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

[Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>]

Title: [humanmarkup] Re: [humanmarkup-comment] HumanML Langua

Easy  Big Fellas,

Can't I leave you guys alone for a minute? <facetious/>

I'm not sorry I brought it up, because, as I said, I will be obliged to bring it up soon as it directly relates and impacts upon our work in the very near future, regardless of what the W3C does, although we will certainly be affected by that decision.

I'm not hiding anything. The specific details just need a little research, or perhaps I should say  a little more research since I have just about researched this stuff to death. The MPEG-4 protocol is serious compromised by patents owned by Sony and Motorola that directly affect streaming of facial animation in the current MPEG-4 specification proposal. I need to correspond with Eric Petajan about some stuff, and the get the straight scoop and I need to do some more research before I do that.

I could learn to hate this stuff. I understand Kurt's position and Len's and I have already made myself heard fwiw in most of the ears into which I wanted to get my thoughts. RAND is very poorly thought out, and possibly disastrous without a provision preventing retroactive Essential Claims, and the process was slipshod at best but I don't think it was intentionally underhanded. There was an attempt to ramrod it through, and that did not work, and now the forces who wished that to happen will reap the harvest of failing in that attempt. I have no doubt the W3C will survive and be the wiser for this as will the companies whose desires were unmasked and who now understand that a functioning W3C, even if it doesn't toe their line, is better than no W3C.

However, I will do my best to present the decisions we have to make when I get the facts straight. And just for the record, OASIS does have an IPR policy even if it isn't explicitly spelled out in regard to patents, but I assume the same OASIS strictures hold for patents as for copyrights.

Ciao,

Rex

At 1:43 PM -0700 10/12/01, Kurt Cagle wrote:

> 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
> > >

-- 

Rex Brooks
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