Re: Undelivered Mail Returned to Sender

Subject: patent policy
User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.4i

hi there,

feel obliged to comment.

you are developing critical infrastructure of internet.

therefore no restrictions should be placed on development
of critical infrastructure.

this comes in two forms:

- restrictions placed on _you_

- _you_ place restrictions on _others_.

and yes, patents impose, contrary to popular belief,
as you have found out, restrictions.

now, you _know_ what patents are.  they are a means
to enter a stalemate war by being able to tell people
to fuck off if they try to point a gun at _your_ head
because you have one pointing at theirs (another patent)
but ah ha!  they have another one too, but ah ha! you
have another one too and it escalates, the only people
that benefit are the lawyers lining their pockets and
when everyone has legal bills ranging into the 5 figures,
they all realise this is stupid and back off.

now, if you wish to spend an absolute fortune in legal
fees taking part in stupid patent laws, that's absolutely
fine.

but don't expect the open source community - mainly
consisting of individuals who don't have stupid amounts
of money to waste on bloody patent wars - to look upon
such participation with favour.

particularly if, as a consequence, it locks them out
with some stupid license that mandates fees or
royalties must be paid.

now, if those royalties are percentage-based on profit,
then that's absolutely fine, because open source software
is available free of charge.

if you can slip that one by your legal department without
them noticing, i and a lot of other people will be
very impressed and very happy.

luke

Received on Friday, 5 October 2001 19:04:21 UTC