- From: Troy Muller <tmuller@reanimality.com>
- Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2001 09:47:53 -0700
- To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
Dear Sir(s), W3C quoted: "W3C defines the Web as the universe of network-accessible information. One of W3C's primary goals is to make these benefits available to all people, whatever their hardware, software, network infrastructure, native language, culture, geographical location, or physical or mental ability." This statement alone should be enough to convince your self that the RAND policy is the wrong thing to do. In accepting patent holder rights into your "Recommendation" track, you are effectively removing your ability to "make these benefits available to all people". Patent holders do NOT have to give patents. They can give patents on an individual basis if deemed necessary. This is where you loose the ability to make this available to all. W3C quoted: "Decentralization is without a doubt the newest principle and most difficult to apply. To allow the Web to "scale" to worldwide proportions while resisting errors and breakdowns, the architecture (like the Internet) must limit or eliminate dependencies on central registries." In accepting patent holder rights into your "Recommendation" track, you are creating a central registry of where individuals HAVE to go to be allowed to use a technology. Individual patent holder most of the time have limited resources to fight this, but corporations seem to find a way to have LOTS of money to uphold their patents. I foresee that if corporate or individual patent are allowed in the "Recommendation" track, that it will be the death of W3C, as we know it and major fragmentation will start to exist on the web. W3C has been the body that has governed the web for many years and look how it has grown. Now imagine if ALL of the standards would have been created by individual companies, where would we be today? W3C quoted: "The Web has become phenomenon so important (in scope and investment), that no single organization can or should have control over its future." In accepting patents into your "Recommendation" track, you have did just that, given ONE and ONLY one organization complete control over the future of the web. I find it hard to believe that this organization would go that direction. I find it very convenient that those in favor of this proposal are also the ones that would benefit most from it (READ: corporations and patent holders). Where does this leave the masses? Out in the cold, having to pay to use a previously free technology. Finally, if I haven't already indicated this, I'm OPPOSED to the RAND policy. Strike it down; don't limit the web of the future. Sincerely, Troy Muller Reanimality
Received on Tuesday, 2 October 2001 12:48:08 UTC