From owner-freebsd-advocacy Sat Apr 21 1:25:46 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from homer.softweyr.com (bsdconspiracy.net [208.187.122.220]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4F3DA37B424 for ; Sat, 21 Apr 2001 01:25:44 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from wes@softweyr.com) Received: from [127.0.0.1] (helo=softweyr.com ident=e8366bbac5498f297bcd31ac7bc8eb5f) by homer.softweyr.com with esmtp (Exim 3.16 #1) id 14qshK-0000L4-00; Sat, 21 Apr 2001 02:24:54 -0600 Message-ID: <3AE143D6.2C4742B4@softweyr.com> Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2001 02:24:54 -0600 From: Wes Peters Organization: Softweyr LLC X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.12 i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Rahul Siddharthan Cc: Ted Mittelstaedt , David Johnson , freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Windriver, Slackware and FreeBSD References: <20010418091652.A27000@lpt.ens.fr> <007201c0c7e1$65489b00$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> <20010418103127.F27000@lpt.ens.fr> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Rahul Siddharthan wrote: > > Ted Mittelstaedt said on Apr 18, 2001 at 01:27:24: > > >Consider the following scenario: Apple has a patent on some very > > >low-level algorithm, but doesn't tell people. (They do claim a patent > > >on theming, so why not on some OS-related thing?) Their people (no > > >doubt well-meaning) contribute it to FreeBSD. > > > > The second that an Apple employee formally contributed patented source > > to FreeBSD, it would tremendously weaken the Apple patent to the point > > where it would impede it's enforceability. > > As I understand it (IANAL), non-enforcement of patents doesn't weaken > them (unlike trademarks, where you do have to enforce them actively). You're right, but non-enforcement and contribution are not the same. If Apple contributed patented source to FreeBSD and released it under BSD-ish license terms, that means that anyone can use it on the same terms as you and I. > Unisys waited for years, until GIFs became entrenched standards on the > web, before trying to enforce their LZW patent. Many big corporations > did pay up. Probably not comparable, Unisys didn't publish or contribute the LZW code. -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC wes@softweyr.com http://softweyr.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-advocacy" in the body of the message