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RE: [Fwd: W3C ridiculous new policy on patents]

• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
• To: "Champion, Mike" <Mike.Champion@S...>, xml-dev@l...
• Date: Mon, 01 Oct 2001 15:06:39 -0500

From: Champion, Mike [mailto:Mike.Champion@S...]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bullard, Claude L (Len) [mailto:clbullar@i...]
> 
> I don't like this stuff either, Simon, but 
> as ISO had to accept the PDF PAS.

>Please explain why it is a Good Thing for PDF to be an ISO standard,
>encumbered as it is by Adobe's patent.  The cynic in me thinks this good
for
>Adobe, so that PDF is a "legal" standard for purposes of government
>contracts, and convenient for the people who have invested in PDF
technology
>... but not a model that the Web ought to emulate.

Because it is useful.  It provides a high fidelity efficient 
image of the content per the author's specification. 
For legal documents, this is a requirement.  We recommend 
it for customers that want to attach a report to email 
created from a print driver.  

It ain't good for much else.  I fought having it 
in CALS but that was a useless battle.  They invented 
the term "Final Fixed Format" and since no one had 
a working alternative in the markup world (DSSSL was 
simply too late and too complicated and not supported), 
we lost the battle.   Note that:  a defense against 
patents is equivalent alternatives.   Where such 
do not exist, it is hard to defend not allowing 
the RAND.  It is not just who is rewarded, but who 
is penalized.  Berners-Lee has used the rule of 
independent invention.  Can that be applied where 
one cannot find an alternative?

Let me ask, why did ISO accept XML given that it  
would be owned by the W3C?  

Answer:  it is a useful thing to have.  

One could say, "of course, the W3C was waaay  
powerful and could take it anyway".  One, they couldn't unless we 
supported it, and two, they would be what we aren't 
willing to support.  Willing counts for a lot and 
what we are seeing in the RAND is in that sense, a 
measure of willingness.  Unless RAND is possible, 
some parties will be unwilling to go forward in 
some W3C WGs just as they weren't willing to 
join the W3C unless the closure rules we dislike 
were put into place.  I believe that is part of the 
"ease of capture" mentioned earlier.   

So, how far are folks willing to go with the W3C 
given such rules?  
 
I don't like it but am not surprised at all.  The 
dot.bomb did more than evaporate capital; it narrowed 
options for those whose capital it made disappear.

The web is not an entity.  It doesn't emulate.  That 
mote is in our eyes.  We have to come to grips 
with it as it is: an unruly collective of willful 
participation, a marketplace of competitors with 
different rules even if overlapping goals.  Some  
cooperate because it in their best interest.  Most 
will not see loss of patent revenue as being in 
their best interest.  Best for all if we faced that squarely.

len

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