RAND Licensing Concerns

As an individual who is actively generating specifications for upcoming
standards track efforts (pps.sourceforge.net), I'm very concerned about
RAND licensing and it's impact on my work.

If the playing field is level, and W3C and IETF standards are free
for all of use to implement, then I don't much care if *my* proposal
beats my competitors, as long as the best proposal wins.

On the other hand, if I (as a free software developer) am not free to
implement the winning proposals, then the only tolerable solution
for me is that my (possibly inferior) solution win. Applying this
sort of bias toward licensing over quality should not be part of the
W3C's mission, activities or recommendations.

Please reject RAND licensing to preserve the atmosphere of cooperative
development that fostered the creation of the Internet and of the World
Wide Web.

Thank you for your time.

-- 
Aaron Sherman
ajs@ajs.com		finger ajskey@b5.ajs.com for GPG info. Fingerprint:
www.ajs.com/~ajs	6DC1 F67A B9FB 2FBA D04C  619E FC35 5713 2676 CEAF
  "Write your letters in the sand for the day I'll take your hand
   In the land that our grandchildren knew." -Queen/_'39_

Received on Sunday, 30 September 2001 12:03:38 UTC