Royalty Free Patents, Standards and Free Software

Hello

I would like to comment about your decision to authorize people to make
standards based on patents.

My belief as a network architect and engineer is that no standard, would
it be for network or software or so, can rely on patents. It is an
aberration of its own. We speak here in terms of evolution, duration and
ownership.

Moreover, it has been proven by the FSF that Free Software programs
under the GNU GPL could not implement such standards that are described
in your conclusions.

I ask you to think about this point, and to reconsider your position, in
particular not to allow standards to be based on patented ideas (that
are illegal in Europe for now).

Best regards

-- 
Loïc Bernable, French Network Engineer

Received on Saturday, 30 November 2002 10:10:50 UTC