Partially royalty-free patents

  I see on w3.org that you are seeking comments on the W3C's new patent
policy.  While the W3C's requirement that patents be licensed
royalty-free is commendable, there is a small but significant problem:
Under the current policy, standards may include patented technology
which is licensed royalty-free only within the "field of use" of web
browser technology.
  Unfortunately, both of the web browsers I use (Mozilla and Galeon) are
distributed to me under the GNU General Public License, which forbids
the inclusion of patented technology unless said technology is
unconditionally royalty-free; neither could legally implement a W3C
standard which would forbid the distribution of parts of their source
code for inclusion in unrelated software.  Therefore, I urge you to
adopt a patent policy which forbids the adoption of patent-encumbered
standards unless the patents are licensed for unconditional royalty-free
use.
  Thank you for your time and attention.
-- 
Andrew Moise <moise@nauticom.net>