- From: Christophe Prud'homme <prudhomm@MIT.EDU>
- Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 13:58:32 -0400
- To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
To whom it may concern, as an MIT researcher and former employee of INRIA, both members of the W3C, I am truly abashed by the news about the changes in patent policies you want to promote. I use to hold the W3C in the highest respect for his neutral position in the past and in its excellent work in standardizing the Web. The Web exists and works because there are some people willing to create free and open standard and it is/was never the will of a corporation like Microsoft for example. Standards are bad for corporations because it implies competition and they don't want that. What you would like to do is a major blow and insult to the work of many people, engineers and researchers who were and are dedicated to open and free standards for the Web. Please do remember that the html format is not an invention of a corporation but the initial work of researchers at the CERN: those big corporations behind the change of policies used to laugh at the Web as it was a few years ago and now they embrace it and try to sell the idea that they almost created it. On a side note please consider what Internet and the Web are, what they represent and think about what it would be if it is controlled by corporations, it would be like going back to the Middle Age and obscurantism. Please, please think about that and reconsider your positions. I am firmly opposed to your change of policies regarding patents. In hope that you will change your mind, I give you my best regards, C. -- | Christophe Prud'homme, http://augustine.mit.edu/~prudhomm | | Its name is Public Opinion. It is held in reverence. It settles everything. | Some think it is the voice of God. | -- Mark Twain
Received on Sunday, 30 September 2001 14:02:10 UTC