GPL-Incompatible Web Standards

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[My apologies for the duplicate email. The W3C's web archiving mechanism appears to have not liked my first email. So I am trying again.] 

Hello,

I see that the W3C is considering opening the door to GPL-incompatible web standards.

The web, and the Internet, have both benefited immeasurably over the years by largely being built out of Open Source and Free Software - and a non-trivial portion of that software has been made available for free to all via the GPL license. It surprises me that the W3C would seriously consider creating standards - or enabling the possibility of creating standards - that would lock-out a significant portion of the people that helped build the Web into what it is today. 

I strongly urge the W3C to follow the FSF's advice and remain GPL-compatible - by prohibiting "the imposition of 'field of use' restrictions on patent claims contributed to W3C standards" (see http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/w3c-patent.html). 

Best Regards,
Thom Wysong 

Received on Tuesday, 3 December 2002 22:54:17 UTC