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. -- Rgds JTD -- http://mm.glug-bom.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
