

Re: W3C Patent Policy: NO

From: Timo <Blazko> Boewing <blazko@online.de>
Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2001 10:46:48 +0200
Message-ID: <3BB6DBF8.5040405@online.de>
To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org
Just my two cents....

I think that everything important was said already, but when I read the 
news on W3C patent policy on Slashdot, I was really shocked.
Did we not learn enough from the past? Open standards are the key for 
all: competitors, developers and users. Everyone has to get access to 
web standards to keep things goung well.

Remembering past incompats between IE and Netscape? A really annoying 
affair that those two browsers had little common standards. Now, in the 
time of mozilla, konqueror opera and others, it is a real gift that we 
have the choice between more products.
As Alan Cox spoke out, I see the danger that there might be pages just 
for users of IE (including WMA and JScript /w ActiveX etcetera), 
preventingothers to visit a site or use their contents. MS might propose 
a standard (-> patent), implement it into its browser, and all others 
have to pay to get the specs. No, that is not the way it's gonna be.

People might going on creating closed source, but standards HAVE TO BE 
FREE (like in freedom *and* in beer!!!).
The future of freedom depends on it and the life of untied developers 
and smaller enterprises.

greetings from germany,

Timo Boewing
Received on Sunday, 30 September 2001 14:17:42 GMT
