IBM gives developers a free lunch

NEWS IBM has said it will not charge royalties on its patented web services language ebXML. IBM has already taken out one ebXML patent and has another one pending, but informed web services standards body Oasis it will allow the technology to be used free of charge. Working with UN-backed Oasis and Microsoft, IBM has been heavily involved in the development of web services standards, contributing to the Soap and WSDL protocols. ebXML is the latest standard to be developed. While Microsoft was primarily responsible for Soap, IBM has largely overseen the development of ebXML.