- From: <Christopher.J.Albertson@aero.org>
- Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 09:26:58 -0700
- To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
A few years ago the US Forest Service held a public comments session to get input from the public about how to manage a certain section of a river. All they did was show some slides telling everyone what they were going to do. There was near universal opposition to the plan but they as much as said they were only required by law to listen to public comment not act on it. OK you are not the forest service but it looks like you've already approved Apple's patented graphic "standard". Why extend public comment if you are already are acting is if the issue is settled? If you want my comment here it is: You could allow a patented technology ONLY if The owner allows free use by all parties for any purpose without need to obtain a license and specifically states the use in free or GPL'd software is acceptable. And that such permission will never be revoked. I would think that the folks at W3.org would be smart enough to see that getting patents into the WWW is really a way to take control away from a semi-public organization like W3.org. Here is an example: Let's say Microsoft gets a patented method of specifying text formatting into the standard. Say, it does a nicer job then using tables. Even if they let anyone use this for a $1.00 fee they have killed it's use in GPL'd software. Next they would build this into Front Page, IIS and Explorer and then "own" text formatting just be getting one additional tag approved. Don't thing that is not the goal of patents.
Received on Monday, 8 October 2001 12:36:12 UTC