

No. This opens the door to corruption.

From: Christopher Ramey <cramey@binarythought.com>
Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 13:37:56 -0800
Message-ID: <3BB63F34.5000006@binarythought.com>
To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
W3C has always been the standards body for the web. Allowing external, 
patented, and closed-source technologies into the loop opens the door 
for corruption among it's members. I know none of the people on the 
board. I can't testify for or against their character. But this is a 
dangerous move. Suddenly, you can all be bought.

Imagine if ActiveX suddenly becomes a recommendation that everyone's 
suppose to have, but only people with a certain operating enviroment can 
adopt. -Market Leverage- Maybe I want my technology adopted by the W3C 
so I can force people into my licensing terms. Soon enough, I can put 
the "Approved by W3C" sticker on all of my products. Don't have my 
software and can't view my web site? Too bad, I -am- using the standard 
you know.

As of my posting of this comment, there were 501 posts on the topic. 
Casually browsing, I couldn't find more then a handful that wasn't 
against the new policy. Please keep this in mind when the decisions are 
made. I'd hate to think a policy like this wasn't for the good of the 
Received on Sunday, 30 September 2001 17:37:03 GMT
