[Fsfe-ie] Re: Patents, current situation?

Ian Clarke ian at freenetproject.org
Tue Sep 23 00:52:15 CEST 2003


On Mon, Sep 22, 2003 at 11:37:56PM +0100, Niall Douglas wrote:
> > The Free Software amendment would be great, it would encourage
> > companies to release Free Software as a means of avoiding patent
> > requirements.  The down side is that I'm not sure this amendment will
> > get majority support.
> 
> I STRONGLY oppose such an amendment.

As per my previous email, I share your strong opposition to this
amendment despite the fact that I am (obviously) a big supporter of free
software.

Our argument has been that software patents are an assault on innovation
generally.  This amendment is basically saying "Its ok to assault
innovation - provided you don't assault *our* innovation".  This
amendment is extremely divisive and just proposing it will alienate the
majority of those that support the anti-swpat movement - myself
included, as it suggests that the free software community cares more 
about its own ability to innovate, even if this is at the expense of the 
rest of the software community.

Ian.

-- 
Ian Clarke                			            ian at locut.us
Coordinator, The Freenet Project	      http://freenetproject.org/
Weblog				     http://slashdot.org/~sanity/journal


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