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W3C Ponders RAND Again 84

Posted by Hemos from the hurm-what-to-do-with-this dept.
simonstl writes "Three unnamed W3C participants have suggested a new RAND policy that would let the W3C into the business of charging royalties for patent-encumbered specs. No consensus yet, but they sure seem to keep trying."
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W3C Ponders RAND Again More

W3C Ponders RAND Again

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  • W3C shows its true face (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Internet protocols should be free to use - is that so difficult to understand? There would be NO INTERNET without the foundation of free protocols already in place. Evict those 3 members suggesting RAND from the W3C board.
    • Internet protocols should be free to use - is that so difficult to understand? There would be NO INTERNET without the foundation of free protocols already in place. Evict those 3 members suggesting RAND from the W3C board.

      The issue is not as simple as that.

      First the real difference is not 'royalty free' vs RAND, it is between encumbered and non-encumbered. A patent license can be free but contain terms that are much more onerous to the end user than one that cost money.

      The objective with the Web was to make the standards unencumbered to the greatest extent possible. That is why we made the CERN library public domain and rejected the GPL. We wanted Microsoft, IBM and other companies to be able to build on that code base.

      The big proble with the original W3C patent policy was that the RF license was not the best way to ensure that standards ended up unencumbered. Most companies that contribute IP to a standard are going to want a reciprocal license to other IP that may be required. Otherwise you could have three companies contribute valuable IP to a standard and then have a fourth one come along right at the end and demand a huge payment for use of their patent while using the other parties IP free of charge. Or worse the copany might refuse cross licenses altogether and make the specification that was developed as an open standard into one that is effectively proprietary.

      Under USPTO rules a patent applicant can add claims to an existing application after they read up on someone else's work. And the US courts have enforced the patents (see Lemelson, now gone to hell so we can say he was a swindler in the Arthur Andersen, Enron, WorldCom, Harken Oil, GWB league)

      The other issue which is what the message was discussing was the case in which a specification can be implemented without any IP infringement problems but there are useful extensions that are encumbered.

      In this case there are occasions where the use might be legitimate. For example XML Signature can be used with Eliptic Curve algorithms and some people insist that this is a good idea and they want to do it. Personally I think that ECC is a bad idea (as does Len Adelman), but being able to use the stuff is a legitimate thing to look for even though doing so is going to involve a royalty payment.

  • This is crazy... (Score:4, Informative)

    by gowen ( 141411 ) <gwowen@gmail.com> on Wednesday July 10, 2002 @09:12AM (#3855931) Homepage Journal
    One minute the W3C are complaining [com.com] about people who don't stick to their standards, and the next they're stating that using the standards might cost you money. Its madness.

    The web was built on open and unrestricted standards, yet the people in charge seem keen to bow to pressure from a few special interest groups (and does anyone believe the proposers of this licensing aren't massive corporations with deep pockets) and cut off the thing that made it grow in the first place. I despair, sometimes.
    • I think that is the plan. The W3C will whine about no one using their standards until people start to implement them more fully, and then the W3C will start charging for them--well at least for further revisions of those standards. It seems like a typical bait and switch type of business move.
  • Because not one of us will be able to read the letter in a few minutes...

    Hello,

    Twenty people attended the 1 July 2002 Patent Policy Working Group
    (PPWG) teleconference. The meeting was devoted to a new RAND
    exception proposal circulated by three participants and the Chair.

    When non-royalty-free IPR is discovered in a W3C Working Group, a
    Patent Advisory Group (PAG) might have a number of possible
    outcomes. The proposal suggests that the Working Group's
    specification could be split in two. "Core" work to be licensed
    royalty-free would be produced as a W3C Recommendation.
    "Extensions" that may require royalties could be done at W3C or by
    another standards organization.

    One person suggested Extensions work be dropped. Some said work at
    the other standards organization needs to be a cooperative effort
    with W3C. One person suggested a hybrid all produced at W3C. One
    asked if the Core/Extensions split makes Extensions work less
    important than Core. The consensus seemed to be that specs built on
    top of Core work are valuable and that standardizing them is
    important.

    The group did not appear to universally accept the proposal.
    Discussion may continue when the group meets next on 8 July.

