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On Fri, 5 Oct 2001, Sebastian Schnitzenbaumer wrote:
> That's exactly what I mean with esoteric:
>
> So far, *nothing* has changed. Until now, the W3C
> released good stuff and it simply worked.
> Why should this be different all of a sudden?
>
> Can we keep the patent lawyers out the door for
> a moment and go back to technology, please?
Because the patent lawyers have chosen not to leave _us_ alone. As much as
I would _love_ to just 'go back to technology', it is becoming
progressively more and more difficult when I have to constantly look over
my shoulder to make sure that the lawyers haven't patented Turing Machines
while no one was looking.
RAND is a fundamentally flawed proposal. It in effect freezes out all the
small players from the game (not surprisingly, it was proposed by a very
large player) by imposing a unmeetable burden on those who can't afford to
pay 'non-discriminatory' licensing fees to MegaCorp X for a otherwise free
tool. When the day comes that I _can't_ release a free XML tool to CPAN
_because of W3C RAND_, it will hurt not just me but directly anyone who
might of used that tool, and indirectly anyone wanting to use anything
depending on specifications produced by W3C.
--
Benjamin Franz
"Code as if whoever maintains your code is a violent
psychopath who knows where you live."
-- Nancy Lebovitz, the button lady
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