- From: Cary Lancaster <Cary.Lancaster@comdial.com>
- Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 14:30:07 -0400
- To: www-voice@w3.org
If I may add my voice to the clamor over the inclusion of patent-covered material in the W3C spec... We are a small company and like many small companies, can't negotiate large patent sharing agreements with patent holding companies and individuals. As our company tries to develop software to compete in the modern communications world, we are frustrated by so called standards that require us to pay royalties to specific individuals or companies. We cannot really affort to pay much in the way of royalties (or wish to pass on the added cost to our users) and really resent that standards organizations would actually further the business models of the patent holders at the expense of small innovators like ourselves. If a company creates good technology and gets a patent for it, good job! Let that company or individual take responsibility for publishing, marketing and distributing the necessary specification to allow it to be used...after all, they reap the rewards. Large respected standards bodies like W3C actually drive the choice of what technology will be adopted by the general development community. By backing patented technology, they hurt small companies like ourselves, and add cost to the end-users! Thanks, Cary Lancaster Staff Scientist Comdial Corp.
Received on Wednesday, 24 October 2001 14:29:57 UTC