Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 14:22:10 -0500 From: David Kaufman david@gigawatt.com To: www-patentpolicy-comment@w3.org, wwwac@lists.wwwac.org Subject: [wwwac] Comments: the "field of use" restrictions in Section 3 Item 3 of the proposed W3C Patents Policy
To: Patent Policy Working Group World Wide Web Consortium
From: David Kaufman david@power-data.com Power Data Development 87 East 21st Street Bayonne, NJ 07002
Re: W3C Patents Policy, Section 3 Item 3 "field of use" restriction
I'm writing to add my voice to those calling for the removal of the "field of use" restrictions in the current wording of the proposed W3C Patents Policy.
As a web developer, I rely on *truly* free software each day for the operation of my business. I choose to use only Free Software, as defined by the Free Software Foundation (www.fsf.org), and not merely the more broad range of other "open source" software because, to remain competitive in this industry, I must be free to modify and redistribute software without legal restrictions, in order to deliver secure and reliable products and services to my customers.
The freedom to modify and redistribute software should not be restricted to the so-called "web" or even "the Internet" as fields of endeavor, because the business use of the web and internet themselves are hardly relevant when not tightly bound to the context of a particular business, industry, field of study, or some other narrow area of human endeavor.
Patents allowing so-called free software that is restricted to the internet would be more harmful than helpful to most of the single field to which it *is* limited, the web. Why? Well, how could internet software written for a bookstore not be construed as being used in *both* the internet, and the publishing industry? Therefore future W3C patented software and protocols that are freely modifiable and redistributable only to the "web" or internet industries would be neither freely modifiable nor redistributable when an online publisher, for instance, uses these to create an OS-specific GUI application, that is protocol-compatible with their web site, built using not-completely-free tools. A non-web application that allows their staff to edit books in their database would be merely a publishing industry application, or a database application, that the patent owner might decide to license restrictively for developers to be allowed to *let it* talk to the website using a W3C-patented storage system, communications protocol, file format, or even, Amazon taught us, any simple-but-patented idea!
Such a situation would create a loophole for economical opportunism that no corporation could or would resist driving their delivery trucks through.
Companies would soon be rushing to W3C patent applications, protocols and other software ideas (which should *never* be patented in the first place) (think: Amazon-One-Click) and use the W3C's reputation to market these products as "free and open" in order to lure developers and create a large installed base of users who were mistakenly led to believe that these tools were in fact Free (as in freedom) and that any company's developers, including their own, were free to use them to extend and enhance their use and enjoyment of the software, when in fact, those freedoms would be quite restrictable by the patent owners.
The obvious second step is to then create proprietary industry-specific tools, GUI, OS/Specific user interfaces, or any other "non-web" tools for which these is No Freedom, for which only the patent owner may legally develop and sell solutions, and for which the users, the users' programmers and the entire "third-party" developer marketplace, must pay hefty licensing fees to compete, or possibly be simply forbidden from competing at all.
The GPL prevents this unfortunate situation by placing no restrictions *whatsoever* on the modification and redistribution rights granted to everyone, except one sensible one: no one may circumvent freedom bestowed on the software by the GPL license by simply *redistributing* and placing a *more* restrictive license on the redistributed version. This sole limitation closes the legal loophole of control of ideas, and protects the rights of the developers, the users, by restricting only the rights of those who would seek to further restrict or control the complete freedom rights that the developer intends, and this is why the GPL is used and championed by so many developers such as myself. It keeps freedom free. Any lesser license is vulnerable to the completely legal theft, control and exploitation of ideas.
I urge the W3C and the Patent Policy Working Group to consider this matter seriously, and take the position that is best for the users and developers of the large body of excellent and truly free software that has made the internet what it is today.
Please do not create a W3C-sanctioned loophole that must by it's very existence be exploited by the natural profiteering tendencies of normal competitive corporations which *must* bow to competitive pressures to profit by trying to legally own, control, license and otherwise restrict the use of the high quality best-practices ideas, and industry standards and other intellectual property that the W3C develops. These should remain the property of the public, not of corporations, and only a Free Software Foundation approved license can ensure exactly that those property rights are ensured.
Thank you in advance for your consideration to this matter. Sincerely,
David Kaufman david@power-data.com
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