RAND licensing would have negative effect.

  World Wide Web Consortium
  Patent Policy Working Group

  Dear W3C Patent Policy Working Group,

  I'm extremely concerned about the recent Patent Policy Framework draft, 
  which could allow W3C members to charge royalty fees for technologies 
  included in web standards. 
  
  In particular, I object to the inclusion of a "reasonable and
  non-discriminatory" (RAND) licensing option in the proposed policy. 
  I believe that the exclusive use of a "royalty-free" (RF) licensing
  model is in the best interests of the Internet community, and that
  RAND licensing would always necessarily exclude some would-be implementors. 

  I applaud the W3C for its tradition of providing open-source reference
  implementations and its work to promote a wide variety of interoperable
  implementations of its open standards. This laudable tradition 
  can be best continued by saying no to RAND licensing. 


  Ystävällisin terveisin,
  
  Perttu P. Puska   
  Post-Doctoral Research Fellow
  Electromagnetics Laboratory            
  Helsinki University of Technology 
  Perttu.Puska@hut.fi