    Best wishes,
    --
    Susan Lesch
    http://www.w3.org/People/Lesch/
    mailto:lesch@w3.org
    tel:+1.858.483.4819
    World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
    http://www.w3.org/

    Am I the only one confused by this letter...?
    • Commerce is about transactions.
      If somebody can convince the market to pay for something, fine.
      What really draws vacuum is the market's
      inability to hold vendor's feet in the fire
      when they put out yet another piece of turd-ware.
      Somewhere between the Really Mondo Socialist
      and Market Satan extremes lies a utopia of
      solid work at reasonable prices...
  • undoubtedly they fear the RMS S.W.A.T. task force set out for retribution against all those who would dare profit from software specifications....

    • Re:unamed? (Score:1, Redundant)

      by mshiltonj ( 220311 )
      undoubtedly they fear the RMS S.W.A.T. task force set out for retribution against all those who would dare profit from software specifications....

      As well they should.
  • So they are going to charge royalties for extensions? Does that mean that I will have to pay to use .cgi on my site? Or am I thinking about the wrong thing?

    Whatever it is, it seems to work against the standards that they are trying for

  • The article was completely meaningless. Every other word I was like "what the heck are they talking about?"

    Unfortunately my coffeepot [slashdot.org] takes five minutes boot up, or maybe it would make more sense....

    At least all my coworkers have enough survival instincts to stay away until I've had my coffee.

    WHAT KIND OF ERROR IS THIS?!? BEAN PANIC?!?

  • Who made these guys king? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by colmore ( 56499 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2002 @09:17AM (#3855962) Journal
    Now I am fully of the happily coexist school of free vs. commercial software, but it strikes me as a little fishy that the organization responsible for setting the standards that everyone supposedly has to follow on the web will also stand to make a profit off of those standards. Doesn't exactly make for unbiased decision making.
    • If everyone had to follow them, there would be no sites "designed for IE".
      • Oh, I know... almost any standards organization is better than defacto Microsoft "standards." But still, I would hope that an organization claiming to set web policy for the entire world wouldn't also be chosing standards based on its own ability to profit from them. That's really no better than MS.
  • that if this goes through it will only encourage people away from standards. This is last thing we as a community want.

    IE will become the actual standard, rather than the percieved. Not a nice sunny day in the www.

  • too big for boots (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There is no reason for them to believe they are immune from being replaced, or simply ignored. The most important issue at hand for the WC3 is that many people have had time to digest their response to the first RAND. The reply this time might be more in the field of action rather than words. Their final decision could be one that they would regret.

  • Interesting parallel... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Noryungi ( 70322 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2002 @09:17AM (#3855968) Homepage Journal
    To the Slashdot discussion that appeared on how webmasters were coding mostly for Microsoft Internet Explorer.

    I mean, IE already does not respect the W3C standards as well as it should. And it is the dominant force on the net today.

    If W3C was to charge money for some IP, what can prevent MS from saying: "Fsck off, we will set the standards, because we are the standard"?

    Think about it. And be afraid. Be very afraid.

    • Re:Interesting parallel... (Score:5, Informative)

      by sab39 ( 10510 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2002 @09:30AM (#3856057) Homepage
      Actually, the other way around is more likely, since Microsoft is a member company in the W3C.

      (Aside: the W3C doesn't patent things itself - this policy is about dealing with situations where one of it's member companies holds a patent on something that will be part of a standard. Any royalties that are assessed will go to that member company, not to the W3C. I thought that was obvious, personally, but from reading the comments in this story, apparently not...)

      Thus, the more likely scenario is that Microsoft patents some key part of some future web standard which the W3C then ratify, so that all implementors of it have to pay Microsoft! Can you imagine AOL, Opera, Macromedia etc all having to pay money to their primary competitor just to be allowed to compete?

      • Can you imagine AOL, Opera, Macromedia etc all having to pay money to their primary competitor just to be allowed to compete?

        Since when is Macromedia in competition with Microsoft? Surely, you can't be comparing FrontPage with Dreamweaver...

        • Point.

          I guess I was subconsciously assuming that, since Flash is (a) popular now, and (b) increasing in popularity over time, I'd expect that both (a) the W3C would want to make a standard in that area, and (b) MS would want to create a competing (and incompatible, of course) product.

