patent policy comment

Dear W3C:

As a member of the public and professional software developer, I wish to
comment regarding the proposal to provide a standard framework for the use
of RAND licensing terms in W3C technical recommendations.

I feel that this is a bad idea which directly contradicts W3C's long term
goal of Universal Access, as explained in the W3C Mission section on
www.w3.org.

The principle of Universal Access is today very well served by the existence
of high-quality, free implementations of Web standards.  Supporting non-RF
license terms will act as a major obstacle to free implementations, thus
hindering universal access.

Companies are free to innovate and develop better implementations than the
free ones, but they should not expect to be able to modify the standards in
such as way that any implementor must pay a license fee.

Thank you for your consideration of my comments.

Best regards,

    Jonathan Mark
    jhmark@xenops.com

    1154 Federal Ave. E
    Seattle, WA 98102

Received on Sunday, 30 September 2001 20:22:51 UTC