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Summary

All the components that are needed to launch LEAP as an industry standard are complete, in place, and ready to go. These components are:

The Protocols Themselves.
The protocols are well-designed, meet all the technical requirements of the industry, and are published as RFC-2188 and RFC-2524. The complete text of the RFCs is available at http://www.rfc-editor.org.
Freedom from Patents.
The protocols have been declared to the Free Protocols Foundation as being permanently patent-free. For more information see http://www.FreeProtocols.org.
Open Maintenance Organizations.
The protocols are maintained by open and public organizations at http://www.esro.org, http://www.emsd.org, and http://www.LeapForum.org.
Open-Source Software Implementations.
These are available for all major platforms and end-user devices. For details see http://www.MailMeAnywhere.org.
Free Subscriber Services.
Provided to support initial deployment of the protocols in end-user devices. For details see http://www.ByNumber.net.

Together, these components represent a complete recipe for the success of LEAP. The protocols themselves are open and immediately available, and open-source implementations of the protocols are free and immediately available.

The combination of free protocols and open-source software is something which has enormous power. It is this combination of factors which has driven the overwhelming success of other industry standards such as Linux and HTML. We believe that this same combination of factors will drive the acceptance of LEAP as the wireless data communications industry standard.

Finally, we do not claim that LEAP is technically ideal - like all engineering solutions it includes compromises. Also, it is not yet a complete solution to the needs of wireless data applications - for example, at present it supports the mobile messaging application only. The web browsing application, though planned as a future implementation, is not yet complete. Furthermore, LEAP is a strategic, long-term engineering solution, and will therefore take longer for the protocol to achieve widespread acceptance within the industry.

What we do claim is that LEAP is a good solution, and that its processes have integrity. Where the LEAP protocols fall short of the industry needs, the open maintenance processes will provide a mechanism by which they can evolve into a better solution.


next up previous contents
Next: Bibliography Up: LEAP: One Alternative to Previous: Other Alternatives to WAP   Contents