W3C policy

Dear sirs,

I write on behalf of the draft policy, especially concerning the RAND 
licensing mode.

Inclusion of patented algorithms into a public standard has the consequence 
that the owner of the patent may keep anyone from including the algorithm 
into his/her program. This will most likely exclude the developers of free 
software, since they donīt (and canīt) pay any licensing fee. But 
also in the "professional" area this will lead to concurrency not based upon 
quality but based upon patents, i.e. not the best will be the winner but the 
richest and most powerful.

Additionally, even if the patent is "non-discriminatory" at the beginning, a 
company can change the "nd" terms of the patent to very discriminating terms 
once it`s included into the w3 standard, especially when it has not just 
become an official but the de facto standard used everywhere. A very good 
example originates from my own country: Mp3, once rather free, is charged now 
and will be charged even more in the future. Mr. Fraunhofer afford to do so, 
because itīs not easy any more to use something else than mp3 and staying 
compatible.

Iīm not sure whether itīs wise to be said in this place, but in my opinion 
itīs time to try to get rid of the w3c.

Mirko Kloppstech

Received on Thursday, 4 October 2001 14:34:01 UTC