patents list is a bad idea (Was: patents)

[Xavier Bestel <xavier bestel free fr>]

Le sam 07/02/2004 à 18:45, Curtis C. Hovey a écrit :
> On Fri, 2004-02-06 at 23:04, Jonathan Turner wrote:
> > I noticed there was some talk on IRC about file browsing patents.  Is 
> > there a list of patents that nautilus is trying to avoid somewhere? 
> > (besides the obvious "at the patent office")
> 
> A list is a good idea, but where to put it?

A patents list is an extremely bad idea: it means you'll have tons of
patents (some even not enforceable) that you'll have not to infringe in
code you want to distribute in the US. Basically everything is patented,
so the coding session in akin to bike-riding in a minefield.
Take the same approach than the linux kernel developers: don't care
about patents, just code. Whenever/if some company starts to annoy you
with their patent on moving mouse cursor (or whatever else), you can say
you didn't know (it's very important that you can prove your good faith)
and then you code a workaround.

	Xav