On Mon, 2008-12-15 at 13:43 -0700, Chad Perrin wrote: > On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 02:16:34AM -0800, per...@pluto.rain.com wrote: > > > > Unfortunately, anything covered by a patent, as I hinted > > > > above, is verboten. > > > > Er, doesn't it depend on what is patented? If the h/w itself is > > patented, but its software-visible interface is not, there should be > > no problem writing a driver for that h/w. OTOH if the algorithms > > used in the driver are patented it would be an infringement to > > reproduce them. > > I said anything covered by patent. If the software is not covered by > patent, you're fine to write software. Be aware, though, that a lot of > patents are intentionally written in a somewhat vague way so they can be > extended via case law at a later date. > > Nothing is "legal" under the current US system unless you can defend it > in civil court. That's my general rule of thumb. >
That doesn't sound like a good system (US not yours) - how on earth did it get so screwed up? (Thats rhetorical btw, I don't mean to start a whole discussion on that topic on this list.) _______________________________________________ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
