[Patents] Re: french views

[Stefane Fermigier sf@fermigier.com]

On Sat, Oct 07, 2000 at 10:12:17AM +0200, Pierre BREESE wrote:
> > that software patents are
> > good for software companies developping non-free programs.
> 
> Yes, it's a reality. Some of such software companies recently explained 
> their
> opinion, in LIBERATION for example.

They might have been misguided, and not have considered the issue of being
sued by someone else for programming techniques they thought was to trivial
to be patented and they are using in their products.

The only winners in this games are patents lawyers like you,
patents portfolios owners that don't try to produce software,
and big corporations like IBM or Microsoft.

Losers ars small to medium sized companies that produce software,
free software writers and the society in general.

> > You might be surprised that, ...non-free software companies, internet 
> > startups,
> > design studios, etc.
> 
> I'm not surprised: these companies are consumers of software, and when you 
> take in

Wrong. Just to name a domain, SQL databases: Oracle (big US corporation,
proprietary software), FrontBase (medium sized Danish corporation, proprietary
software) and MySQL (small-sized swedish corporation, free software) are
*producing* software, and are against software patents.

Same for internet startups: they are *producing* software, to run their
own sites.

        S.

-- 
Stéfane Fermigier, Tel: 06 63 04 12 77 (mobile).
<www.portalux.com>: le portail Linux / logiciel libre.
"Amazon: we patent the dot in .com"