No patents on WWW

I wish to comment the W3C Patent Policy Framework Working
Draft by considering the following hypothetical example:

Let us assume a company (for example Microsoft) has patented some new
technology (for example Cascading Style Sheets). The company then get a W3
recommendation of the technology and everybody start using it. Well, the
company enforces the patent and only allow client software (for
example Internet Explorer) written the company. The client software is
free but can only run on the company's operating system (for example
Windows XP) which is not free. This forces all computer users to migrate
to this operating system.

As you can see from the hypothetical example, patents in core technologies
are a good idea! Please reconsider the patent issue once more.

Best regards,
  Kenneth Geisshirt

-- 
Kenneth Geisshirt, M.Sc., Ph.D.         http://kenneth.geisshirt.dk
GPG Fingerprint: 7424 AF49 AB47 03D4 D7C5  A07C 4D92 37E7 2F92 0B79
Computers are like air conditioners
                     they stop working properly if you open WINDOWS

Received on Wednesday, 3 October 2001 03:12:19 UTC