As far as I am concerned, it would be desirable for the W3C should have a copyright on HTML, XML, etc., and be able to deny the right to use those standards to anyone claiming IP rights over them. Other standards bodies should likewise adopt a policy to protect their standards as IP, make it freely available (none of the nonsense where egregious fees are charged to gain access to the documents), and enforced only to protect the standard from land grabs.
The W3C does copyright all specs they publish (http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/IPR-FAQ-20000620#holds). That's part of why they can charge 5-figures for W3C membership and sue you if you say your product is XYZ compliant if it is not.
NO ONE should be permitted to have IP rights over public infrastructure standards, except for the body charged with protecting them for the public. Open Standards must be just that: OPEN.
I don't think you can reduce the topic to this black and white. W3C and JCP are both examples of standards bodies with ownership and openness issues. Apache and FSF take different approaches to achieve this OPEN-ness. But the devil is in the details, so the question is how do you protect that openness.
-- Serge Knystautas President Lokitech >>> software . strategy . design >> http://www.lokitech.com p. 301.656.5501 e. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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