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[FYI] W3C and the Promotion of Fee-based Standards for the Web



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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