Re: I trust them for now

Post #40,038 by a6l6e6x 5/27/02 10:21:40 AM Reply	Re: I trust them for now I don't know if you are aware that besides patents, there is another way. That way is the technical disclosure. The idea is published, and that establishes the claim on the idea and reserves the right to use the idea. At the same time, anyone else, competitors included, can use the idea without restriction. This is a low cost way to keep use rights to an idea. One takes on the use of the expensive patent process with the intent to either prevent a competitor from using the idea, or have something to trade (i.e. cross-license), or expectations of royalty income. Alex "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." -- Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
Post #40,042 by Andrew Grygus 5/27/02 11:12:04 AM Reply	Many patents lie dormant, until . . . . the company encounters financial problems. Then they start digging through the closet. Note Unisys with GIF, and Wang enforcing their patent on memory SIMMs. What a mess Wang made. Memory manufacturers paniced and came out with SIP (Single Inline Pin) memory, one of the worst ideas of the 20th century. Impossible to insert into sockets under any circumstances. Then it turned out Wang was going to be very modest in their royalty demands, and the SIP dissappeared overnight, leaving a pile of orphaned mother boards you couldn't afford memory for. Another major danger is patents being sold off to groups of lawyers who do nothing but enforce those patents. One group collected royalties on the cross hair cursor used by CAD programs for decades. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #40,045 by ben_tilly 5/27/02 11:22:02 AM Reply	I am aware of that There are, however, advantages to patents which have been licensed properly. Such as improved negotiation power to deal with others who have patent portfolios. There aren't a lot of companies who I would feel comfortable with trying to play that role, but Red Hat is one of them. Cheers, Ben "... I couldn't see how anyone could be educated by this self-propagating system in which people pass exams, teach others to pass exams, but nobody knows anything." --Richard Feynman
Post #40,095 by kmself 5/27/02 6:41:10 PM Reply	I'm with Ben -- RH's patents may be good I'm willing to see what RH does here. There's already a pretty good precedent from Raph Levien on [link\|http://www.levien.com/patents.html\|licensing patents for free software]. Granted, Raph limits his license to software under the GPL, but given that other licenses don't offer the same protections that the GPL does for preserving state as free software, and that this covers ~85%-90% of all free software, it's a pretty good proxy. The patent game is such that the best way to fight is to play. Actually, this isn't too different from the copyright arena. The GPL doesn't disclaim copyright, it utilizes it in a way that assures benefit to the public at large, rather than just the copyright holder. The key is how RH licenses this technology, and how it works to assure that the patents can't fall into other hands and be used against free software. This last is a major concern. Grants now must be global (within the scope of free software), permanent, and non-revocable. `-- Karsten M. Self [link\|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com\|kmself@ix.netcom.com] [link\|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/\|[link\|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/\|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/]] What part of "gestalt" don't you understand? Keep software free. Oppose the CBDTPA. Kill S.2048 dead. [link\|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html\|[link\|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html\|http://www.eff.org/...a_alert.html]]`
Post #40,109 by Ashton 5/27/02 9:12:58 PM Reply	Doverai ni proverai, perhaps. While you are about the resident patent-deBabelizer, the logic of RH's (possible.. hoped-for) motives is not obscure. And I think that, despite the near oxymoronic state of 'Corp Ethics 2002', it seems that one must trust someone, sometime - simply (as you say) because you MUST play. ie Wouldn't RH be abysmally stupid to watch an idea go through the process of being made unavailable.. on some cockamamie Principle - unknown to the unPrincipled ? Ashton

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