Re: Negotiating for using Royalty Free patents

[jamie <jamiemcc blueyonder co uk>]

On Sun, 2004-04-11 at 04:18, James Henstridge wrote:
> jamie wrote:
> 
> >That only applies to developers in the US. The rest of us can
> >deliberately violate as many software patents as we like without
> >breaking the law (AFAIK software patents can only be legally enforced in
> >US and Japan). Might be worth only copyrighting code to non-US citizens
> >on suspect projects just to be on the safe side.
> >  
> >
> Remember that it isn't just the copyright holders that this will cause a 
> problem for.  Anyone who distributes the patented code you wrote could 
> be liable for infringement.
> 
> Given that our CVS server is located in the US (hosted by a US owned 
> company) and most of our main distributors are also US entities, 
> knowingly infringing patents is going to cause problems for Gnome no 
> matter where you live.
> 
> While we can't know whether a particular bit of code is covered by a 
> patent, we shouldn't go adding code that we know does infringe (which 
> would result in triple damages if it got brought to court).

Absolutely for the core Gnome, blatant breaches of patents are out.
However given the nature of most patents which are rarely black and
white, what do people do? Do we rule out using OpenGL cause MS has
stated it has some IP on it? I think unless its a clear cut case then
they should be ignored (which is typically being done already). If US
developers are concerned at being sued in these grey areas then non-US
citizens could copyright the stuff to cover their arses. (I assume
distributors of such code would get a cease and desist letter rather
then being sued in the first instance?)

Gnome should probably have a non-US CVS server for the more dodgy
material anyway (which of course would not find its way into the core
Gnome). Non-US versions of Gnome could happily contain this stuff and
when the US government finally realises its losing out in the software
business and ditches software patents I'm sure all the US
developers/users will appreciate having done this. 

Plug-ins are an easy way to create patent infringing code without
infecting the core Gnome so these plug-ins could be developed to say
extend Nautilus with Apple's finder features.

Some distros like Mandrake have such optional packages via its PLF
servers. Maybe Gnome should borrow this idea?


jamie.

 

> 
> James.