[DotGNU]RDF vs UDDI (was Re: Implement RDF...)

[Norbert Bollow]

Tim <address@hidden> wrote:

> I didn't hear anyone discuss UDDI.

The UDDI specs start like this...

"""
Copyright (C) 2000 - 2002 by Accenture, Ariba, Inc., Commerce One,
Inc., Fujitsu Limited, Hewlett-Packard Company, i2 Technologies, Inc.,
Intel Corporation, International Business Machines Corporation,
Microsoft Corporation, Oracle Corporation, SAP AG, Sun Microsystems,
Inc., and VeriSign, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

These UDDI Specifications (the "Documents") are provided by the
companies named above ("Licensors") under the following license.  By
using and/or copying this Document, or the Document from which this
statement is linked, you (the licensee) agree that you have read,
understood, and will comply with the following terms and conditions:

Permission to copy, prepare derivative works based on, and distribute
the contents of this Document, or the Document from which this
statement is linked, and derivative works thereof, in any medium for
any purpose and without fee or royalty under copyrights is hereby
granted, provided that you include the following on ALL copies of the
document, or portions thereof, that you use:

 1. A link to the original document posted on uddi.org.

 2. An attribution statement : "Copyright © 2000 - 2002 by Accenture,
    Ariba, Inc., Commerce One, Inc. Fujitsu Limited, Hewlett-Packard
    Company, i2 Technologies, Inc.,  Intel Corporation, International
    Business Machines Corporation,  Microsoft Corporation, Oracle
    Corporation, SAP AG, Sun Microsystems, Inc., and VeriSign, Inc.
    All Rights Reserved."

If the Licensors own any patents or patent applications that may be
required for implementing and using the specifications contained in
the Document in products that comply with the specifications, upon
written request, a non-exclusive license under such patents shall be
granted on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. 
"""

What these companies call "reasonable and non-discriminatory terms" is
in fact totally unreasonable from a Free Software perspective.  So
unreasonable in fact that _if_ "the Licensors own any patents or
patent applications that may be required for implementing and using
the specifications" then any implementation will not be truly Free
Software even if you try to release it under GPL.

> What are the advantages of RDF?

In total contrast to the above, if/when necessary, W3C will fight
together with us against any patent claims threatening the freedom of
RDF.  (There have been some, IMO totally ridiculous, patent claims, see
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-rdf-interest/2002Jan/0076.html
for some info.  AFAIK the holders of those patents have not pursued the
matter further, so please don't revive this ridiculous matter.  However
please read http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/w3c-patent.html ... the new
W3C Proposed Policy of 19 March 2003 still has the policy bug which
allows for GPL-incompatible patent licenses.  Comments from both W3C
Members and the public are welcome until 30 April.  The statement in
http://www.w3.org/2003/03/patentpolicy-pressrelease under the heading
"W3C Patent License Requirements Consistent with Open Source/Free
Software Terms"  is not true.)

The situation that UDDI may potentially be patent-encumbered alone is
sufficient reason to prefer RDF over UDDI.  In addition IMO there are
also technical reasons which make RDF more suitable for the purposes
of DotGNU's service discovery system.  I hope that I may soon find
some time to write these points up in detail.

Greetings, Norbert.

-- 
Founder & Steering Committee member of http://gnu.org/projects/dotgnu/
Free Software Business Strategy Guide   --->  http://FreeStrategy.info
Norbert Bollow, Weidlistr.18, CH-8624 Gruet (near Zurich, Switzerland)
Tel +41 1 972 20 59        Fax +41 1 972 20 69       http://norbert.ch