On Sat, Nov 18, 2006 23:06:33 PM -0600, M Harris (harrismh777@earthlink.net) wrote:
On Saturday 18 November 2006 02:38, M. Fioretti wrote:
This is correct, because forking is useless or undoable when the problem is software patents. See my other message in this thread.
No...
The fork (done properly) removes the patent issue.
Removes my foot. Again: sw patents are not copyright. Please learn the difference. Patents forbid the use of _algorithms_, not that of already typed files of source code.
no GPL package can (by legal definition) contain patentable code...
see your confusion? Code is not patentable, is copyrightable. Besides that, a developer should know in advance (that is, have legal expertise and spend a _lot_ of time digging patents databases) that an ALGORITHM is already patented and cannot be used NO MATTER HOW YOU TYPE IT.
if it is GPL and if it ships at all the *entire* thing becomes GPL... period.
Absolutely not. What you say _may_ happen only if it is the patent holder who also releases the code under GPL. But if the generic developer ships as GPL an implementation of an algorithm already patented by somebody else (something not so easy to find out unless you're a specialized lawyer) the code can be used.
The only thing that needs to happen is to remove the prop packages from the distro (sanitize the logos,.. not strictly required) and repackage.
and here you prove that I am right, that is that no fork can solve a patent problem. What if the "prop package" is the kernel or gcc? What if the problem is, say, the ALGORITHM in the kernel that schedules processes? how easy it is to rewrite the kernel so that a whole distro works with another algorithm, and how useable would the result be if all the unpatented algorithms left have very poor performance?
Remember... there isn't a patent controversy here... only FUD. We always need to keep reality and fantasy separate.
Please start yourself then. All the Uncertainty and Doubt you and others are spreading by confusing all the time patents and copyright doesn't help. It doesn't even really matter if and how the Linux kernel or any other GPL package violates some sw patents. What matters in reality is how users (especially corporate and governments ones) and developers are scared away from GPL systems and how feasible it is for almost everybody to survive (financially) a patent lawsuit from Microsoft. Even if they are surely wrong, you'd go bankrupt long before proving it. This happens all the time, not just in software. If you were right (both in theory and in practice), Stallman and the FSF would not spend half their time worldwide to scream against sw patents. The reasons they do is exactly because they have effects like the ones I have described. Ciao, Marco -- The right way to make everybody love Free Standards and Free Software: http://digifreedom.net/node/73 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org