- From: Franki <frankieh@vianet.net.au>
- Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 02:53:15 +0800
- To: <www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org>
I respond to this article in linuxtoday: http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2001-09-30-001-20-NW-CY as follows... On 16 August 2001 the W3C made public a proposal to substantially change their patent policy framework. Amongst the changes is support for a new licensing model (called RAND) that legitimises the W3C's role in developing and promoting standards that could require the payment of royalties. This is a substantial shift in the philosophical direction of the W3C and should be of extreme concern to anyone who values being able to implement W3C standards in a royalty-free manner. In particular this has profound implications for the support and implementation of future W3C standards by the free software community. It is likely to extinguish free software development and deployment in the areas where the payment of royalties is required. The last call review period closes on 30 September 2001 (two days from the time I am writing this abstract). The W3C is aware of the importance of this issue and states "As the policy has ramifications on the Web community at large, and as the Web Community have consistently helped W3C in its efforts, views from this diverse community are essential."[1] However, as evidence of how well this issue has been publicised, only two relevant public comments have been made to the W3C archive to date. It is a matter of urgency that you make your views known. A final policy is expected from the W3C by February 2002. The W3C has had success in most part because up till now it supported the open source community. if you change that, you will be hurting yourself more then us... Take for example Apache, apparently on 60% of the webs servers, apache that won't adopt your standards if you charge them for it, (and they can't as it won't be free software anymore if they have to pay royalties to you. Thats only one example, I am sure there are many more, I just wanted to voice my opinion on this in the hope that good sense prevails. You guys up till now have been the good guys standardizing the industry, another Microsoft (tm) we don't need. I would hate to see you replaced by a consortium that chooses a more community spirit. kindest regards Frank Hauptle Perth Western Australia Frank Hauptle
Received on Sunday, 30 September 2001 14:53:27 UTC