No Software Patents

Dear W3 Org,

I just want to go on record as opposing the idea of software patents.  To copyright software is logical and sensible, but to patent the idea behind a program does not make sense at all.  If I want to send an e-mail to a friend on the other side of the world, I have numerous options, Outlook Express (which I'm using now), Netscape Communicator (which I have to use at work), Eudora which I've used in the past and decided against, and many others with which I'm not familiar.  All of these share the idea of moving packets around the Internet and reconstructing them into recognizable messages at my desktop.  Were any of the major corporations involved able to patent that basic idea, my choices would be eliminated.  I have no objection to them copyrighting their software programs--they developed them or bought them from the developers--and they have the right to own them.  Please decline to support this self-serving idea.  Make them earn their money like John Houseman used to say his employers did.

Sincerely, 
    David Beckham