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[FYI] W3C and the Promotion of Fee-based Standards for the Web
- To: debate@lists.fitug.de
- Subject: [FYI] W3C and the Promotion of Fee-based Standards for the Web
- From: "Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>
- Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 18:49:41 +0200
http://www.openphd.net/W3C_Patent_Policy/draft.xhtml
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W3C and the Promotion of Fee-based Standards for the Web
Adam Warner
On 16 August 2001 the W3C made public a proposal to substantially
change their patent policy framework. Amongst the changes is support
for a new licensing model (called RAND) that legitimises the W3C's
role in developing and promoting standards that could require the
payment of royalties.
This is a substantial shift in the philosophical direction of the W3C
and should be of extreme concern to anyone who values being able to
implement W3C standards in a royalty-free manner. In particular this
has profound implications for the support and implementation of
future W3C standards by the free software community. It is likely to
extinguish free software development and deployment in the areas
where the payment of royalties is required.
[...]
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