On Tue, 2 Oct 2001, Robert O'Callahan wrote:
> Ian wrote:
>> To summarise:
>>
>> 1. The current situation is *not* that of royalty free licenses
>> automatically applying to standards. The W3C currently has *no*
>> patent policy, and this has bitten the community in the past,
>> e.g. with P3P.
>
> But there seems to have been an *expectation* of royalty free
> licensing even if the W3C had no specific policy.
There is an *expectation* that if you put one clock on a fast moving air
craft and one clock on the ground, they will still show the same time, but
they don't.
My point being that ignorance and assumptions are irrelevant to the facts.
> The P3P example itself seems to demonstrate that when that expectation
> is violated, people jump up and down and the whole process grinds to a
> halt until the patent issues are resolved (in this case, in favour of
> non-encumberance).
The XPointer case shows the opposite.
> The new proposal appears to demolish this expectation.
It demolishes the illusion, maybe.
> If P3P had been developed with the new proposal in place, would it
> still be freely implementable? Or would it just have been converted to
> RAND rules?
Given how people clamoured to get it under RF rules, why should they have
clamoured any differently in a better defined architecture?
>> 2. The proposal would guarentee that all standards are available to
>> everyone in the form of Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory licenses,
>> i.e. free software groups would not be excluded (assuming they can
>> pool together resources to afford the license). There is currently
>> NO guarentee of this kind.
>
> I cannot see how this could work for free software projects if someone
> demands a per-unit royalty (as permitted under the new proposal).
Wouldn't such a license be considered discriminatory?
>> 3. Without these rules, there is no guarentee that some standards will
>> not get sabottaged, e.g. P3P, XPointer.
>
> With or without these rules, standards can still be sabotaged by third
> parties.
Absolutely. Thankfully W3C membership is very broad, reducing the number
of third parties.
> Some standards would be developed elsewhere. OTOH more standards
> overall might be freely implementable because of this policy. Even in
> the real world patents can often be worked around, freely licensed
> under pressure, or shown to be irrevelant or invalid.
The XPointer example shows that policy and pressure can also _not_ have
any effect.
>> 5. Other standard organisations (IETF, ANSI, etc) do not have any rules
>> requiring Royalty Free licenses for patents covering their standards.
>
> That's a problem.
Patents in general are a problem.
>> 6. Many companies (Microsoft is a particular famous example of this)
>> get patents left right and centre for one reason and one reason
>> alone: defense in case someone else sues them (the idea is that if
>> company A sues company B for breaking patent W, company B can turn
>> around and counter-sue company A for breaking patents X, Y and Z. It
>> is then cheaper for company A to drop the subject than to run both
>> battles through the courts).
>
> They could offer a royalty-free license which automatically ends if
> the licensee sues the patent holder. This kind of license has been
> used extensively before.
IANAL, I am merely telling you the policy of many companies that I know
about first or second hand. I can only assume there is a reason for
companies not to do this. (Effort, at a first guess. Most companies don't
seem to have a clue what patents they have in the first place, hence the
numerous clauses in the W3C document about not expecting anyone to give
exact lists of relevant patents at any time.)
>> 7. Given 6, I would strongly recommend that free software contributors
>> start getting patents of their own. (This is similar in spirit to
>> the idea given in [1]). Indeed, I would strongly recommend that free
>> software proponents patent every idea under the sun, and then make
>> them publically available to all free software projects (and maybe
>> _only_ these -- thus turning the tables on the proprietary world).
>> An example of someone who did something like this is at [2].
>
> Good idea, if we had the money to obtain patents, and deep enough
> pockets to plausibly litigate patent infringement.
The FSF have, in the past, been involved in copyright litigation, they may
(I am guessing here) be interested in this area as well. I shall leave it
up to others to take that up though, as I am not worried about it. :-)
I think one of the big conclusions one can draw from the response the W3C
has seen is that people think it will be easier for them to change the
policies of a consortium of monopolistic corporations who are out to make
money than it would be to change the policy of their own representative
government(s) whose sole purpose is to uphold their freedoms.
Maybe said people should consider the implications of this.
--
Ian Hickson )\ _. - ._.) fL
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