- From: Seth Delackner <seth@jtan.com>
- Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2001 21:39:45 -0700
- To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
Section 5 states that patent licenses "may be conditioned on payment of reasonable, non-discriminatory royalties or fees". Yet there is no such thing as a non-discriminatory royalty for software. The simple fact is that a huge volume of useful software would be impossible if even modest fees were imposed. My email reader is free, as is my web browser and news reader. Since no single entity controls their development, who is to pay these "non-discriminatory" fees? Your proposal for "RAND" fees would shackle free and open development to corporate hand-outs and a loss of independence. The internet got us this far with standards that are open to implementation by anyone, and this has given us a vast and rapidly growing field of innovation. Don't spoil the web with this seemingly small change.
Received on Wednesday, 3 October 2001 00:39:49 UTC