- From: Stephen Drye <stephen@drye.com>
- Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 16:43:02 -0400
- To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
The Patent Policy Working Group's FAQ contains this point with respect
to RAND patent terms:
* "may be conditioned on payment of reasonable, non-discriminatory
royalties or fees;"
The term "non-discriminatory" effectively makes RAND patent terms
impossible in the context of an World Wide Web that includes open source
and free software. This is immediately apparent, since software created
and distributed for no renumeration cannot afford _any_ royalties. As
such, it is impossible for a patent to require royalties and still be
provided on "non-discriminatory" terms to _all_ interested parties.
Unless the W3C wishes to explicitly take the position that open source
or free implementations of its specifications are no longer wanted or
supported by the W3C thay may wish to reconsider the allowance of RAND
patents.
Since the Web became prevalent due to the work of the free software
community (NCSA Mosaic), and has become widespread due to the work of
the open source community (Apache), it would be disheartening for the
W3C to take this position.
Stephen Drye
Received on Sunday, 30 September 2001 16:39:28 UTC