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RE: patents, continued

• To: "'Simon St.Laurent'" <simonstl@s...>, xml-dev@l...
• Subject: RE: patents, continued
• From: "Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@i...>
• Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 16:33:47 -0500

What you say there is right, Simon.  Let's just be sure 
we understand that one possible outcome of this is 
that the W3C will self-limit its own scope to those 
areas of Internet applications that can be guaranteed 
to not have IP problems, and that can be offered as  
self-encapsulated in the Internet ecosystem.  That 
may mean some very lucrative domains will not be 
standardized for some time to come.  Perhaps that is 
a good thing for the health of the core specifications 
which the W3C does control.  It is a good thing to 
know when one is "on the web" and "off the web".  
It isn't such a good thing to pursue profit and 
market domination through control of a public standard. 
It isn't good for anyone.

Dirty Harry said, "A man's got to know his limits." 
Maybe that is part of the maturing of an organization such 
as the W3C as well:  to set realistic expectations, 
to set realistic goals, but within these, to insist 
on respect and honor for all that consider its 
imprimatur to be its most valuable asset; or to 
ask offenders to leave the party whatever the perceived cost,  
and to find and keep allies in other organizations 
whose goals are congruent.   Those who would set 
OASIS against ISO against the W3C may not understand 
the long term results of short term ambitions.  Where 
these parties can agree on terms of engagement and 
mutual benefit, all of their members will benefit. 
Pay attention to who their members are, what polity 
they represent, how transactions among these 
polities are audited, and how goals are chosen. 
That is due diligence.

Not being a member of any of those, I'll go on doing business on 
ground I am more familiar with. ;-)

len

-----Original Message-----
From: Simon St.Laurent [mailto:simonstl@s...]
Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2002 3:57 PM
To: xml-dev@l...
Subject:  patents, continued


Len's brought up some very good material which has me pretty concerned.

I've had some thoughts on REST, Web Services, and patents, which I've
posted at:
http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/weblog/view/wlg/1305

I suspect that Web Services vendors are giving the REST folks some
powerful tools for evangelism.

-- 
Simon St.Laurent
Ring around the content, a pocket full of brackets
Errors, errors, all fall down!
http://simonstl.com


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