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Simon Phipps's personal commentary

The fuss over the JPEG patent just serves to underline my growing feeling that it's a mistake to let anyone proceed with RAND licensing of any kind. OK, the miscreants in this case weren't part of JPEG, but the issue is of sleeper IP, which can come from anywhere. The cute fluffy term that RAND represents (Reasonable And Non Discriminatory) makes it all sound so, well, reasonable, but the truth is that reserved rights of any kind are counter to the very idea of infrastructure standards in a net-effect world. Rights reserved during the standardisation process restrict the ability of the participants to experiment with the ideas offered - they have no idea what rights they have or whether they could be sued. Rights reserved, even under zero royalty (today), result in the possibility of a change of the "reasonable" terms in the future. The only way to create new markets and trust is the release of rights, possibly with the protection of compatibility through some mechanism.

posted at 1:44 PM (UK) | |