FSF's Position On Proposed W3C "RF" Patent Policy

bkuhn writes "FSF released its position on the proposed W3C 'RF' patent policy. W3C's proposed policy is a step in the right direction (compared to RAND), but because of 'field of use' restrictions, it is in fact not a Free-Software-friendly policy. The Free Software community is encouraged to say so in their comments on the last call draft."

Comments

Re:does anybody care

[Smallpond]

The FSF's point here is that W3C RF policy will not just make OSS implementations difficult, it
will make it, in some cases, impossible. Copyright code offered "royalty-free but with constraints"
is sort of a poisoned apple. You can use it in the intended application, but the code
using it can never be GPL.

Re:does anybody care

[sab39]

You're the perfect example of the kind of person who blindly criticises anything they say, without actually reading it. This kind of crap barely deserves a response, but I'll give it one since it seems to be so common.

The FSF has nothing against capitalism; they practice it themselves, by selling CDs of GNU software. Sure, they don't hold it as an ideal above all others, and they treat it as answerable to their ethics: in other words, as a means to an end, but not the end in itself.

They're only opposed to a small subset of the current implementation of capitalism, and that subset is (not entirely coincidentally) the same part of what is commonly regarded as "capitalism" that many people hold as distinctly anti-capitalist: artificial monopolies created through copyright and patents. A "pure" capitalist would argue that these are wrong because they interfere with the free market; the FSF argues that they are wrong because they unethically prevent users from sharing.

"Information wants to be free", while perhaps originating from the Free Software community, has become the mantra of Napster/Kazaa users and I'm sure the FSF sees it as as much of a liability as I do. Perhaps "Information ought to be free"...

I could go on and on about the complete lack of basis in fact of your comment, but I don't have time. It's not like you actually have any interest in hearing an opposing viewpoint anyway, or perhaps you'd actually have read what they write, and know that you're spouting crap.

Yes, people do care. I am one of those people.

[jbn-o]

Honest question, not a troll: does anybody care what the FSF thinks about this?

Yes, I care because the GNU GPL is the preeminent Free Software license. I care because the FSF is concerned with everyone's freedom to share and modify software, and that includes me. Their mission requires thorough analysis of the ethics and freedoms of Free Software, an analysis I think the FSF has done an excellent job of providing. This concern includes talking about patents that adversely affect those freedoms.

From the looks of things, there are a few hardliners who believe the FSF really knows what's what[...]

It's also possible people believe the FSF knows "what's what" because these people have considered the matter of Free Software seriously and reached a conclusion compatible with the FSF's position. The FSF has been around dutifully working on Free Software issues for so long many people have had the opportunity to learn what the FSF stands for.

A good example of this is the recent "GNU/Linux" thing. There are a few posters here who still insist on referring to it as "GNU/Linux," but nobody else really paid any attention.

Judging by the size of the Slashdot thread when the FSF published their GNU/Linux FAQ I'd say a lot of Slashdot readers paid attention--it was quite a popular discussion for Slashdot. I think it is fair to give credit where credit is due, and it is reasonable to draw fine distinctions in order to speak and understand things more clearly. I find calling the union of the GNU operating system and the Linux kernal "GNU/Linux" to be helpful to both of those ends. I also find the term helpful to instruct other people on why GNU is so important, and helpful to explain what Linus Torvalds contributed.