[Top][All Lists]
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
[DotGNU]Moglen Re: W3C Patent Policy Minutes for 10/28 Meeting
From: |
Seth Johnson |
Subject: |
[DotGNU]Moglen Re: W3C Patent Policy Minutes for 10/28 Meeting |
Date: |
Sun, 10 Nov 2002 07:17:22 -0500 |
Eben Moglen, Bruce Perens and Larry Rosen all deserve our
most profound thanks, since it does appear that the end
policy is royalty-free, even though it may be a contentious
decision.
Seth
Seth Johnson wrote:
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Date: Sat, 9 Nov 2002 10:25:19 -0500
> From: Eben Moglen <address@hidden>
>
> Reporting on the W3C for our community raises complex issues
> for those of us who are invited experts on the PPWG. The
> group is "member confidential," which means that there's an
> agreement not to go beyond the public minutes and documents
> in public statements. But member organizations, of course,
> assume that they can internally discuss matters at any level
> of detail they like. Larry Rosen, Bruce Perens and I have
> been somewhat constrained in what we can say to what is,
> after all, the equivalent of our organization.
>
> With that in mind, I can say that the final decision for an
> RF-only policy is highly controversial within the WG, which
> did not reach consensus and which resolved that large
> question, and several smaller issues, on relatively close
> votes. Member organizations that disagree with the policy
> are preparing their formal objections and their
> presentations to the Advisory Committee. Among the
> strongest arguments they present is that even a policy
> requiring technical Working Group members, or even all W3
> members, to make their patent claims available RF cannot
> prevent third-party patents from encumbering standards, and
> that an organization that can make effective standards must
> have some method for dealing with the incorporation of
> patented technology. Therefore, they say, work will simply
> be done elsewhere than in the W3, and some have gone so far
> as to say that they think the value of their W3C membership
> should be reconsidered. A subtext in that discussion is an
> issue, occasionally heated, about whether the W3C is the
> creature of its members only, or whether it has a broader
> public interest to serve, and if so how the activities of
> the staff and the Director should be understood to serve
> that public interest.
>
> This is perfectly legitimate politics within the W3C itself,
> which must decide through the votes of its members what to
> do with the recommendations of the PPWG. It is relevant to
> the recognition that even the proposed RF policy, which is
> not everything that the free software movement sought to
> achieve by any means, is an unstable and controversial deal
> that may yet fall apart.
>
> C-FIT Community Discussion List
> List Parent: address@hidden
> C-FIT Home: http://RealMeasures.dyndns.org/C-FIT
>
> To Subscribe/Unsubscribe:
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Send "[Un]Subscribe C-FIT_Community" To
> address@hidden
>
> _______________________________________________
> Developers mailing list
> address@hidden
> http://www.dotgnu.org/mailman/listinfo/developers