Royalty-Free Patent Policy Feedback

Dear Sirs--

It has been brought to my attention that the Free Software Foundation
has found a bug in the policy. I would encourage you to update the
policy to get rid of this loop-hole! To allow more feedback, I would
also encourage you to extend the deadline, so as to allow the world
community more time to react and provide feedback on this critical
issue.

I refer you to:

http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/w3c-patent.html

As a note, let me add, as the Chair of the EDIF Schematic Technical
Subcommittee, that over the last 10-15 years, I have seen the EDIF
standard thru its entire life cycle (which isn't quite totally dead yet,
but is getting there), and I must say that I think it only wise to keep
the standards free of any patent or copyright encumbrances. As these
standards evolve, they will get more detailed, and more expensive to
implement. It makes little sense to make them even more expensive. And
it makes little sense to pay certain individuals or corps more than they
will already reap in the form of the benefits of unified standards.

I see the free software movement as beneficial to the entire world, and
also corporate America. The quickest way for a standard to lose to
competing standards, is to make itself more expensive or restrictive.

murf

-- 
murf:   Steve Murphy,          CTO & VP Technology
        Electronic Tools Company

Received on Tuesday, 7 January 2003 04:49:48 UTC