On Thursday 29 June 2006 03:29 pm, Philip Tellis wrote:
Sometime Today, j cobbled together some glyphs to say:
rather than being compatible with some browsers. However the W3C standards are patent encumbered afaik.
patents in themselves are not bad. when utilised for evil, that's when they become bad.
Agreed. Save the major problem of software and "fake" patents. I was referring strictly to software patents.
Bad uses of patents:
- Stifle innovation
- Prevent competition
Good uses of patents:
- Protect small time inventors
- Protect a standard from being embraced and extended
With the current patent system doing exactly the opposite of the above.
jtd, you need to learn not to create stereotypes for everything. A little knowledge is dangerous if you believe in it as fact. I'm sure you'll agree with me, that given the last point, and how we've suffered from it in the past, that this is a Good Thing.
Not quite. The W3C's acceptance of patent encumbered standards is fraught with danger, by exposing developers to legal action. U would be wasting time and money applying for permission to the patent holder then whetting the permissions thru a legal channels.
Read the policy here: http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Patent-Policy-20040205/
You'll understand that the primary reason for this policy is so that the W3C standards are completely unencumbered with non-free clauses that make it unusable by the general public. It's sort of a GPL for standards and specifications.
Patenting software is a very bad idea. W3C cloaks this stupiity with fancy words RAND and RF. Although W3C states that the standards are Royalty free and available on RAND terms, it effectively adds a thick legal layer precluding individuals / organisations from creating standards compliant systems without going thru a legal and technical whetting of the patent. This is imo completely unneccessary for any standard and in particular relating to software.