[Fsfe-ie] Can this be true?? Linux migration stopped....

[Aidan Delaney]

Ian,
On Thu, 2004-08-05 at 11:39 +0100, Ian Clarke wrote:
> While this has obvious benefits in terms of highlighting the practical 
> dangers of software patents, I have some concerns about it.  The logic 
> behind this could be used to call into question *any* software 
> deployment, open source or not.  This risks creating the misleading 
> impression that software patents are only a threat to open source 
> software development, when in reality they are a threat to *all* 
> software development.
If I restate your point in terms of my argument, I believe it makes my
argument stronger.  There exist companies that own large bodies of
software patents (hypothetically speaking if sw-pat's are passed).  You
will not be able to use software from anyone except this cabal or you
risk getting sued.  Thus sw-pat don't help competition and actually
hinder it.  This has always been a strong argument against sw-pat, now
we have an actual case study.
-- 
Aidan Delaney   email: adelaney at cs.may.ie
                web:   http://www.cs.may.ie/~adelaney
                gpg:   http://www.cs.may.ie/~adelaney/public_key.asc
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