No patents is the right thing to do

Hi,

I was delighted to read of the W3C's decision to keep web standards
patent- and royalty-free.  I firmly believe that the history of the
Internet proves that open standards work and provide the greatest
opportunity for everyone: industry, education, charities and private
citizens to benefit.  I encourage you to continue to make this stand
in the future.

As an example of the power this decision can have, I offer this 
parallel.  I read of this decision in the Debian Linux weekly news 
email.  Part of the Debian policy is to allow only open source 
software, unencumbered by patents, into the main distribution. In 
the few years I have used Debian, numerous software authors have
changed the licenses for their packages exactly because otherwise
they could not be included in Debian.

I believe that the W3C has had the same positive influence on the
web, and that continuing to do so is invaluable work.  Allowing
patented, royalty-encumbered components into the long list of
clean, free-to-all standards to date would choke off the explosion
of innovation we have all watched with awe over the last decade.

best regards,
Matt Bonner

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Received on Wednesday, 20 November 2002 13:00:53 UTC