3C respond in a constructive manner by appointing Bruce and Eben as Invited Experts. Hopefully, Open Source's presence will ensure the next draft is even-handed.
Cheers,
Jason Antony