Comment on patent policy

Greetings, I hope it's not too late to make a comment.  I'll try to keep it
brief

I follow the work of the w3c.org for the expressed purpose of understanding
the standards the web is built upon.  I have always believed, maybe
erroneously,  that you're mission in the world was to provide the building
blocks on which *I* could build patentable software, etc..  If you are
debating the inclusion of patented works in web standards you may as well,
as far as I'm concerned,  close up and go home.  You are not doing what I
want you to do at all.  I don't say this in a bad way.  I may have
misunderstood your mission from the beginning.  

If you're setting standards that I have to pay somebody for, you are wasting
time and money, let the software industry develop something and sell it to
me like any garden variety plug-in or proprietary product.  

I urge you to reject the inclusion of software that I'll have to pay
somebody to use in any standard you recommend for the web.

Sincerely,

Lowell Harris
computerwiz1@earthlink.net