- From: Terry Griffin <griffint@pobox.com>
- Date: Fri, 5 Oct 2001 21:27:27 -0700
- To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
With respect to the three components of the proposal: 1. On disclosure: No objection. 2. On royalty-free licensing: No objection. 3. On RAND licensing: Strong objection on the grounds that it discriminates against open source software (OSS) implementations of the standard. Most OSS projects are non-profit operations and have no revenue stream to support royalty payments no matter how "reasonable" and "non-discriminatory" the terms. Any royalty requirements make a standard discriminatory as far as OSS is concerned. Further, I think the use of RAND would inhibit technical improvement of the web. The Internet and OSS feed on each other. Most of the Internet operates on OSS and the Internet makes the collaborative efforts behind OSS possible. The RAND proposal threatens to break that cycle with respect the web, thus stalling the advancement of both the web and of open source software. In the event that the RAND proposal is adopted I believe it is inevitable that the OSS community will fork the web in order to continue the rapid pace of development of both the web and the software than runs it. Terry Griffin
Received on Saturday, 6 October 2001 00:27:30 UTC