          But if that does happen, it'll be well into the future, so you're right to call me on that. I had assumed a whole bunch more hypotheticals than I stated.
    • I mean, IE already does not respect the W3C standards as well as it should. And it is the dominant force on the net today.

      Actually IE respected the W3C standards to a much greater extent than Netscape did. Opera is probably the most compliant browser at the moment, but that is because Hakon Lie the CTO of Opera is like myself ex W3C.

      The problem at this point is that there is a gap between the specifications and the products and it is not easy to bridge it. The biggest problem with W3C has been that the standards have often taken years longer than they should to be finalized. But there have also been problems due to honest misreading of the specs, and sometimes ambiguous specs.

      At the end of the day nobody is going to delay a product launch indefinitely while people debate a standard.

  • Don't get your panties in a wad just yet... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by onlyabill ( 591213 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2002 @09:33AM (#3856084) Journal
    Unless I misunderstood, they are not saying that they would consider charging for IP. It appears to me that they were discussing how to handle standards proposals that included licensable, royalty work. That the normal(?) process is to break a specification into non-royalty works and royalty works in such a way that the non-royalty works would not depend on the royalty works and that the royalty works would be farmed out to another organization.

    "When non-royalty-free IPR is discovered in a W3C Working Group, a Patent Advisory Group (PAG) might have a number of possible outcomes. The proposal suggests that the Working Group's specification could be split in two. "Core" work to be licensed royalty-free would be produced as a W3C Recommendation. "Extensions" that may require royalties could be done at W3C or by another standards organization."

    The question appeared to be if that should continue. Of if W3C could work on the royalty works as well or if they could not go through the trouble of splitting the proposal and work on the entire thing.

    "One person suggested Extensions work be dropped. Some said work at the other standards organization needs to be a cooperative effort with W3C. One person suggested a hybrid all produced at W3C. One asked if the Core/Extensions split makes Extensions work less important than Core. The consensus seemed to be that specs built on top of Core work are valuable and that standardizing them is important."

    • Stop Apologizing for these jerks (Score:5, Insightful)

      by FreeUser ( 11483 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2002 @10:43AM (#3856549)
      Don't get your panties in a wad just yet

      Translation: "Be sufficiently cowed by my pre-emtive ad-homonim attack so as not to speak out on this important issue"

      Unless I misunderstood, they are not saying that they would consider charging for IP.

      This is deceptive semantics. It makes no difference whether it is the w3c charging a patent royalty, or Microsoft charging a patent royalty. If the royalty is requried to adhere to a w3c standard because the fools have incorporated patented material into the standard, then the damage is done regardless of who the web/browser authors have to pay the Vig to, and a once open and free (beer, speech) standard will have become much less open and very unfree, i.e. it will have become worse than worthless to the majority of small web publishers and free software authors, it will have become something to be actively avoided.

      It appears to me that they were discussing how to handle standards proposals that included licensable, royalty work. That the normal(?) process is to break a specification into non-royalty works and royalty works in such a way that the non-royalty works would not depend on the royalty works and that the royalty works would be farmed out to another organization.

      There is already a procedure in place: do not allow patent-encumbered works into open internet standards, period. As another poster pointed out, which part of No! No! No! didn't they understand the last time around? This is an attempt to change the procedure to allow something which, for very good reason, is disallowed now, i.e. the incorporation of patented procedures into w3c standards that will result in an open and free standard becoming encumbered, less open, and not free at all (in any sense).

      In other words, this is yet another sordid attempt to sneak patented work into the standard through the back door, and it deserves every bit of derision and outrage it is getting.

    • By posing it as an 'either/or' question (either work on the encumbered extension or let somebody else do it), you neatly avoid other alternatives:

      • challenge the patent and try to get it overturned,
      • develop an unencumbered alternative and standardize on that instead,

      If the only existing solution (open or proprietary) for a given problem is patent encumbered then somebody needs to develop a non-encumbered alternative. Walking away from the issue and saying "there's a proprietary solution in this area, so we won't develop our own" is no solution at all. It pretty much defeats the purpose of having a standards body.

  • I liked this gem in their July 8 meeting notes...the group meets next on 8 July
  • Man I am ever behind on the acronyms used in computing these days. I read the headline from this stroy and had no idea what it could possibly be about.

