komentare k patentove politice W3C (nalehave, velmi dlouhe)

Hynek Hanke hanke na volny.cz
Úterý Prosinec 31 15:21:34 CET 2002


Zdravim konferenci
a preju vesely novy rok,

mam tu bohuzel jednu neprijemnou vec. Zda se, ze se nejak
pozapomnelo (ze strany ceskych prekladatelu GNU.Org se
za to velice omlouvam, ale zda se, ze nejsme sami)
na to, ze W3C prijima komentare ohledne jejich noveho
navrhu patentove politiky a dnes je deadline. Pokud
si nekdo udelate cas, muze to mit obrovsky vyznam,
pokud se take pripojite:

Rychly preklad do cestiny postoje FSF je zde:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/w3c-patent.cs.html

Dalsi podrobnosti v anglictine zde (pro vzorovy dopis odscrolujte dolu):

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Subject: [Patents] DEADLINE New Years: Drop the W3C's "Field of Use" Patent Policy Clause
Sender: patents-owner na aful.org
X-UIDL: 1041316213.96564_0.m1.volny.cz,S=14126

The deadline is TONIGHT, NEW YEAR's EVE, for public comments
on the World Wide Web Consortium's final draft patent
policy.  Please read the message forwarded below and tell
the W3C to take the "field of use" provision out of their
patent policy draft.  And spread the word, today.

The W3C has produced a patent policy that allows for patent
restrictions to be imposed on how the languages of the
Internet may be used.  A "field of use" clause enables
protocols to be enacted which may employ patents to block
freedoms naturally exercised by developers of information
and communications technology.

The rest of the new policy shows great responsiveness to the
great public opposition that was expressed in October of
last year when they began considering allowing the
establishment of protocols on which private interests may
hold patents, and stands as a profound testimony to the
essential role that so many see that the W3C must play in
supporting sound and just information infrastructure and
policy.

However, the "field of use" clause endangers the whole
policy, enabling unreasonable restrictions to be imposed on
the usage of standardized communications protocols.  Please
read the following and send a comment to the W3C Patent
Policy Comments list stating that the future of the Internet
depends on their taking a clear position against patent
restrictions, and on their recognizing the integral role
that Internet communications protocols play in the freedom
on which innovation in information technology depends.

Seth

----
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 14:11:17 -0500 (EST)
From: Jay Sulzberger <jays na panix.com>

Tuesday 31 December 2002 Deadline for Comments on W3C
Patents Policy

In the past two years the Free Software Movement has moved
W3C, the Official Standards Body of the World Wide Web, from
a proposed patent policy, which would have, in future,
denied us our present right to full and free use of free
software to build the Web, to a policy intended to guarantee
that free software may be used without fear of patent
encumbrances.  This move is an important victory for us. 
But the present proposed policy on patents has a bug that is
worth fixing.  The mechanism of the bug is non-obvious,
except to people who have studied the GPL and certain other
free software licenses.  It is a bug that, if the proposal
is made an official standard, would allow for patent
encumbrances to be laid on certain free software in
circumstances where today no encumbrance is allowed.

Here is what the Free Software Foundation says on its front
page about this bug:

<blockquote
  from="http://www.fsf.org"
  what="first of the GNUs Flashes">

The W3C "Royalty-Free" patent policy proposal does not
protect the rights of the Free Software community to full
participation in the implementation and extension of web
standards. Please read more on this issue and send a comment
to the W3C.

</blockquote>

Part of the effort that moved the W3C to its present
position was a furious outpouring of comments in opposition
to the original proposal of the Englobulators:

http://www.w3.org/2001/ppwg
http://www.w3.org/2001/10/patent-response
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-patentpolicy-comment
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-patentpolicy-comment/2001Oct/thread.html

The fix needed right now is a small fix.  But the W3C must
again be reminded with what jealous vigor we guard our right
to build our Web the way we have built it down to this day,
using free software.

The bug appears in Item 3 of Section 3, titled "W3C
Royalty-Free (RF) Licensing Requirements", of the present
proposal:

> http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-patent-policy-20021114

This Item allows for a supposedly free grant to use a patent
to be so restricted that a piece of Web infrastructure
software might be encumbered if used for some non-Web use. 
Since the GPL does not allow such encumbrancing, GPL-ed Web
software re-purposed for non-Web use could not be legally
freely redistributed.


Please read the Free Software Foundation's page on this bug:

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

The text of the page is below.


Here is the official Last Call for Comments:

http://www.w3.org/2002/12/patent-policy-lastcall-info.html


If you write a comment in your own words, for repair of the
bug, it will help.

<personal>

I shall write in, and I shall argue against adoption of the
buggy item.

I shall also suggest an extension of the deadline for
comments.

</personal>


Jay Sulzberger <secretary na lxny.org>
Corresponding Secretary LXNY
http://www.lxny.org
----

Velmi pekny dopis od Davida Kaufmana:

----
Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2002 14:22:10 -0500
From: David Kaufman <david na gigawatt.com>
To: www-patentpolicy-comment na w3.org, wwwac na 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 na 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 na power-data.com>
----

Za pripadnou pomoc dekuje
a prijemne straveni Silvestra preje

Hynek Hanke




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