[humanmarkup] Re: [humanmarkup-comment] HumanML Language ComponentsTasks

[Kurt Cagle <kurt@kurtcagle.net>]

Title: Re: [humanmarkup-comment] HumanML Language Components

Len,

 

Sorry. I am political, and I tend to shoot from the hip at times. I think a patent policy is necessary, I even think that there is room for *discussion* of a RAND like policy, but I get very worked up when I see something that looks like a power-grab, regardless of motivations. Additionally, I think that it is worth making an issue of here, although I'll get off my high horse after this post. I don't want to see a policy or standard that I helped develop become a marketing tool for some company that would essentially go against the very spirit of what was intended in the first place. Here's a very simple point -- suppose that, as RAND allowed, prior art essentially allowed Microsoft to claim XSLT or XML Schema. Microsoft had very early implementations of both. Does this mean that we as the HumanML committee would be required to license these technologies? Or that anyone who used HumanML would be required to license the core technologies from Microsoft? If Microsoft then pushed changes into those standards, would we be required to support them or face getting sued?

 

Nowhere in the policy is the term Reasonable spelled out. What's reasonable? Licensing fees in the thousands or even millions of dollars? The inability to produce a product because of licensing entanglements? This is important because EVERYTHING that we are doing here are based upon W3C standards in some form or another.

 

I'm not trying to provoke an argument here, but in many respects, this is perhaps one of THE most portentious events in the history of the W3C, and it goes well beyond XML-DEV. As more and more standards are encoded in XML (and why wouldn't they be -- it's become a universal language) the more that this issue becomes significant, not just for a few developers, but for everyone who uses the Internet.

 

-- Kurt

----- Original Message -----

From: Bullard, Claude L (Len)

To: Kurt Cagle ; Rex Brooks ; humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org ; humanmarkup@lists.oasis-open.org

Sent: Friday, October 12, 2001 12:19 PM

Subject: RE: [humanmarkup-comment] HumanML Language Components Tasks

Can we leave this issue on the XML-Dev list?  I am tired from having to defend it there

and don't want to do it here.   They are doing something very necessary.   Even here,

we have at least three instances of people writing to tell us about their patents.  It

is best not to respond since AFAIK, OASIS doesn't have a policy.

-----Original Message-----
From: Kurt Cagle [mailto:kurt@kurtcagle.net]
Sent: Friday, October 12, 2001 2:16 PM
To: Rex Brooks; humanmarkup-comment@lists.oasis-open.org; humanmarkup@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [humanmarkup-comment] HumanML Language Components Tasks

>If you haven't been following the foofooraw on xml-dev about the W3C's rather fumbling patent policy, be >aware that there are some developments that we must also be aware of as we proceed in this arena.

 

This is sheer fucking idiocy on the part of the W3C. Not only are they explicitly going against the very mission that they set out for themselves, but they have done it in such a sneaky, underhanded manner that they've bought themselves a LOT of ill will. They've chosen a strawman argument (discovering encumbrances take too much time -- like there's a deadline for this stuff?!) and puffed it up into a piece of legalese that reads like it came from Microsoft's Legal division.

 

I suspect that if RAND passes, you'll see a significant movement on the part of OASIS to create open alternatives; the UN connection may end up pulling a LOT of weight. Additionally, this is likely to raise some very disturbing questions about how OPEN and accountable the W3C really is.

 

-- Kurt