From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Jun 12 2:36:41 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz (artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz [195.113.31.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 22DE737B408 for ; Tue, 12 Jun 2001 02:36:36 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mikulas@artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz) Received: from localhost (mikulas@localhost) by artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz (8.9.3/8.9.3/Debian 8.9.3-21) with SMTP id LAA11195; Tue, 12 Jun 2001 11:36:30 +0200 Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 11:36:30 +0200 (CEST) From: Mikulas Patocka To: Matt Dillon Cc: Jonathan Lemon , hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Patented algorithm in FreeBSD In-Reply-To: <200106112302.f5BN2Mx34109@earth.backplane.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > The key thing with patents is that they are meaningless until the > patent holder decides to protect them in court by challenging the > people who are supposedly in violation of the patent. If a patent > holder decides to go after you, it can be costly even if you win. They can't go after me because I don't live in America. However they can go after users ... even if the patent is bogus. What does exactly patent forbid? distribution of sources, distribution of binaries or use of binaries? - if I make compile time switch to turn patented feature off (for paranoid US users who don't have money for lawsuit), would it be possible to distribute the sources in US? Mikulas To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message