Re: The politics of software over-protection -- moving forward..

[Hartmut Pilch <phm@a2e.de>]

> > I would prefer changing the GPL to forbid any form of use for
> > companies which are holding text patents or companies controlled by
> > those ones. This would extremely hurt some folks which are using
> > free software (like GNU/Linux) very much and endagering it by text
> > patents. For example IBM - they belong to the companies with the
> > most text patents and which are filing thousands over thousands new
> > patents a year.
>
> However, restrictions on use are not allowed by the Free Software
> definition, and would make it no longer a Free Software license for
> the same reason the HESSLA license is denied that status.
> <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/hessla.html>.  "Also, at least under US
> law, a copyright-based source license can't restrict use of the
> program; such a restriction is not enforcible anyway."

The above proposal makes no sense anyway. You wouldn't want to punish
anyone for owning a gun when survival depends on ownership of guns.
You'd rather focus on the government, asking them restore normal civil
order and collect the guns.

Apart from that I am wary of proposals.  Those few people who work
actively on swpat politics are working beyond their ressources anyway.
Ideas are not scarce.  We need people who help us implement our plans, not
people to propose new plans.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-12789608
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
140,000 signatures against software patents          http://noepatents.org/