Patent Policy comments

To Whom it May Concern:

First let me apologize for the lack of specifics in this e-mail there are
too many points that I would like to touch on, and not enough time, as I am
wrapped up in the creation of a website offering domain name registration.
As I'm sure you can appreciate, with the release of the .info and .biz
domain names, I am very busy at the moment.  I closely follow the changes at
W3C when I can, and try to slowly mold the company's sites to match these
standards.  On our current site we have begun to use CSS and are updating
all of our html to make it html standards compliant.  All personal sites
that I have created in the recent past have been standards compliant to any
standard that applied to the particular site.  I am a big advocate of web
standards, and think that standards are the only solution that will allow
designers to communicate to viewers effectively, "whatever their hardware,
software, network infrastructure, native language, culture, geographical
location, or physical or mental ability" to quote the W3C charter.

I believe that patenting web standards is a very dangerous proposition in
that it could very well lead to an Internet created only by those with the
substantial financial wherewithal required to do so.  Who is to set the
royalty rates charged for use of these patents.  It is my firm belief that
in order for the W3C to follow it's own mission and charter, web standards
need to remain patent free.  Never should there arise a situation in which
one has to pay to code their web page to standard.

W3C has long been establishing standards which are only partially
implemented by the major internet browsers.  Now that Netscape and Internet
Explorer have finally begun to come around and meet these standards, and
Opera has come onto the scene, the W3C proposes implementing a policy that
may make it expensive to follow or use these standards.  As far as I can
see, that is the quickest way to get the browsers to abandon their moves
towards standards compliance, and head back towards proprietary coding.

I hope that this e-mail is useful, and is not just a rehashing of comments
that you have already read hundreds of times, but please put me down as one
proponent of standards firmly against this patent policy.

-------------------------
Bob　McDonald
マクドナルドボブ
Division 5 Web Design Team
ext. 1206
bob-mcdonald@gmo.jp
-------------------------

Received on Monday, 8 October 2001 22:43:02 UTC