    Sorry its offtopic, but...

  • Found this in the reply to the message linked (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Digital Mage ( 124845 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2002 @09:37AM (#3856107)
    From: dank@kegel.com
    If I understand correctly, the W3C's position on RAND as described in http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-patent-policy-2002022 6/#sec-Exception which says "In the event a patent has been disclosed that may be essential, but is not available on RF terms, then a Patent Advisory Group (PAG) will be launched to resolve the conflict." implies that RAND will be used only when a patent is truly essential. But the proposal you mentioned above talks about extensions. By definition, an extension is not essential. Therefore the W3C's existing public statements don't support the kind of exception proposal you mentioned.

    You are aware you're treading on very dangerous ground here, I'm sure. Care to identify the three participants who are eager to introduce extensions that require royalty payments? - Dan

    I need to buy this guy a beer and a pizza because he replies to the heart of the matter. What part of NO did a few members not understand from the last time they tried going this way. Well, let me reiterate, NO, NO, NO. I'd love to join W3C and kick some ass over there but unfortunately I don't have the $5,750 to cover their 'affiliate' membership fee. Bastards!

    • Well (Score:1)

      by sulli ( 195030 )
      At least the $5750 membership fee is applied on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis.

  • W3C backstabs their only significant supporters (Score:3, Insightful)

    by smiff ( 578693 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2002 @09:45AM (#3856163)
    We all know RAND is incompatible with open source. Without open source, there would be no W3C! If every open source browser stopped supporting new standards, there would be only one dominant browser. That one browser shows no intentions of adhearing to the W3C's standards. How can the W3C not see this?!? Without open source, they are DEAD!
  • I thought after all the discussion and backlash last year, that I was pretty clear that the internet community, wants insternet standards to remain free. Any Proposal that even mentions that any web standard could be brought to to being, as not free should be immediately rejected. This extentions crap is just a dodge, where some company say "Big Evil Corporation" here to refered to as M$ could intoduce a new standard as "core" and freee get us all hooked on it, then introduce "extentions" that are the really good most desired functionality, and fill there coffers. This stinks of M$ "embrace and extend"....I hope this proposal like last years get as universally rejected and the community sees the forset for the trees here....
    The Internet and the standards which make it work, and grow need to remain free....

    • I thought Microsoft as soon as I read the headline. I've been opposed to their membership in the W3C for as long as I've been aware of it - Microsoft's goals are not compatible with the open freely-accessible Internet.

      Look over the Consortium's membership list [w3.org] and then cross-reference it with a list of Microsoft's partners or subsidiaries... I see Intel, HP, General Magic (Ms owns a minority stake in it), Corel, Unisys, the now-defunct RealNames company... There's plenty of potential there for Microsoft to push the issue. Fortunately, I don't think Sun, Apple, IBM, Macromedia, Oracle and some of the other member companies will let that idea go through without a fight.

  • is nothing new here but I think that, in the end, free/open source software will be killed by IP because every idea will eventually be patented. This really bothers me but I don't see how this can be avoided.

    Perhaps the W3C should stipulate that for a patented technology to become accepted a standard that no-cost licensing must be available for free (or non-commercial) projects?

  • Patents and prior art? (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This reminds me of Apple's patented alpha blending, and the time when we feared we had to burn our PNGs [theregister.co.uk]

    Some granted patents are really bogus. If the W3C is working on some spec, and it stumbles upon someone's patent along the way, the patent should be scrutinized very closely. I would believe most could be disallowed on the grounds of prior art - instead of having W3C charging people for royalties. This could shake the whole IPR issue very nicely too.

    z

  • No, this is not about W3C staff wanting RAND specs (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ankh ( 19084 ) on Wednesday July 10, 2002 @10:26AM (#3856438) Homepage
    No, this is not about W3C staff wanting RAND specifications.

    It's about what to do if we're working on a specification that the community (including the open source community) needs/wants, and we discover that some aspect of it is covered by software patents.

    In that case, you might not be able to have an open source implementation, and W3C has to ask, (1) should the work be dropped altogether, or (2) is there a central core that can be implemented freely, avoiding the patent? If so, should the non-free part still be standardised, and under what terms?

