- From: <alan.hanna@us.datex-ohmeda.com>
- Date: Thu, 4 Oct 2001 09:27:29 -0600
- To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
- Cc: alan-hanna@altavista.net
Good people, I think it is a terrible idea to adopt RAND licensing for any public infrastructure. While RAND licensing may be common with other standards bodies, it is typically a goal of these other bodies to promote standards in fields where patented technologies are proliferating rapidly and mutual interference claims threaten to cause complete market fragmentation and paralysis. In these cases, adoption of RAND licensing can represent a major step forward in breaking a logjamb. In contrast, adoption of RAND licensing for components of the web infrastructure would be taking a very open system and inserting new impediments to advancement. Large areas of W3C-approved standards could become offlimits to open source development projects, because the presence of just one RAND-licensed component could effectively limit work in all subsidiary components. I believe that this is ultimately not in the best interests of the citizens of the web. Nothing presently prevents private companies from introducing proprietary enhancements to the web. Other companies are free to present their own counter-proposals, and the open source community is free to propose completely open alternatives. The public is served and advancement is made. Adoption of RAND licensed components by the W3C could slam the door shut on the open source option, because a standard would have been established that open source projects could not meet without exposure to legal action. In my opinion, no supposed improvements to the web are as important as the culture of freedom and openness that has already brought us as far as we have come. The RAND license is a terrible idea for the web and for the W3C. Thankyou. Alan Hanna 1722 Pine St. Boulder, CO, 80302 USA alan-hanna@altavista.net
Received on Thursday, 4 October 2001 11:27:50 UTC