On Tue, 19 Oct 2004, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
Dean Anderson wrote:
...
When the open-source tide really turns, and the best quality source code
and technology is free, then it will be subject to theft of the sort where
it is made improperly not-free. Then it will be the open-source community
that is trying to enforce the copyright and possibly even patent law. That
is why alterations must be careful.
s/When/If/ if you want this statement to be read without laughter.
I don't know why you'd think that statement is funny. I suspect that you
are just completely unaware of the issues.
Certain large organizations have made assertion that the GPL is not valid,
arguing that a contract requires exchange of money. That is, that the GPL
is not enforceable and that one can take GPL code private. We would
consider this a copyright violation. The counter argument is that a
license is not a contract, but a permission. Its a fine point of law for
which there is no direct precedent, so it could be argued in court, and
its //possible//(*) a court could invalidate the GPL. (*)We think that is
unlikely, but it is not impossible. What is more likely is that someone
simply takes GPL code, uses it in violation of the license as the basis
for a proprietary product. When this is discovered, we would consider this
a copyright violation subject to demands/litigation. As the quality of
the GPL codebase improves, so does the temptation to steal GPL code in a
proprietary product.
The LPF has also considered in the past holding software patents in order
to ensure that technology remains free. There are presently individual
patent holders who have obtained patents just to make sure that licensing
remains free, who have suggested that the LPF is a better repository for
these patents, than individuals. When the US changes to first-to-file,
creation of a free patent repository may be the _only_ way to prevent
non-inventors from patenting technology. The first-to-file change is
presently required under treaty, and we expect that it will be
implemented. The best hope at present is that we obtain a change in
whether software can be patented. Venture Capital is finally coming
around to the LPF viewpoint, so a change may be possible.
There is also a group working to weaken copyright law so that software
would not be protected in the same way other works are. This group is
apparently responding to the SCO-IBM lawsuit. While well-intentioned, such
a weakening would probably have a long-term harm to open-source. I would
prefer them work on a change to patent law so that free software is not
subject to patents instead.
But you're right, of course. If *you* held all the software patents,
*you* could decide who got to use them.
The point of a free patent repository is to make sure that _everyone_ gets
to use them for free.
Meanwhile, the IETF process deals with the real world, not with
hypotheticals.
If you think these are hypotheticals, then you are seriously uninformed.
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