field of use restrictions must go

IANAL. Probably should have become one, though.

Nor have I read the entire document carefully. But section 3 item 3
of the Royalty-Free Patent Policy currently up for last call
(http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-patent-policy-20021114/) is most
certainly a bad idea, and seems to me to have side effects that
contradict the stated goals of the policy.

More detail if you want it, but if you've heard the arguments and
just want votes, consider this a very strong vote against permitting
field of use restrictions in W3C RF licenses.

Disclaimer: I am a member of the FSF; but what persuades me to write
is the realization that my future ability (and, more importantly, the
future ability of lots of programmers who are a heck of a lot better
than I) to write GPLed programs implementing W3C standards could be
hampered. Permitting your own standards to be hog-tied such that they
cannot be implemented by the web community at large is a huge
mistake, analogous to shooting yourself at least in the foot, if not
the head.

-- 
 Syd Bauman, EMT-Paramedic
 SGML & XML Programmer/Analyst              North American Editor
 Brown University Women Writers Project     Text Encoding Initiative
 Syd_Bauman@Brown.edu      401-863-3835     http://www.tei-c.org/

Received on Tuesday, 7 January 2003 12:25:05 UTC