[Patents] [Freesw] gouvernement 'buy up' patents or copyright (fwd)

[Rik van Riel riel@conectiva.com.br]

On Tue, 11 Jul 2000, Kristoff Bonne wrote:
> On Mon, 10 Jul 2000, Xuan Baldauf wrote:
> >> So, we could simply impose the rule that all fully-neutral libre-software
> >> are free to use any software-patents without having to pay for it.
> >> (I use 'fully-neutral' to exclude the projects -like mozilla or KDE- that
> >> give special privilige to certain companies to use this 'open' code in
> >> their 'closed' programs).
> 
> That is why I would give this special priviledge only to the
> 'viral' types of licences (like GPL) that only allow its code to
> be used of the 'larger' program also use the same license.
> 
> If you would give this privilege to type of licences that allow
> the code to be used in 'closed' code (like the BSD-type of
> licences) you would just end up with the situation as described
> above.

That's not an issue. At the moment they start selling a
commercial product with the patented technology in it,
they'll need to license the technology from the patent
holder.

That the exact same source code is also available in a
freely distributable program doesn't seem very relevant
to this.

regards,

Rik
--
"What you're running that piece of shit Gnome?!?!"
       -- Miguel de Icaza, UKUUG 2000

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