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On Mon, 2001-10-15 at 11:21, Champion, Mike wrote: > > I think in _this particular case_ that's the intent, > > certainly as far as PR is concerned. > > Well, if you consider "the public" and the "open source and free software > communities" the same thing, yes ... :~) I should probably have separated "the public" from "the software developing public" - it's hard enough to get software developers to take an interest in this stuff, much less folks who just want to surf. > The public needs the vendors to > implement the Web technologies, and the vendors need to keep the public from > getting angry enough at them to invest the time to hassle with the > alternatives. The W3C is the arena for this balancing act; opening up the > patent policy WG strikes me as an acknowledgement that the open source folks > are collectively an alternative "vendor" that the W3C has to accomodate. It's a start, and I'll be curious to see how it goes. This seems to be the first serious threat to "the software developing public"'s perception of the W3C's mantle of legitimacy, so I suspect there's a lot more at stake here in the long run than just patent licensing. -- Simon St.Laurent "Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better." - Emile Coue
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