Standards and patents

Hello,

I am very concerned about the decision of W3C os possibly adopting patented
tecnology as standards for the web. Agreeing with many other researchers,
this is a big risk for free software, which in recent year has been shaping
a new future in the area com technology.

Also, making patented technology a standard will turn W3C's decisions much
more politically oriented. We cannot subestimate the power that a company that
owns the patent of a standard has on the software market. As things are, we
are having enough problems with Microsoft's near monopoly of many areas.
That comes from the "informal" standards   that they has build with extremelly
smart business strategies.

Any standard decision will have extremelly important economic impact and
the pressure of the big corporations to implement their standars will be enourmous,
putting aside the technical reasoning.


I strongly oppose that  initiative.

Prof. Alan Durham
University of Sao Paulo, Brazil