[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       dmca-discuss
Subject:    [DMCA_Discuss] Berners-Lee on Standards Bodies
From:       Seth Johnson <seth.johnson () realmeasures ! dyndns ! org>
Date:       2003-01-29 1:50:11
[Download RAW message or body]


(This signifies a major payoff on our organizing resistance
to the W3C Patent Policy.  The front page of this week's
eWeek [Ziff-Davis industry rag] has Tim Berners-Lee on the
cover, under the headline, "Standard Practice."  The issue
has several articles about IT professionals getting involved
in standards processes, plus the following interview. 
Whatever else one might say about it, one has to notice the
difference Tim's perspective represents as compared to
feeling left to contend on their own with the threat of
certain Working Group members walking out on the W3C.  You
can download a pdf of the entire issue with Tim's face on
the front at:
ftp://ftp.eweek.com/pub/eweek/pdf/printpub/20/4.pdf  --
Seth)

> http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,848191,00.asp


Berners-Lee: Keeping Faith

January 27, 2003 
Interviewed by Anne Chen

The World Wide Web Consortium is a driving force behind the
Web's interoperability and evolution. Founded in 1994 by Web
inventor Tim Berners-Lee, the group has 450 member
organizations worldwide. Since its inception, the W3C has
developed standards such as XML and P3P. eWEEK Labs Senior
Writer Anne Chen recently spoke with Berners-Lee, in
Cambridge, Mass., about the changing role of standards
bodies and how enterprise IT organizations should
participate in the process. 

eWEEK: What are the biggest issues facing standards bodies
today?

Berners-Lee: Intellectual property rights are a much bigger
issue [today]. There's a fear of patents. ... Companies are
realizing they have to formally tackle the issues of making
standards royalty-free. A lot of [people who] participated
in standards activities did so separately from the part of
[their company] that has traditionally made money charging
for things. These two sections are now meeting for the first
time, and, of course, it's been difficult. They are dealing
with the crown jewels and deciding whether the long-term or
the short-term future is what the company values the most.

eWEEK: In which direction are most companies moving on
royalties?

Berners-Lee: There's a general global shift toward the
realization that royalty-free standards are the only
standards that can support Internet technology. There is a
lot of fussing around, and companies are dealing with it in
different ways. Some are dragging their heels; some are
rushing on, carrying the banner for royalty-free. In
general, though, the shift over the last two years is
definitely toward royalty-free standards.

eWEEK: What advice can you offer enterprise IT organizations
that want to get involved in standards work?

Berners-Lee: I'd say beware of organizations that might look
like a standards body but are controlled by a vendor. Very
often, they're more or less set up as a marketing and
branding exercise produced by a group of companies. Do not
be misled. You do not want to be railroaded by someone
else's company. That tends to slow things down.

Look at how a [standards] organization manages the idea of
being open, of being fair, and look for speed but also
coordination. One of the things about joining a standards
body is that you're not alone. The W3C involves the
coordination of various working groups and the mutual review
of specifications. If you're doing a technology, you can
review one another's specs and make sure things are going to
work. Something we've had to agree on as a consortium group
is that we're not just working with our own groups but also
with those from other standards bodies. You want to make
sure people are collaborating, that there are people working
together. Are members coming to the table and wishing to
share and to build a new market? Are they excited about
what's happening, or are they trying to exclude other
people? Find an inclusive group where companies get along
with the open-source community.

Lastly, when you're looking at standard bodies, make sure
there's quality. At the W3C, there's a candidate
recommendation, where we spend time making sure people can
implement a spec. We have this time where the working group
says, "Work on the spec is tabled, and now you should
implement it." If you're a company in the business looking
to make a product ... you should be interested in a spec ...
when it gets to that candidate recommendation point.

eWEEK: In the W3C, what's to keep vendors from pushing their
own technologies through as standards?

Berners-Lee: We have a review before we start an activity so
that a company can't start a standard around their own
product. You can't even have three members decide there's
going to be a W3C activity. Three of five self-selected
people might be able to do work together, but all [450]
members have to have a look at proposed work. ... There's no
secret in how that work gets done. All of the members have
an equal opportunity to speak up when it comes time to say
the W3C may assign resources to this new work.

eWEEK: Are there standards that were particularly
problematic in getting done?

Berners-Lee: P3P [Platform for Privacy Preferences Project]
is a classic example because it was the first to be ambushed
by a patent problem. At that point, someone had the audacity
to charge a patent infringement, and there was a two-year
hiatus on work. For 18 months ... there was no work done on
the standard. Two years taken out of anybody's business
model was really terrible. But a lot of patent policy work
grew from that experience. So it was a painful working
experience but a learning experience. Now, P3P is a W3C
recommendation with implementations worldwide, from
government agencies to the European Commission. It's truly a
technology that ended up serving the needs of international
communities.

There are organizations that work on XML, but the XML
Consortium is the W3C. We did the work on building that
infrastructure and the family of technologies. That really
has a lot to do with being in the right place at the right
time, which cannot be understated.

IT enterprise managers can trust results from the W3C
because of the way we've done our work and because of the
mistakes we've made. It's not that we were perfect from Day
One. We've had a lot of lessons, but we have a history of
eight years of results. We have almost 50 recommendations,
most of which are enjoying solid implementations. Allowing
everyone to play puts us in an environment that faces
challenges within the industry but provides all with
tremendous opportunity.


-- 

DRM is Theft!  We are the Stakeholders!

New Yorkers for Fair Use
http://www.nyfairuse.org

[CC] Counter-copyright:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/cc/cc.html

I reserve no rights restricting copying, modification or
distribution of this incidentally recorded communication. 
Original authorship should be attributed reasonably, but
only so far as such an expectation might hold for usual
practice in ordinary social discourse to which one holds no
claim of exclusive rights.

_______________________________________________


------------------------
http://www.anti-dmca.org
------------------------

DMCA_Discuss mailing list
DMCA_Discuss@lists.microshaft.org
http://lists.microshaft.org/mailman/listinfo/dmca_discuss
[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]