[discuss] irrelevancy

[John Lange]

Thank you Russell.

Your depth of knowledge has filled in some answers to questions I had
regarding the state of software patents and the like.

The links you provided also give me some reassurance that at least
someone is paying attention to these issues. I plan to join those lists
and do what I can.

Regards,

-- 
John Lange
BigHostBox.com
(204) 885 0872

On Tue, 2004-01-27 at 22:18, Russell McOrmond wrote:
> On Mon, 19 Jan 2004, John Lange wrote:
> 
> > Keep in mind that the GPL applies to copyrights, not patents.
> 
> http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl.html
>     Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software 
>     patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free
>     program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the
>     program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any
>     patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at 
>     all.
> ...
>     7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent 
>     infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), 
>     conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or
>     otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not
>     excuse you from the conditions of this License.
> ...
>  etc...
> 
> 
> 
>   If an actual contributor to GPL'd software tried to sue based on patents
> within the GPL'd software, they would have problems.  The GPL doesn't
> protect us from third parties (non-contributors who are patent holders),
> but it should (untested in courts, like most licenses) protect us from
> turncoat contributors/distributors/etc.
> 
> > When IBM contributes code to a project its the copyright they assign
> > under the GPL, NOT the patents.
> 
>   They *license* their works under the GPL, both copyright and patents, in 
> their contributions.  They do not *assign* either set of rights.  A 
> contributor to a GPL program still has copyright over their work, and may 
> offer additional licenses in additional situations.
> 
> > I'm not a lawyer but I believe patent rights can trump copyrights.
> 
> IANAL either, but hang out with civil servants, economists, lawyers and
> law students ;-)
> 
>    What you say is correct, which is why I as a supporter of creators'
> rights in software oppose software patents.
> 
> Note: Yes, it only trumps it for 20 years but with the speed of innovation
> in software arguing 20 years vs 50 years is like arguing whether infinity
> or infinity-plus-one is larger.
> 
> > Naturally this only applies in the US and other countries where you have
> > software patents but its still a problem.
> 
>   Canada is one of those countries.  Not by case-law or by the Patent act,
> but by the practices of CIPO.  Please consider joining
> http://www.digital-copyright.ca where conversations seem to be being
> started on a response to this problem.  Recent XML information processing
> patents seem to have sparked interest where there was not any previously.
> 
> ---
>  Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> 
>  Governance software that controls ICT, automates government policy, or
>  electronically counts votes, shouldn't be bought any more than 
>  politicians should be bought.  -- http://www.flora.ca/russell/
> 
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