- From: Olivier Zendra <ozendra@cs.mcgill.ca>
- Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 19:10:48 -0400
- To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
As a computer scientist, I object to the W3C behavior and the proposed new RAND licensing policy on the following points: 1) The public consultation was excessively discreet and too short. This in itself tends to discredit the W3C and is not acceptable. Now that the W3C intended new policy is being widely publicized on the Web, this consultation period has to be extended. 2) The W3C is a standard setting non-profit organization and is respected as such. Its new proposed patent policy and RAND licensing goes in my opinion completely in the opposite direction and is bound to quickly have the W3C appear as the puppet of large, patent-eager corporations. This would defeat the very purpose of fee-free standards and the essence of the W3C. 3) The proposed policy is going to strongly harm free standards, open software development and interoperability in the whole computing-related world. This is against the W3C official goals, and against the will of many in the World Wide Web community, including mine. 4) I would like to know how wide the consultation was inside the W3C itself, regarding to the proposed new patent policy. Knowing some of the representants at W3C, I find it hard to believe they would have approved it, had they been aware of it. I strongly believe patent and fee-free licensing is necessary to the development of the World Wide Web, it's infrastructure, and communication between peoples. As a consequence, I must say I do object to the proposed new RAND licensing model as it is now. Also note that I agree with Mr Alan Cox message ("W3C Patent Policy: Bad for the W3C, bad for business, bad for users"). Regards, Olivier
Received on Sunday, 30 September 2001 19:11:03 UTC