I think the trick here is that it is ok to set up a
tollbooth on the part you own, but you can't submit
that part to the W3C as a specification. Those
are defacto standards by adoption. The Adobe Atmosphere
product, if successful, will be another one.
But those are fine examples that one can not go
the W3C spec route and still make a fine profit.
len
From: Elliotte Rusty Harold [mailto:]
At 9:30 AM -0800 1/17/03, Tim Bray wrote:
>The notion that you can make money by setting up a tollbooth on a
>piece of Web infrastructure (and thereby driving out all
>open-source/free offerings as a side-effect) is a radical proposal
>without even an existence proof.
Would either Flash or RealAudio qualify as an existence proof? If not, why not?
