- From: A Seaman <anseaman@engmail.uwaterloo.ca>
- Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 20:17:06 -0400 (EDT)
- To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
It would be a terrible mistake to adopt the changes proposed in the W3C Patent Policy Framework. The world-wide-web and the environments created therefrom are ones of freedom and openness. It affords people incredible powers to communicate with a vast number of others through an unhindered medium. I have no doubt that the powers of this medium are due to its free and open nature. To include proprietary and fee-based components in a widely used standard will obviously lead to problems. One has only to do a little bit of research to discover how mistakes like these were made in the past. What UNISYS did with the GIF standard was a very stupid and greedy decision. Now it is no longer a standard. Once you let corporations pull this kind of stunt, they will pursue it to terrible ends. The RAMBUS scandal is an example which easily comes to mind. I strongly urge the W3C to reject this proposal and all others like it, and I applaud those who have spoken-out against it. Aden Seaman
Received on Sunday, 30 September 2001 20:17:08 UTC