- From: Todd Stockert <stockert@MailAndNews.com>
- Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 11:53:03 -0400
- To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
In regard to allowing non-disclosed patents to be included in W3C standards, I must whole-heartedly object. The WWW has for many years relied upon the spread of best-technology through open standards which are not held hostage to any particular interest. By allowing patent wars to enter now, the entire possibility of upholding that openness will vanish, replaced by by highest-bidder semantics in technical language. This will especially hit the institutions which help promote and develop the web through non-commercial means, the .edu's, .org's, and .gov's and the people behind them. By forcing any standard complient process to use these patents would essentially make the standard pointless, and these groups would not participate with nearly the vigor they have in the past. Why would a group contribute efforts to a standard which they then would be forced to purchase licensing to merely improve it? For many reasons, I don't believe software patents should have any part in the W3C standards, and would abandon the standard for something better and more open for any future development if they were to be included. Sincerely, Todd Stockert ------------------------------------------------------------ Get your FREE web-based e-mail and newsgroup access at: http://MailAndNews.com Create a new mailbox, or access your existing IMAP4 or POP3 mailbox from anywhere with just a web browser. ------------------------------------------------------------
Received on Monday, 1 October 2001 11:54:11 UTC