Objection to the "field of use" restriction of proposed patent policy from J.B. Nicholson-Owens on 2002-12-27 (www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org from December 2002)

From: J.B. Nicholson-Owens <jbn@forestfield.org>
Date: Fri, 27 Dec 2002 14:58:07 -0600
To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
Message-ID: <20021227205807.GA29605@forestfield.org>

As a Free Software consultant, GNU user, and Free Software programmer I
depend on being able to inspect, share, and modify software to suit whatever
purpose I deem necessary.

Therefore I object to the "field of use" restriction in the proposed W3C
patent policy.  I agree with the Free Software Foundation (FSF) that, "the
proposed policy does not actually protect the rights of the Free Software
community to full participation in the implementation and extension of web
standards".  I also concur with the FSF that the W3C should amend the policy
to prohibit "field of use" restrictions and make the patent policy
compatible with the GNU GPL.

Received on Friday, 27 December 2002 15:46:02 UTC