Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (3752 mails)

[Stefan Hundhammer <sh@xxxxxxx>]

On Monday 08 October 2007 17:43, Randall R Schulz wrote:
> > Well, I am sure you read the disclaimer at
> >
> >     http://opensuse-community.org/SubpixelHinting
>
> Why so wimpy?
>
> It says "... might infringe ..."

IANAL. But let me put it this way: If the upstream authors of freetype were so 
sure about themselves, would they disable it already in their sources? If 
they are not so sure, why would we?


> Until and unless the legal question is raised and settled in some
> plaintiff's favor, there's very little real risk to anybody. 
> The worst that could happen is a cease-and-desist request. 

...plus a lawsuit for damages. Creative lawyers might be tempted to multiply 
some random per-user amount of damage with the overall user base worldwide. 
That kind of thing easily can add up to tens of millions (or more).

And until all that is settled, a Damocles sword of some phantastizillions 
might be hanging over us. Even if the lawsuit comes out to naught - after 
several years, like usual. Now why would we want that?


That workaround with a hint page how to re-enable that feature (on a web site 
we cannot be held responsible for) might not be an ideal solution, but at 
least it puts the company that pays us full-time SuSE/Novell developers not 
at that kind of risk.


Just my 0.02€.

Kind regards
-- 
Stefan Hundhammer <sh@xxxxxxx>                Penguin by conviction.
YaST2 Development
SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg)
Nürnberg, Germany
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