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Subject: RE: [humanmarkup-comment] HumanML Language Components Tasks
I
agree. That potential has been there from the beginning. Mature
standards orgs like ISO have
such
policies although how much guidance they provide, I don't know. I do know
patent issues
have
come up in respect to the X3D work and liaison with MPEG. MPEG is a patent
pool
organization. I also have problems with doing a lot of public
work that only becomes someone
else's
bob to bounce, and have had to endure that at various times. (I was the
MID commitee
chairman originally and that work got mined like a gold
rush). I am sensitive as well but
I
don't know how to work in public and stay behind a fence. Them's the
risks. We have
done
what we could by putting HumanML into OASIS. OASIS is the reincarnated
SGML Open
founded by friends of mine whose motivations I respect but also whom I
have seen put their
morals
in their back pockets and take a profit when they had to. My last meeting
with
Yuri
was a bad spat over profit vs standards and he was telling me that even if HTML
was
bad
design, for the first time, SoftQuad was making money. Money ain't
the root of
*all*
evil; sometimes the lack of it is. Yuri was a founding member of SGML Open
and
he did
understand the need for an open organization and no doubt understood the
problems of larger vendor dominated consortia. Jon
Bosak and others have tried
to
carry forward that understanding and that is reflected in the OASIS processes
and
low costs to join. I am not a member; I am not a joiner. It's a
private conviction
so I
am probably evern more radical than some of you, but I see the benefits of
the
policies.
That
people are only now coming to the understanding of the impacts of such on
the
W3C, and the power of the W3C to move forward even with such policies
tells
me that there is more than naivete at work. Some are like children
who
at the
age of 12 discover Mom is sleeping with the neighbor's wife, Dad is a
closet
alcoholic and their brother is gay. The world crashes in. Some learn
to
accept life's improbable but real potentials, and others simply close their
eyes
and try to deny it all. But if we are to work in this world, we have to
understand boundaries, authorities, entitlements and the
laws. Bad laws
we
should change, but we can't get around the rules of business that say
"if it
is legal, we'll do it." That is the world as it is. We have to
make it what
we
want it to be. So, this patent issue is a problem for the W3C
members
to
work out. Depending on how they do that, people have to decide how to
work
with the W3C. But recognize it for what it is, not what some want
to
pretend it is and has never ever been.
len
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