- From: David Stidolph <dstidolph@broadjump.com>
- Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 15:47:17 -0500
- To: <www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org>
My name is David Stidolph, and I have been a software Engineer for almost twenty years. I have worked with pretty much every eight bit computer made, and with the industry, made the move to more and more powerful machines. All of my work has been for companies where the code I generate was proprietary and I can share none of it. These include game companies, financial companies, network development and one law firm software company. In all those years I have used your work - http, ftp, etc, standards to develop company work. By using existing standards it allowed me to generate data with over the counter tools and bring products quicker to market. Many times I have need to use graphics in programs. It would have been VERY useful and speedy to use GIF pictures because of their common usage in web browser, however, because of the UniSys patent I have been unable to use that standard. Part of the problem is royalty or fees - the larger part of the problem is the paperwork involved in paying that money. In the case of Unisys it meant faxing paperwork signed by our lawyers to their lawyers, and negotiations - which take far too much time. As a standards body people look to you for guidance. If you start charging for your standards, it will kill most open source projects. It will kill the sharing of ideas. If companies can gain nothing from sharing knowledge, then they will stop sharing. This has been the silent grease in the wheels of progress for the last twenty years. Please do not start charging royalties. charge fees for access, charge fees for membership, charge fees for whatever you can, but please do not start more software patent issues. The small software business and developers out that will not survive. Thank you for your attention, David Stidolph Austin, TX
Received on Sunday, 30 September 2001 16:47:50 UTC