The Internet: for citizens as well as commerce?

Please reconsider endorsing patent-encumbered standards. Lately people 
only seem to consider the Internet as the new growth center of commerce. 
It is also the most effective medium for communication between 
individuals and groups of individuals ever created, and every day 
someone invents a new method of communication over this medium. If some 
essential part of the Internet infrastructure is controlled by any 
commercial entity, it becomes their obligation to their stockholders to 
exploit that infrastructure in whatever way will be most profitable.

Many of the innovations that have made the Internet great have come from 
the minds of individuals who don't have the resources to pay patent 
licensing fees. Please keep the Internet's infrastructure free of patent 
restrictions, in order to keep our collective wealth of new ideas growing.

--
Jules Agee
UNIX System Administrator

Received on Sunday, 30 September 2001 14:52:13 UTC