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[FYI] IBM risks billion dollar Linux strategy with W3C RAND demands
- To: debate@lists.fitug.de
- Subject: [FYI] IBM risks billion dollar Linux strategy with W3C RAND demands
- From: "Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>
- Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2001 12:49:03 +0200
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/22052.html
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IBM risks billion dollar Linux strategy with W3C RAND demands
By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco
Posted: 04/10/2001 at 16:53 GMT
Sources familiar with the W3C's patent policy have confirmed that
demands for the standards body to adopt RAND licensing were initiated
by IBM.
[...]
Hewlett Packard has been the first major industry vendor to publicly
state its position, with its W3C rep Jim Bell declaring that web
standards should continue to be royalty-free.
Senior IBM server executives were horrified to learn yesterday that
W3C standards may not in the future be royalty-free. Internet
standards and Linux have helped IBM widen its appeal in recent years,
and the company has pledged $1 billion on developing and marketing
Linux. But its continued investment depends on good will from the
Linux developer community, and that may well be imperilled by its
preference of RAND to royalty-free for the most fundamental WWW
standards.
[...]
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