Ian Hickson wrote: > On Tue, 2 Oct 2001, Robert O'Callahan wrote: >>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?
Because now RAND is explicitly legitimate rather than just a big question mark. That gives the patent holders something concrete to point to and say "look, this is allowed, now go away". >>> 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? http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/WD-patent-policy-20010816/#sec-definitions > A "RAND License" shall mean a license that: > ... > 5. may be conditioned on payment of reasonable, non-discriminatory royalties or fees; "Royalty" means "a payment to an author or composer for each copy of a work sold or to an inventor for each item sold under a patent" (Merriam-Webster). If royalties are discriminatory, then the proposal contradicts itself. >>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. You win some, you lose some. It's still better to try. > Patents in general are a problem. Indeed. > 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. Do you think people will be surprised to learn that the US political system is corrupt and effectively controlled by those corporations? Most know this. [It's especially clear when politicians implicitly identify their real constituency --- e.g., "We haven't seen any problems with the DMCA. We've had no complaints from copyright holders." Interestingly, we see the same thing with the W3C patent proposal, with RAND licenses that need only be reasonable and non-discriminatory /for corporations/.] Rob
