If you’ve read an article about standards recently, there’s a good chance that it focused on web services — but not necessarily on the technical side of things. In recent weeks, the competition has become more open between companies seeking to further their commercial interests through promoting their own web services solutions.
A Month in the Life of the World Wide Web Consortium
Which consortium supports “universal access, the semantic Web, trust, interoperability, evolvability, decentralization, and cooler multimedia” — and has more than 30 Working Groups busy doing just that?
ISO: “Royalties? Did We Say Royalties?
When word leaked out that global standards organization ISO was thinking about charging for the use of the currency, language and country codes that lie embedded in software and webpages, it set off an immediate storm of negative reaction.
Patents: Too Easy to Get, Too Hard to Challenge?
When Eolas defeated Microsoft in a suit that involved HTML, even hard-core Microsoft critics found themselves rallying around their opponent. The W3C appealed for relief, and the PTO agreed to review the offending patent. Less noticed was the release of a major report by the Federal Trade Commission, in which the FTC recommends major patent reforms.