IP: more on -- RAND and W3C

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> From: "Jonathan S. Shapiro" <shap () eros-os org>
> To: <farber () cis upenn edu>, <ip-sub-1 () majordomo pobox com>
>
>
> Dave:
>
> As one of the people who responded to the call for comments on the W3C RAND
> proposal, and as one of the people who worked on some of the early parts of
> what is now the web (netnews) I'ld like to respond briefly to what Daniel
> Weitzner just posted.
>
> W3C is in the standards business. One key reason that the web is so useful
> is that W3C's standards have been open and accessable to all on a
> royalty-free basis. Most of the tools in daily use on the web started as
> efforts by individuals or small companies who had no means to pay royalties.
> The introduction of an endorsed royalty structure of any kind by W3C is a
> basic violation of trust between W3C and the people who made the web happen.
> More importantly, it is an abrogation of W3C's duty to the user base to
> promote the advancement of the web through open and widely deployed
> standards.
>
> I agree with Daniel that the W3C's royalty-free policy has been somewhat
> informal in the past, and that in the emerging legal environment of the web
> it may need improvement and clarification. The RF policy is a good start at
> this. While constructive suggestions have been made in regard to the
> specific W3C proposal, the only objections have come from large concerns
> that wish to seize, coopt, and benefit from the prio work of others -- the
> companies who advocate RAND.
>
> The RAND policy is another matter entirely. What is happening here is that
> certain companies are saying "Now that a bunch of people have built a market
> for us, we would like to create conditions in which (a) further evolution of
> that market will be impeded, and (b) we will get to profit from the work of
> those other people. We didn't have the foresight to invest in the web, so we
> don't control it now. Our only defense is to make further changes to the web
> impossible by using the monopoly leverage of standards to generate
> royalties."
>
> In short, this is like software patents -- and equally destructive.
>
> If you are an end user of the web, you benefit from the ideas and labor of
> hundreds of people. The designers of the web have created an environment
> that defines your online experience, and most of you seem to like that
> experience. That process occurred in an open, royalty-free environment; it
> could not have occurred any other way. In fact, there were competing
> commercial attempts at the time. All of them failed.
>
> Royalties destroy innovation by making it impossible to combine good ideas
> in new ways. It isn't broken. Don't fix it.
>
>
> Respectfully,
>
>
> Jonathan S. Shapiro, Assistant Professor
> Johns Hopkins University


For archives see: http://lists.elistx.com/archives/interesting-people/