Software patents and Free Software implementation

[Alexandre Dulaunoy]

On Tue, 16 Apr 2002, Loic Dachary wrote:

> Alexandre Dulaunoy writes:
>  > 
>  > Yes, you are right. We are currently battle to stop patent in Europe (in 
>  > Belgium and Luxembourg governement) and they (gvt) have a (bad) general 
>  > argument that saying "Software patent exists in the US and Free Software exists 
>  > also in the US, so there is not issue with innovation in Free Software".
>  > Of course, they are wrong but we need arguments... 
> 
> 	As Alessandro pointed out, it is not a matter of stopping
> software patents in Europe (they are illegal). I know you're very well
> aware of this fact :-) But your choice of words can lead the reader to
> think otherwise. It's better to say "We are currently battling to keep
> software patents out of Europe" or something like that. 

We have made a new version of the document : 

http://www.ael.be/node.php?id=52

After the excellent comments of Loic, Alessandro and others. 

I hope the position is more clear on the page. 

Don't hesitate to give feedback. 

Alex


PS : Regarding the FSMlabs patent, there are two discussions around that :

	* The patent itself. (It seems they are some prior arts from 
	  Digital Research but seems to be an old trade secret) 

	* Of using the "bad" current patent system to force use of Free 
	  Software. 

     I will not discuss around that because it could start a long thread.


-- 
Alexandre Dulaunoy		http://www.foo.be/
AD993-RIPE			http://www.ael.be/
"People who fight may lose.  People who do not fight have already lost."
  - Bertolt Brecht