- From: Gervase Markham <gerv@mozilla.org>
- Date: Sun, 29 Dec 2002 23:19:17 +0000
- To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
I would like to thank the W3C Patent Policy Working Group for the large strides it has made in the direction of making it possible for Free Software to implement W3C standards covered by patents held by participating organisations. The removal of the badly-named "Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory" option was a courageous move which I would applaud. As the members of the group are no doubt aware, Free Software implementations are usually at the forefront of the implementation of W3C standards, and in many fields (although sadly not mine, as yet), the Free Software implementation is the most popular piece of software. I would urge the Group to take the final step in this process, and remove the potential for "field of use" restrictions from the policy. As others have doubtless pointed out, the incompatibility of these restrictions with Free Software is succinctly summarised by the Free Software Foundation at the following URL: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/w3c-patent.html Many thanks, Gerv
Received on Tuesday, 7 January 2003 03:12:18 UTC