In his opening keynote at WWW2002 in Hawaii, Tim Berners-Lee stressed how vital it was that Web specifications remain unburdened by royalties.
Speaking in a personal capacity, rather than as W3C Director, he made a strong case for keeping web standards royalty free, focusing on the "communal" nature of the internet specifications on which the web has been built.
If either the web, or any of the underlying internet specifications on which it relies, were licensed even on a "RAND" basis, Berners-Lee said that the web would not be the success it is.