RAND and Free Software

How can you say that something that is patented can be "Reasonable and 
Non-Discriminatory"? You seem to forget that patents are constructed to 
discriminate.

I use only Free Software for web related tasks. Other software is irrelevant 
to me because I can't verify it, fix bugs and adapt it to my needs. Many 
people have expressed worries that your "RAND" system would not work with the 
GNU General Public License, which I prefer, and other Free Software 
licenses. And I consider anything that is incompatible with Free Software to 
be useless or even harmful.

Free Software is based on the principles of sharing and selflessnes that our 
western civilization is based on. The internet as we have it today is based 
on Free Software.

How will Free web browsers like Konqueror, Mozilla and Lynx be able to 
implement the W3C standards if "RAND" is accepted? If this is not possible, 
you can't possibly call it "Reasonable".

Do you want big corporations to be able to monopolize the browser market by 
patenting a technology, making it a W3 standard, charge an amount that others 
can't afford and implement the standard in their own browser? As you have 
defined Non-Discriminatory it means that everyone is charged equally for the 
use of the patented technology. But it doesn't matter how much a corporation 
charges itself. They could afford any amount of money, but of course their
competitors can't.

Received on Tuesday, 2 October 2001 06:00:55 UTC