Catastrophic loss for unencumbered standards

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You both missed the point

Anton said, "You've seen the way that standards committees have been struck by the insistence there be no IP, whether there's a charge for license or not. Just making sure the idea of profit comes nowhere near software."

It's got nothing to do with "making sure the idea of profit comes nowhere near software." The purpose of the standards committees is to set standards. One could say, and you two apparently would say, that it's OK to promulgate a standard that one would need a license to implement. That idea flies in the face of what a standard is, as the standards bodies understand them. It's just good policy for a standard to be unencumbered.


Bit Byte said, "MS was offering it for free, however they wanted to retain thier ownership rights with a patent. The sticking point was the GPL allowing free distribution and copying, AND the abilty to take the code and use it for other purposes somewhere down the road without MS approval."

This isn't about the GPL. It's about standards and whether anyone can implement a standard without getting permission. You've crowed loudly and often about how patents will be used by proprietary companies to thwart open source. That may be so, but it's unreasonable to think that a standards body ought to abet them. Patents have their place, but they have no place in IETF standards.


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Posted by: none none   Posted on: 09/25/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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