Just Say No to RAND Licensing

Dear W3C Patent Policy Working Group:

I'm concerned about the recent Patent Policy Framework draft, which
could allow W3C members to charge royalty fees for technologies
included in web standards.

In particular, I object to the inclusion of a "reasonable and
non-discriminatory" (RAND) licensing option in the proposed policy.
I believe that the exclusive use of a "royalty-free" (RF) licensing
model is in the best interests of the Internet community, and that
RAND licensing would always necessarily exclude some would-be
implementors, especially among open source and free software
developers.

I applaud the W3C for its tradition of providing open-source
reference implementations and its work to promote a wide variety of
interoperable implementations of its open standards. The W3C can
best continue its work of "leading the Web to its full potential"
by continuing this tradition, and saying no to RAND licensing.

Sincerely,

Robert Glover
rglover@npc.net

Received on Friday, 5 October 2001 08:56:04 UTC