[thelist] DaveNet Patents and the W3C

[Joshua Olson]

Snippet from article:

"Now several large companies, led by Microsoft, Philips, Apple and
Hewlett-Packard, are trying to become the platform vendor that the Internet
never had, and imho that's totally counter to the charter for the Internet,
and therefore, the W3C. "

The main problem I have with statements like this is that it makes the
assumption that the w3c is setting internet standards and that the internet
and the world wide web are the same.  The world wide web has some serious
limitations in its vanilla state, which is why the w3c has stepped beyond
defining standards for just the web and started developing standards in a
much broader sense.  To assume that the w3c is capable of setting standards
that would allow the business practices of these major companies to move
forward at an acceptable rate is just straight arrogance.  IMO, if Microsoft
wanted to create a new internet based system on some completely arbitrary
protocol and user interface, completely discarding HTML, XML, and the
"browser", they would.  They have a right to do that as well.  The w3c might
not like it and we (as developers) may not like it, but the users will use
it if that is what it takes to get the job done.

Perhaps I am way off base. Can anyone find me a copy of the "charter for the
Internet" and highlight where it states that every change has to be sent to
committee (in this case sponsored by the w3c) and that it cannot be used for
platform specific applications?

-joshua

----- Original Message -----
From: "the head lemur" <headlemur at clearskymail.com>
Subject: [thelist] DaveNet Patents and the W3C


: Here is a scary bit about proposed changes to the web and standards.
:
:  http://davenet.userland.com/2001/09/30/patentsAndTheW3c