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Patent Case With FOSS Implications
ThousandStars writes, "SCOTUSBlog posted about the
liklihood that the Supreme Court will review whether an organization can get around software patents by completing the work in other countries. This case has huge implications for OSS projects with coders in the U.S., as it may inhibit, among other things, the ability of American coders to contribute to projects that violate U.S. software patents." The Patently-O blog gives background on the case.
Does anyone living outside of the US actually care about US patents?
Just a question.
People using html in email should be shot.
There may be for some illegal acts, but it seems perfectly legal for companies to move "pay the workers less than $5 per hour" offshore.
(IANAL)
Even Microsoft seem to be warming to the idea of running Linux virtual machines under Windows.
And loads of major corporations use OSS in their internal business processes. Think of all those Linksys routers with their GPL microcode. Millions in use throughout the USA.
"...it may inhibit, among other things, the ability of American coders to contribute to projects..."
Yup, indeed it will.
And the USA will not be as competitive in the world of software development.
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That's the thing with patents, it doesn't matter if it's a clean-room design. Even if it's your own idea and you had never heard of anybody else doing it, if it infringes on a patent, you owe royalties.
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That's likely to make it hard to teach the next generation how to program computers; that will be 'education', and I will not be teaching anyone if there is any chance that someone will slap a patent law suit on me. (Nor will I be paying for a patent licence).
And if the next generation don't know how, there will be no-one to fix the bugs after the current generation retires.
And we'll lose it.
Microsoft is one of the companies that hates software patents and only seems to get them in case someone tries to sue them over patent infringement (defencive patents).
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
I can understand that a law exists that prevents items that violate US patent law from being exported, but why does the US have such a law? All it does is harm US manufacturers. It only makes sense for patents to apply where the product is actually used.
Assume a product is used in country A. There are no patents in country A that affect this device. The only patents on this device exist in the USA. Now, every country on the globe can build and ship this device to country A, EXCEPT the USA. How does this law make sense.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Could someone with copyright/patent on a compiler claim that any object code it produces is a derivative work since it uses their proprietary assembly-generating algorithm?
I think that's an interesting question that should be asked in court. I think it would make a mockery of software patents, which is a good thing. Neither alogrithms, business methods, nor software should be patented period!
FalconShould there be a Law?
There's already a form of IP to protect both... it's called Copyright.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
As much as slashdot is too focused on OSS, it's missing the bigger picture. In global corporations, most every piece of anything contains some component that is developed in the US. If that component "taints" the rest of the software so that all US patents apply, then there's countless billions to be had in patent licenses from all major coroporations. In practise it makes US patents valid world-wide, because it's impossible to have a european branch of the software, developed separately, which can implement the patented parts without creating US liability. The only viable option would be to not implement those features, hence a global monopoly to the patent holder.
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Did you even read the case details?
One of the cases is about Microsoft' codecs. The source was created in the US, It was licensed by a foriegn company. The foriegn company used the code to sell a product abroad.
This make it AT&T against FOSS.
FOSS has a lot to lose if Microsoft loses.
Good thing DOJ is supporting Microsoft.
Just open up some anoymous proxies, for American developers. Let quality speak for itself, should OSS become illegal due to patents, will that stop joe six pack for downloading the best new OS 4 years from now, especially when it's free? Enterprises will be screwed, but who cares about them? Not me, i'll continue to work on whatever platform I like.
MS now has a free version of visual studio 2005, so touting open source as the only cheap development environment is a load of horse-hockey. The previous "academic" versions that were priced at $199 (for visual studio 6.0 in 1998 and visual studio.net 2003 in 2003 -- I skipped the first vs.net) were not "extremely limited" -- they were the exact same thing as the "professional" package (one step down from their "enterprise" which didn't have many features a beginning programmer would use anyway) with a much cheaper price for students and faculty. And if thats still too pricey for students, there's the option for students to use their school/college/university labs.
A lot of your points are true, BUT most of them are not affected by this situation -- the only "downside" is that it might limit US programmers' abilities to contribute to open source projects that violate patents. Not everything has to violate patents, even though its trendy to bash any and all uses of the patent system.
In any case, you need to update your arguments as far as development environments - that may have been the case at one point, but it is no longer true.
> MS now has a free version of visual studio 2005, so touting open source
> as the only cheap development environment is a load of horse-hockey.
Next thing you're going to tell me is that the "free version of visual studio 2005" runs on a free version of Windows XP (or Vista), on a PIII with 128 megs of RAM... oops.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
Remember, the Supreme Court does not over-turn laws in the way you might think they do - they merely interpret the laws, which in the case of conflicting laws means determining which law "trumps" the other, in the scenario ruled upon. This is an important distinction. As an imaginary example, consider a state passing a law that says it is illegal to kill dogs. Then someone is attacked by a dog and kills it. Suppose that the Supreme Court took the stance that there is a constitutional right to self-defense, and naturally the constitution is higher on the pecking order than a state law. As in any case, the law would still stand, but in situations where self-defense is in play, other courts would now follow the precedent of the Supreme Court and find people not guilty. In all other situations, the law would remain in effect.
You can see then, that the justification that the Supreme Court gives for its rulings are just as important as the ruling itself, as they determine what aspects of the situation ruled upon are important in the ruling, and thus what situations the precedent will apply to in the future.
Some courts have been in favor of making very wide rulings that cause sweeping change to the way our laws are viewed. John Roberts, the current Supreme Court Justice, however, believes in narrow rulings. He has been quoted as saying "If it is not necessary to decide more to dispose of a case, in my view it is necessary not to decide more". By focusing tightly on the details of a particular case, and not the wider social phenomena, you usually end up with less controversial rulings, but also tend to support the status quo.
All of which is a long way of saying that you won't get the answers you want, unless you can find someone with such patent who tries to enforce it.