On Wed, May 16, 2007 12:10:46 PM -0700, James D. Parra ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
> This is a good article; > > http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/12212/53/ > Please, not again! Can it be good if it makes mistakes like this: > "Even if hypothetically there are patent infringements in the Linux > kernel, then the open source community would do the right thing and > remove the offending code You can write or believe this only if you confuse (or want to confuse) patents with copyright, which is a pretty dangerous thing to do with FOSS. Software patents (regardless of whether they have a reason to exist) protect specific algorithm and functionalities. Copyright only protects actual text, that is the specific _incarnation_ in C, C++ or whatever, of a certain algorithm. If you copy and paste proprietary source code in your program, it is a copyright violation: to fix it, you just cancel those lines of code, and rewrite new code which has different variable names, a different order of the flow diagram, etc... but implement the same algorithm. That's it. But if there is a patent on, say, the _mathematical_ _formulas_ or the abstract flow diagram which make the Linux kernel multitasking, you cannot "remove the offending code", because what the patent forbids is any use of those algorithm and diagrams in any forms, no matter how you write the related code. The only way to "remove the offending code" of a patent is to STOP using that functionality. This has nothing to do with whether there are or not patent violations in Linux or any other GPL software. It's just a basic distinction which should not be forgotten, if nothing else to stop repeating absurdities like the one in that article, that is the illusion that you can cure a patent violation as painlessly as you cure a copyright one. Not to mention that: > and, because open source development moves so rapidly, that means > Linux would no longer be infringing before it even got to court. this would not change much for any individual or company found guilty of patent violations in the code they distributed until yesterday Marco -- Help *everybody* to love Free Standards and Free Software: http://digifreedom.net/ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
