Free software developers are ready and willing to take up the challenge of creating open web standards, if the W3C implements royalty-bearing licenses.

So says open source leader Bruce Perens, in one of the first responses to our Q and A (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/21991.html) with the man steering the W3C's patent policy, Danny Weitzner, where the issue of a forked WWW was raised.

"They say RAND licenses are inevitable - well, that's a choice, you know," Perens told us.

"Having the W3C accept royalty-bearing patents isn't going to make a positive change: with RAND licenses people have no incentive to be open. It's the same for us either way."

And he has little doubt that royalty-free alternatives would be created if RAND licensed web standards were approved by the W3C:-

"The potential of pioneering open web standards is rather attractive," he told The Register. "We do have our own Free Standards Group - it was called LSB - we could definitely get some mileage out of that!"

This isn't a bid for control he adds, but an indication that creating open web standards is a continuation of long-standing free software work.

The Gartner Group agrees that a forked web will be more likely if the W3C's RAND policy is implemented, with analyst Kathy Harris saying that royalty-bearing standards are divisive and troublesome:-

"Choosing to allow payment for patents will inevitably encourage still more alternative standards bodies (by industry, for instance) and domain-specific standards," she writes (http://technews.netscape.com/news/0-1005-201-7385649-0.html).

Speaking to The Reg. Perens dismissed Weitzner's justification for RAND licenses: that the Web has to meet the worlds of consumer electronics, broadcasting and wireless:-

"Excuse me? TV has always been an open standard since patents have been expired, and the same applies to audio broadcasting, and playing a CD. And some of this is quite silly: I was doing packet radio before Qualcomm existed!"

Reaction to Weitzner's comments to The Register was emphatic:-

"Sign me up for the schism!" writes one poster at LinuxToday (http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-10-02-013-20-NW-CY-LL). "Schism? Why wait?" asks another.

While poster Mark Kent, recalling historical precedent, has little doubt which side would be victorious:- "If alternative standards are created by the free software folk, then they are likely to fairly rapidly replace a RAND licensed standard," he writes. ®

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Web standards schism "terrible" - W3C patent policy boss (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/21991.html)
The free Web's over, as W3C blesses Net patent taxes (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/21948.html)