[KLUG Members] IBM, Microsoft plot Web takeover

[members@kalamazoolinux.org]

>I just read this and thought that I would pass it along. I wonder...is this
>the beginning of the end of the Web?
>http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2861123,00.html

"If the protocols do become standards, either by virtue of an independent
standards organization's imprimatur or by attaining a de facto status, IBM and
Microsoft--or any other company that maintains the intellectual property rights
to them--could legally impose royalties on that traffic. In fact, any protocols
that become a part of the core Internet infrastructure without having been made
available on a royalty-free basis could guarantee the owners of the intellectual
property the right to place a tax on the Internet traffic that depends on those
protocols."

Nope, they already blew their chance to do this.  Precedence of enforcement is
very important to intellectual property law.  If you don't make a reasonable
effort to enforce your copyright/patent it is effectivley void.   There *ARE*
*CURRENTLY* ***MANY*** GPL'd implementations of SOAP and WSDL, etc...

And this list does not include the *VERY* popular XML-RPC, or even CORBA,  both
of which will place an instrumental role in web services.

Failure to establish precedence is how you now have TrueType support in Linux
distributions.  Thre freetype project made several attempts to contact apple
(who holds the patent) about their (freetype's) work and licensing.  Apple did
not respond to any of their queries.  Apple's tough outta luck,  True Type
technology is not effectively public domain.