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W3C and the Promotion of Fee-based Standards for the Web

http://www.openphd.net/W3C_Patent_Policy/draft.xhtml

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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