W3C Patent Policy/RAND Licensing Agreement

World Wide Web Consortium
Patent Policy Working Group
www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org

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,

Lannie Trumbaturi
200 Bounty Street #204
Merritt Island, FL  32952
blakgard@aol.com

Received on Friday, 5 October 2001 09:56:33 UTC