lord... who would have thought my original question would have morphed into a topic on gpl/open source/licensing... ip related patents are not a bad thing. the patent office should do a much better job of looking, and evaluating based on prior art. but if i put my blood, sweat, tears into creating something novel. i have, and should have a right to patent it. you of course have a right to go out and try to recreate the same thing, without infringing my patent... you can then decide what you want to do with what you've created... but you don't have the right to simply take what i've created.. and to do whatever you want... if you think you should have that right, let me know where you live so i can come and take your car/stereo/ipod/etc... -bruce -----Original Message----- From: fedora-list-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx [mailto:fedora-list-bounces@xxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Peter Gordon Sent: Tuesday, June 13, 2006 8:30 AM To: For users of Fedora Core releases Subject: Re: FC4 or FC5 Les Mikesell wrote: > Actually it is commercial vs GPL. [...] The GPL specifically allows commercial redistribution. The only restriction it contains is that the cost for a copy of the source code cannot exceed the cost of the binaries sold. > Many patented components that can't ever be combined with > GPL'd code and legally distributed.... Consider what is > in the media player alone. It is easy enough to add > free components like OpenOffice or Cygwin to Windows, but > how do you add device drivers with patented technology > to Linux? Software patents are a Bad Thing(TM). What we need to do is strive to strike down such patent law and also encourage the patent holders to grant an irrevocable, world-wide, royalty- free license for any purpose imaginable on behalf of the public so that all can benefit from its code. (For example, the Theora video codec is actually based on On2's patented VP3, but they released all patent rights to it so that anyone may use it for any purpose without such licensing costs.) -- Peter Gordon (codergeek42) This message was sent through a webmail interface, and thus not signed. -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list
