RF-only is much better

The world wide web using community is better served when 
innovators world wide can implement the w3c standards in 
a variety of embodiments. As the history of computing has
shown us, true innovations have come from the work of 
researchers, students, hobbyists, and even people employed
by commercial enterprises. 

The only way to allow the free exchange of ideas and the
building upon each other's work is to allow all of these 
groups of individuals to participate on a truly level
playing field. A requirement for royalty free licenses
given to all implementors by any patent holder who 
submits proposals is the way that this can be achieved.
So called RAND licensing discriminates against all but
those employed by commercial enterprises, and even there
my own experience has shown that people are wary of 
implementing somebody else's patented standard.

When I have students, I would like them to be able to 
innovate freely if their work has anything to do with 
the WWW. Therefore, I urge you to reject the proposed
RAND terms and substitute RF requirements instead. Even
non-standard innovations require a freely implementable
standard platform to build upon. Such a platform would
effectively be outlawed by RAND terms. 

Sincerely,
Anant Sahai

Received on Friday, 12 October 2001 00:07:06 UTC