Field of Use restriction

While I applaud the W3C's decision to reject the original proposals to
permit RAND licensing, the current draft patent policy at
http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-patent-policy-20021114/ still contains a
major problem.

In rejecting the RAND proposals, W3C chose to recognize the importance
of the free software community in the implementation of web standards.
It is vital that the free software community be allowed to compete on an
equal footing with corporate interests in the implementation of W3C
standards, and to produce a RF patent policy which, due to the "field of
use" restrictions in section 3.3, it incompatible with the GNU GPL, the
major free software license, seems to me to be snatching defeat from the
jaws of victory.

Please remove the "field of use" restriction from the policy. To be
effective, the RF licenses granted to W3C standard implementors must not
be subject to restrictions of this kind.

Mike Brodbelt.

Received on Wednesday, 11 December 2002 08:34:14 UTC