    By making an extension to a specification, an implementation can conform without that (possibly non-free) extension, but at the same time w3C can require W3C member organizations to agree to "non-discriminatory" terms, i.e. forcing them to agree to licence the patent to their competitors.

    That may be better than having no specification at all, I don't know.

    Note: I work at W3C, and am not involved in the specific work mentioned, nor in the patent policy group.
    • It's about what to do if we're working on a specification that the community (including the open source community) needs/wants, and we discover that some aspect of it is covered by software patents.

      That may be part of it but I'm not so sure that it is the only thing they are talking about. The following seems to suggest a lot more than just patent discovery.

      "Extensions" that may require royalties could be done at W3C or by another standards organization. ...The consensus seemed to be that specs built on top of Core work (extensions?) are valuable and that standardizing them is important.
      • Reading your other comments, I think all I can say usefully is that it's not a goal of the w3C team members (the staff) to publish specs that cannot be implemnted openly and freely. You (and others) may be reading more into the wording than was intended. But, it's hard to read and interpret email without the full context, and neither of us were at the meeting.

        I'm not sure I have explained this very clearly - Digital Mage, feel free to email me if that will help (liam at w3 dot org). I have not seen an "official" W3C response, and neither can I give you one, but I can maybe help you understand the issues, and also show you how you can send effective feedback to W3C working groups.

        Liam

        [sorry, my personal web site is down right now, www.w3.org/People/Quin works though]
    • Closed standards are not standards.
      Proprietary standards are not standards.
      Whether you want it or not, if you propose acceptance of RAND specifications, then you are proposing that the W3C cease to be a standards body.

      The purpose of a standard is to define the way in which things should be done. If a patent prevents them from being done in some way, then that is not a possible standard way to do them. Something which had been a standard, if prevented from use by a patent, should be withdrawn, and the name made unuseable. (If names are trademarked, this means revoking all authorization to use the name. Otherwise it means revoking all authorization to use the name of the W3C in conjunction with the prior standard.)

      Anything less is unacceptable. Patents are only allowable as long as they to not impede standard conforming usage.

      "non-descriminatory" is a term created by companies that intend to descriminate. It is blatant camoflage, and should not be acceptable. Non-free specifications are not standards, and cannot become standards as long as they remain non-free. The concepts are in direct opposition. Proprietary is feasible, but there is a strong tendency to confuse proprietary with the right to be paid. So to be explicit here, if you must pay to use a specification, then it cannot qualify as a standard. Perhaps one would need to pay to be certified as standard compliant. That's a totally separate matter. The right to certify something as being W3C standard compliant must inevitably belong to the W3C, and perhaps it wouldn't be unreasonable for them to delegate that right to a third party. But charging for the use of a standard is incompatible with the concept of standards.
    • If it's valuable enough to the community as a whole standardize, it's too valuable to be sealed off behind the RAND wall. If it is inessential enough to be behind a RAND wall, it is inessential enough not to be an W3C-endorsed extension to a standard.

      Or another way: if it's important enough that companies should have RAND access to it, it's important enough that the open-source developers have RAND access to it. And for open source software, "reasonable and non-discriminatory" means GPL-able, which means free and unlimited distribution and development.
    • (1) should the work be dropped altogether, or (2) is there a central core that can be implemented freely, avoiding the patent? If so, should the non-free part still be standardised, and under what terms?
      This is a little hard to answer, so I'll rephrase it:
      1. If there is a central core that can be implemented freely, avoiding the patent, should the non-free part be standardized, and under what terms?
      2. Otherwise, should the work be dropped altogether?
      The answers, of course, are no and yes, respectively.

  • In Other News... (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by MadAhab ( 40080 )
    In a recent cabal, the Illuminati pondered ratcheting back some of this new-fangled "freedom" that some people had been enjoying. Apparently the use of such "freedom" has been interfering with some rather important conspiracies recently. The alien landing, the zero-point-energy car, and the reason my sunglasses keep disappearing were safely handled with a cover-up, but some leaders privately worried that one of these days, the Grand Conspiracy of Everything might have less than complete control over the lives of humanity.
  • According to Microsoft, the success of the entire industry depends on an "Ecosystem" where initial long-range developments are placed in the public domain and can later be exploited royalty-free once Micr... er, the "IP Community" sees a short-term profit opportunity.

