Re: Royalty-free patent policy last-call draft

In the draft document published at

 http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-patent-policy-20021114/

in section 3, condition 3, states that patents which are part of the standard 
may be licensed royalty free with strict limitations that restrict their 
(royalty-free) use to "what is *required* by the recommendation".

I object to this condition.

I believe this is essentially a sleeper condition that will prove to have much 
graver consequences than at first appears. IBM and Microsoft and the like 
won't be affected, but the implications could be severe for the free 
software/open source movement. The contributions of this community over the 
years has been so large and influential that I consider it to be important 
that its continued development not be hindered.

Irvin Shizgal
B.Math., M.Sc.
irvins@exmsft.com