FSF's Position On Proposed W3C "RF" Patent Policy

bkuhn writes "FSF released its position on the proposed W3C 'RF' patent policy. W3C's proposed policy is a step in the right direction (compared to RAND), but because of 'field of use' restrictions, it is in fact not a Free-Software-friendly policy. The Free Software community is encouraged to say so in their comments on the last call draft."

Comments

Re:does anybody care

[sab39]

The FSF's position is important not because everyone is obligated to regard it as gospel and follow it blindly (although some do), or to regard it as heresy and blindly criticise it (although some do), but because in most (not all) cases, the FSF present a well-reasoned argument and raise an important issue.

I don't agree with them on the GNU/Linux thing (although even there, I respect their argument as well-reasoned, if you accept enough of their premises) but reading their position statements is always worthwhile, from my point of view. Even if I don't agree, it's good to challenge my views by exposing myself to well-reasoned opposing ones.

In this case, in particular, the FSF raised a very significant point and one which I, for one, hadn't noticed. I suspect that the chances of the outcome that the FSF hopes for are slim, since the community had to fight tooth and nail for the limited victory we already won, but it's very important to be aware of the limitations of the victory, and to continue to work towards eventually removing that limitation, even if it's not immediate. Without the FSF to point this out, we'd all be celebrating our "victory" and moving onto the next fight - the FSF remind us that there's still a battle here to continue fighting. That's a good thing, IMHO, whatever you think of the FSF.

Stuart.