In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Ian Hickson wrote: >>> 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? >
I think this is really the central point of the dispute; "reasonable and non-discriminatory" is a very vague way of putting it. Realistically, I think most of the people would be satisfied if the document contained explicit language safeguarding free software/open source. Unfortunately, the W3C is, well, an industry consortium, and I don't think that most people trust it to stand up and consider such licenses "discriminatory" if push came to shove. -- Chris Hoess
