> Finally, open source shall not be opposed to RAND. For instance,
> in MPEG, reference softwares are open source. It is even mandatory
> to provide an open source software otherwise the technology can't be
> introduced within the standard.
That's a free reference implementation. It is not 'open source' in the
true sense of the definition. See
http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.html for the definition.
In paticular, note the lack of licensing fees for use.
Now you can say "I don't mean the official OSI definition, I mean the
generic concept." Maybe so, but that is not appropriate here, where the
W3C patent discussion clearly focussed on the patent fee requirement.
/r$
