Amend Consortium Patent Policy "RF" patent Provision

W3:

	The "Royalty Free" Patent Policy Provision of the W3 Consortium allows for 
"field of use" restrictions that would disallow the use of software licensed 
under the GPL when used to implement such patented standards.  I urge you to 
amend this provision so that this conflict with GPL licensing does not occur 
by removing the option to apply "field of use" restrictions.  To do otherwise 
would radically degrade the useability of current free software widely used 
across the web and drastically restrict the use of free software in future 
web development.  The proviso could even, conceivably, be used by 
unscrupulous corporations as means of actively excluding competing free 
software from usage thereby artificially improving the market position of 
their commercial software and creating an anti-competitive environment.  
Please act responsibly.  Thank you.

-- Michael Labhard
Edison Enterprises Inc.

Received on Friday, 3 January 2003 15:03:14 UTC