- From: Mark W. Alexander <slash@dotnetslash.net>
- Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2001 16:37:52 -0400 (EDT)
- To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
Allowing "reasonable and non-discriminatory" (RAND) licensing on W3C standards is an oxymoron. There is no "reasonable" method of licensing available to an open implementation except for a royalty free license. There can be no standard without a freely available reference implementation. Allowing any non-free licensing on any standard will result in a tearing of the Web. I stand behind Bruce Perens and HP's comments at http://perens.com/Articles/HP_And_W3C_Standards.html that the licensing of any technology associated with acceptable standards must be compatible with the GPL and other OSI approved licenses. Software under these licenses is the defacto software of the web. Any W3C standard that is not accessible to open source developers will be shunned; a standard on paper, but not in deployment. Sincerely, -- Mark W. Alexander slash@dotnetslash.net
Received on Friday, 5 October 2001 16:38:36 UTC