Disappointed

I am greatly disappointed in the proposal to allow W3C standards to be
encumbered by RAND patent licences.  This is a direct assault on the
freedom and openness that have been key to the success of the World Wide
Web.  Such encumbered standards are dangerous and could result in the
balkanization of the Web.  I urge you to reconsider this policy and allow
only royalty free licenses for W3C recommendations.

I selected SVG for a project on the perhaps naive expectation that the W3C
recommendation would not be encumbered by patent licensing.  It now seems
that the SVG recommendation is encumbered by a RAND license from Apple and
that the details of this license have not been publicly disclosed.  How can
we have any assurance of the reasonableness or non-discriminatory nature of
the licence without public disclosure?

Regards,
Steve

Received on Tuesday, 9 October 2001 10:21:47 UTC