The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has a section devoted to SOAP on its
website (http://www.w3.org).
SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol)
http://www.w3.org/TR/SOAP/
with a link to the SOAP Submission Request presented to W3C by a group of
companies in May of 2005:
http://www.w3c.org/Submission/2000/05/
The comment below (by zenephon-ga) has a review of that document. The key
phrase in the document is "reasonable and non-discriminatory" (RAND).
Following SOAP submission, the W3C formed a committee that produced a Patent
Policy Framework Draft
http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/WD-patent-policy-20010816/.
This document outlines the controversy surrounding the internet patents issue,
and suggests that there is a place for patents on the Web:
"Assessments of the impact of patents in the dynamics of the development of the
Web and the operation of W3C vary, as do the prescriptions for change in W3C
process. Some view a larger role for patents in the W3C standards-setting
process as the inevitable, and certainly not fatal, sign that the industry is
maturing. Just as the telecommunications and consumer electronics industries
have flourished through standards based on patented, royalty-bearing
technologies, so too will the Web, according to this view. Others view the rise
of patents in the Web standards landscape with concern. Market dynamics that
have lead to rapid innovation, worldwide proliferation of standards, and a high
degree of entrepreneurial development may be threatened by barriers posed by
even reasonable licensing terms. In this view, the highly decentralized Web
industry structure is so unlike the industries in which patents play a large
role, that the reliance on licensing models from those industries is considered
inappropriate.
Even with differing points of view on the likely impact of patents on Web
standards, the PPWG has reached some consensus recommendations.
Consensus Points:
Importance of interoperability for core infrastructure, lower down the stack:
Preservation of interoperability and global consensus on core Web
infrastructure is of critical importance. So it is especially important that
the Recommendations covering lower-layer infrastructure be implementable on an
RF basis. Recommendations addressing higher-level services toward the
application layer may have a higher tolerance for RAND terms.
Better disclosure: A clear process, to which Members are committed and/or bound
to ensure better disclosure of essential patents as a condition of Membership,
is vital.
Access for general public (not just Members): Licensing terms for essential
technology should be available on a non-discriminatory basis to W3C Members and
non-Members alike.
Working Group flexibility: One patent licensing framework may not be
appropriate to every W3C Working Group. Therefore, Working Groups should have
flexibility to specify minimum licensing terms as part of their work. These
intellectual property rights requirements should then become the basis for
Advisory Committee and Director review of the resulting specification.
"
A lively discussion followed on the www-patentpolicy-comment list, an official
W3C list for public discussion of patent issues:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-patentpolicy-
comment/2001Oct/subject.html#1242
where most of the posters were opposed to the idea of proprietary internet
standards and thought that the implications would be negative and even
catastrophic.
Here are three sample comments.
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-patentpolicy-comment/2001Oct/0992.html
(author: Brent J. Nordquist)
An examination of the history of networking
and the Internet makes one trend very clear: that protocols and data
formats founded in open, unencumbered standards have flourished and
endured over decades, while proprietary and patented approaches (while
they may spring up and be popular at first) ultimately decay and vanish.
(The contrast of TCP/IP with NetBEUI, IPX, and AppleTalk is the most
striking example of this truth in the networking sphere.)
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-patentpolicy-
comment/2001Oct/0989.html
(author: Eric Montgomery)
I believe that the exclusive use of a "royalty-free" (RF) licensing
model is in the best interests of the Internet community, and that
RAND licensing would always necessarily exclude some would-be
implementors, especially among open source and free software
developers.
I would like to state that I am firmly OPPOSED to the idea of allowing
"proprietary" standards. To begin with, this seems to me to be a very big
contradiction in and of itself. How can something be a "standard" if only
one entity owns it and can deny its use to people based on whatever terms
they see fit? The internet was built upon open protocols and open
standards. Because they were open and usable by everyone, these standards
were agreed upon by everyone which allowed the internet to grow as it did in
the first place. With "proprietary" standards you'll have people throwing
patents all over everything they get their hands on with numerous patents
for similar services and protocols. I believe that this will stifle the
overall acceptance of any given patented "standard" because different groups
will have economic reasons for using a their own standards regardless of
their actual effectiveness. The end result of this is a "not so standard"
standard that is judged more for its economic quality to the individual,
rather than its efficiency, robustness, and overall usability. Somehow I
just don't see this as being a good thing."
The W3C then published a response to
Response to Public Comments on the W3C Patent Policy Framework Working Draft
http://www.w3.org/2001/10/patent-response.html,
stating that there is place for both royalty-free and RAND licensing modes,
that RAND licensing is commong among standards organizations, and that the W3C
is only trying to answer this question:
" In a world where patents exist and may be used to constrain conformance to
standards, how should W3C best proceed in order to accomplish its mission?"
One of the more recent voices in the debate comes from the ZDNET magazine:
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2861123,00.html
"IBM, Microsoft plot Net takeover", by David Berlind, April 11, 2002
"According to documents on the W3C's Web site, IBM and Microsoft not only own
intellectual property within specific Web services protocols, but also have no
intentions of relinquishing their IP rights to those protocols should they
become standards. The documents indicate that the two companies are currently
maintaining their rights to pursue a reasonable and non-discriminatory (RAND)
licensing framework as opposed to a royalty-free-based framework. The RAND
framework is widely acknowledged as the one that keeps a vendor's options open
in terms of being able to charge content developers and Internet users a
royalty for usage of relevant intellectual property."
There is a thread on Slashdot (http://www.slashdot.org), devoted to that
article:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/04/13/057217&mode=thread
predicting nothing but a grim future for proprietary standards:
This posting (by Get Behind the Mule on Saturday April 13) represents the
Slashdot majority opinion: "If standards for web services are not royalty-free,
then there will be no such thing within a few years. Or perhaps the idea of web
services will survive on the basis of other, royalty-free protocols, but SOAP
and WDSL and other patented technologies will be a footnote in history. Let IBM
and M$ go ahead if they want to kill off their own inventions, it really
doesn't bother me a bit."
Some useful Google searches:
soap standards microsoft ibm
soap rand license OR licensing |
