The W3C Patent Policy Framework Working Draft is totally unacceptable

I am writing to oppose the anti-free-software position that this 
working draft embodies, and urge the working draft's prompt and complete 
rejection.  I also feel that you need to dismiss the current members of the 
Working Group without thanking them for this attempt to destroy free software 
and free speech and not use their services to draft any further policies.

The following comment on your "patent-response" web site is particularly 
objectionable, obfuscatory, and discouraging towards those who would dissent 
from American corporate attempts to destroy the free thought, free speech, 
free work, and free software of the rest of us:

<quote>
As the proposed policy includes proposals such as:a requirement for 
disclosure provisions (Section 7);a procedure for launching new standards 
development activities as Royalty-Free Licensing Mode activities (sections 4 
and 5);a procedure for launching new standards development activities as 
Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (RAND) Licensing Mode activities (sections 
4 and 5);

W3C would like to know if your opposition to or support for the policy refers 
to all three of these proposals, or just some of them.
<unquote>

This statement attempts to confuse an important issue and discourage 
participation in the comment process.  It is an example of the use of 
legalisms to ensnarl and defeat-by-exhaustion (or impoverishment) individual 
citizens who try to defend themselves against further corrosive law-making by 
greedy American corporations.  I feel that the W3C should lead its own fight 
against American intellectual property law.  The W3C should work to defeat, 
reduce, and eliminate intellectual property laws and their imitation by other 
countries, and take consistent positions that clearly fight for free speech 
around the world.  Splitting hairs on these issues is never appropriate.  If 
a policy is unclear or mixed in its effects on free speech, then the entire 
policy is bad.  Is that clear enough for you?

If you feel that there is any part of this objectionable policy that should 
be rescued, then I suggest that you vote down the policy, dismiss the panel 
members without thanks, and start over again with a completely different and 
more representative group to draft a policy that protects free speech and 
free thought in all of its provisions.  It should be obvious to you by now 
that the group who drafted this policy, and its entire working draft, is not 
trusted by the vast majority of those of us responding to your call for 
comments.  Let them go.

Received on Monday, 8 October 2001 08:00:43 UTC