Earlier, in Perl, W3C, and RAND, I pointed people to the fact that W3C's new RAND (reasonable and non-discrimary) policy could harm the ability of free software (much less perl) to keep up with emerging web standards if these standards were tied to royality payments. At that time, W3C was continuing to gather comments on the issue.

Yesterday, both HP and Apple have done an about face and are withdrawing support for it (Slashdot also has a discussion on the issue; it looks like Bruce Perens is now part of HP's entourage to the W3C arena which is a good thing). I've also seen reports of W3C strongly considering RAND with exemptions for open source/free software programmers.

While the possibility of RAND still exists, it's position appears to be much weaker in light of these developments. Unfortunately, time for public comment is now closed, but the W3C has been stunned by the large numbers they did get and are considering the points therein.

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Dr. Michael K. Neylon - mneylon-pm@masemware.com || "You've left the lens cap of your mind on again, Pinky" - The Brain
It's not what you know, but knowing how to find it if you don't know that's important