  • RAND (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 10, 2002 @10:45AM (#3856566)
    I'm directly involved in one of the W3C standard efforts - VoiceXML - where RAND is in demand by some of the larger participants. The RAND issue is driven by two things:

    1. Failing business at larger corporations. Companies like Motorola and Lucent are falling quickly, and they are looking to patent & license the technologies behind standards in a desperate attempt to increase revenue.

    2. Microsoft. From the inside, it's obvious that Microsofts anti-open-source strategy is to "RAND"ify as many standards as they can. Privately, I can tell you that many of Microsofts RAND agreements require *$0.00* in payment, but are written in such a way that they prevent open source implementations.

    • Seems to me that #1 would be a big argument against RAND licensing. If the patented technology is essential to implementing a standard, once it's in isn't that a big temptation to a company looking for more revenue to jack up the licensing terms across the board? After all, everyone else can't simply drop support for the standard. This sounds like something a standards body should not be leaving open.

    • $0.00 may be reasonable, but refusing to extend the same terms to open source software is hardly non-discriminatory.

      Sounds as though Microsoft may need more than RAND terms to implement a scheme like this. They actually want to discriminate, refusing to license the patent to some of their competitors.
  • People seem to have agreed that, just because there's a patent, everyone shouldn't do things differently. At issue here is who should determine such a standard, and who should promote it.

    It seems to me that the extent of the W3C's involvement should be to determine the people to pass the standard of to, whether it be an interested subset of the members of the committee that found the patent, an entirely different group of people, or a different standards body. Presumably the people interested in implementing the patented technology would be represented, so the standard would not need to be recommended by a standards body, as it had been developed by the people who would then use it.

    So long as it's possible to have a patent that interferes with a standard (such that the standard cannot simply be fixed to avoid the patented part), the W3C has to have some clear idea of what to do when a committee finds themselves stuck.
  • the thing I don't like about RAND license in public standard is it implicitly supports non royal free technology for public domain and implicitly devalues royal free standards. It's not as blatant as saying "come on down to the price is right." But it does encourage businesses to push for RAND, which in my mind will result in the breakdown of W3C and public standards. It's my opinion, so whether it's true or not is a different story. I just feel that going down the RAND path will lead to certain death of W3C.
  • Man, I'm so sick of Slashdot's hypocritical coverage of this new Blizard game. If you're so unhappy with the way they handled the bnetd case, then stop giving WC3 publicity!

    Oh wait... you said W3C? Never mind. Forget I said anything.
  • No consensus yet, but they sure seem to keep trying.

    And they will continue to try, forever, until they get what they want or go bankrupt.

    M$ makes $1b / month in revenue. They have the resources to keep fighting this fight forever. Our only defense is eternal diligence. Our only offense is to support open standards and companies committed to open standards every chance we get. There are alot of people here who make purchasing decisions for IT departments. When you vote with your dollars, don't forget what's happening here.

    -- p
  • and Ages Come and Go.

    The Dragon is Reborn?
    I won't really worry until the RIAA starts going after music-sharers with Myrdraal...
  • Say it here [w3.org].

    Last time, we won, because we cared, we posted, we let the world know what we think. No RAND-encumbered Web Standards. Only Royalty Free will do.

    Oh, before you post, read at least some of the most recent patentpolicy-comment archives. No swearing, no telling people they're stupid. Just them them "no!".
  • Is it just my imagination, or does the W3C marginalize itself every time it tries this?
    • A number of companies have a lot to gain if there are no longer any open standards or, just as good, disincentive to follow them. This would give some a short term infusion of royalty money and would allow others the chance to grab a majority of the world's computer networks.

      But we've seen private standards before and they are not good. Many networks with private and closed standards existed for decades prior to the Internet. Only open standards allowed formation the web and the Internet as it is today. Going back to closed standards would make it expensive and difficult for any new developments to reach critical mass in adoption. This would put innovation back on ice, something that would be really bad at this moment in the economic recession / depression. (Eating your seed potatos | penny wise, pound foolish.)

      If the corporations are really interested in turning a quick profit, how about capping executive salaries and perks? Each business could save millions if not billions that way, while still enabling future development.

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