Web right in danger

[Victor Odhner]

Trent Shipley wrote:
> They best way for liberty-ware to deal with proprietary standards
> is to get there first, or best, or de facto and basically turn the
> free-ware version *into* the standard.

To an extent, W3C can make itself irrelevant by failing to
champion the world-wide availability of standard web
technology, IF the open source community continues to
set de facto standards.

Of course this doesn't reduce the danger of Legal DoS attacks
as Hans points out.  Hans, is that your own coinage?
It's a useful concept that may help activate other techies
on the legal/political front.

Now, let me muse about a different angle.

Tim Berners-Lee has been vocal about patents in the past:
    http://content.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19990512S0013
    http://www.unesco.org/courier/2000_09/uk/dires.htm

Tim himself is a major player in the Curl development which
involves patents, licenses, etc.  The legal framework is
designed in such a way as to allow free non-commercial use
of the tools at the browser end.  The Curl Surge plug-in may
refuse to display commercial Curl content from unlicensed
sites.  I gather that the Surge plug-ins are not open source.

So, a few questions:

1.  While Tim has cited the effects of the GIF patent,
  doesn't his own project carry some of the same risks?
  This especially since Tim and others of like mind might
  lose control of the company and its patents.

2.  If not, for the sake of argument, would it be reasonable
  for W3C to allow some patented technologies, structured in
  this way, to be included in the standards?

I'm mainly trying to reconcile Tim's statements about the
harmfulness of patents on the Web with his participation in
this project.

Vic