Patented recommendations

Throughout its history, the W3C has attained a
reputation as an independent, open standards body. 
The W3C has been instrumental in the achievement of
inter-operability.  Without the open W3C standards
that govern protocols the Internet would not be what
it is today.

This, however, will change if the W3C adopts the
"Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory" (RAND) terms for
W3C sanctioned recommendations.  Under the proposed
policy, the implementation of W3C standards would not
be an open process.  Any implementation would have to
determine if royalties must be paid.  This would
destroy Free and Open Source implementations,
including most of the reference implementations
released by the W3C itself, for new standards.  

As a user of Free and Open Source software, this would
be devastating.  I would not be able to use anything
that required the new W3C standards.  As a Free
software developer, I would be required to write new
software without using W3C standards.  The Free and
Open Source communities would be cut off from the
evolution of the Internet.  Since most of the e-mail,
web, ftp, and dns traffic on the Internet relies on
Free and Open Source software, the Internet itself
would be cleaved.  No one will benefit from this.

Please reconsider the RAND terms for W3C
recommendations.  They will not benefit users,
developers, corporations, or the W3C itself.

Dave Lacy Kusters
Free and commercial software developer
dkusters@yahoo.com


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Received on Sunday, 30 September 2001 18:55:53 UTC