At 10:01 AM 3/29/2005, Stefano Mazzocchi wrote: >No, I'm not suggesting that we enter the 'patent clearing' business.... it >would turn the incubator into a politburo... I was just reacting on your >statement that 'they are different' as it seemed to imply 'we should only care >about the first and leave the second to the ecosystem to deal with'.
We should be clear *to* our users that we only cared about the first, we only address the first, that only Patents held by contributors to the ASF are covered under the Patent clause of the ASL. That doesn't mean an outside patent isn't convertible, if we become aware of it and the patent holder wants to grant us (our users) license under the ASL terms. We publicly disclose all of our code, patent holders can trivially defend their patent using Google, in our case. It's the closed source applications they have a harder time pinning down, at times. But start our own patent research division? What is your proposed solution to the second case? >Sure, that would be very easy, but I wonder if that is morally correct: if one >of our users gets sued for patent infringment, they come to us and we say >"dude, it's your fault, we never told you you had the right to use that >code", the repercussions would be terrible!!! s/code/method or technology/ Patents don't protect 'code'. And no, not terrible. Because they have a community interested and willing to promptly replace the offending logic. They and their customers and our users are all in a stronger position than even a commercial enterprise, with fixed costs to replace the patent infringement. Heck, if such a user -wants- to, they can even pay the royalties and use that patented technology. Obviously, we won't - the offending logic would be removed and replaced. All we can answer to those users is that 'Hey, we invented this techology in parallel to the patent holder. If you want to go after them on prior art [perhaps with us], here's what we have in code revision history and mailing list discussion. We are as disappointed as you that we can no longer provide this part of our terrific program.' Someday, an entire ASF project will be submarined by a broad patent. Not some specific feature, class, or whatever. That's when the fireworks will become interesting. Until then, this thread is mostly speculation. --------------------------------------------------------------------- DISCLAIMER: Discussions on this list are informational and educational only, are not privileged and do not constitute legal advice. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
