On Wednesday 31 January 2007 22:23, M Harris wrote: > On Thursday 01 February 2007 00:02, Pascal Bleser wrote: > > The problem are the software patents in the first place. Many of them > > are so vague that they apply to lots of pieces of software that have > > been written by people who never saw those patents and started from > > scratch. > > Which is *why* many of us are pontificating, "SOFTWARE PATENTS ARE > EVIL". > > Depends on our definition of "obvious". If I start from scratch and > write > an algorithm capable of decoding an mp3 file I have done *nothing* > different that writing an algorithm (text editor) that can decode a series > of symbols (text) for displaying on a screen. One is called obvious and > the other is called patentable... hogwash. The mp3 standard should not have > a patent, nor should there be any licensing issues with *any* software > based mp3 player. > > Software patents must die... end of story. (We have to change this > folks)
I just wrote another letter to my congressman and my two senators. I was thinking on the way into work - I knew a guy who had a patent on a tool used for fixing IBM Selectric I typewriters. He invented it in the '60s and IBM licenced it from him for the better part of a decade. It didn't make him rich, but he got credit for inventing it and was able to show the device when requested. Now - somebody please show me the MP3 algorithm. I'd like to hold it up and take a look at it.... ...I'm waiting. In any case - for the future of SUSE/Novell (and Red Hat, Mandrake, Yellow Dog, Ubuntu and the others), I hope this issue eventually gets resolved. -- kai Free Compean and Ramos http://www.perfectreign.com/?q=node/46 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
