Microsoft prohibits GPLed work via licensing of CIFS standards

[Xavi Drudis Ferran]

El Sat, Apr 06, 2002 at 10:27:20PM +0200, Jeroen Dekkers deia:
> 
> That was actually what I intended to say with my mail. If we stop
> patents now microsoft can't play the same tactics in Europe and we can
> probably develop the patented things in Europe. For the USA patents, I
> personally don't care about them, as I don't live in the USA and don't
> have any plans to go there. Yes, it's a bad situation, but IMHO we
> need to be sure that the EU isn't going that bad way first.
>
Ok. I quite agree (I think we would do well to care for the USA  _after_
we solve our own problems). 
 
> > so nobody knows how threatening they are until you come back from court.
> > But something like 30000 software patents have been granted by the EPO.
> > I'm told they're enough to frighten people and stop them from writing or 
> > publishing software sometimes. 
> 
> I didn't know this, I hope they aren't threatening at all. :(
>

The fact you can't be sure it's a threat in itself. Of course it will get 
worse if they're legalised. 

Since you didn't know, you may want to see the European Software
Patent Horror Gallery

http://swpat.ffii.org/patents/index.en.html


-- 
Xavi Drudis Ferran
xdrudis at tinet.org