SCO's page says 728447, not 728441. They are asking if you are affiliated with the media, so I just gave the name of one of the media I've written for regularly.
Hm. I looked around on the net for references when I wrote that in yesterday. "pig in a poke" does refer to purchasing something sight unseen. A poke is a bag. "Cat out of the bag" refers to news escaping one's control, as it is wont to do.
They only take a few questions, and they probably do filter them for press and analysts (so say who you write for). Shankland was one of the few to get through last time. But it will be fun to listen.
You're in the wrong time zone. The conference call is 9 AM Mountain, in 39 minutes as I write this. I suspect the webcast will go up after the call ends.
I just write in old-style HTML and then have "html tidy" do the translation for me. It's a nice free software tool packaged well on Debian and no doubt elsewhere.
OK - I figured out what they have to tell you about. If you are not aware of infringement, you pay real damages as determined by the court and the plaintiff's possibly-fictional account of how much they lost on your account. If you are made aware of the infringement, you pay punitive damages which can be greater than real damages.
If Open Source developers don't want to use patented inventions - don't use them.
How?
I am going to assume from your message that you have never done a patent search. Patents are often so poorly descriptive of the invention that you can never be assured that you are finished searching.
What about undisclosed patents? In the U.S., a patent can be filed up to a year after the purported invention date, and can stay undisclosed for years after that. When it becomes published, you get sued.
They don't have to tell you. Usually, they won't. They'd rather hide their cards. Submarine patents, ones that you didn't expect and then surface later, are legal. Lots of people view them as a money-making strategy.
And have you tried a patent search lately? Many software patents are so poorly descriptive of the invention that you are never assured that you're finished searching.
Well, not worrying about the legal ramifications much works great, when nobody else is worrying about them either. The problem is that we are living in a world where people are thinking about new ways to lock down the software industry to their own advantage, and are going to court about it. Not worrying means not protecting yourself.
Richard predicted much that is now happening when he started the GNU project in '84. This was most poignant when DMCA and then the Hollings bill were proposed. What might have sounded like paranoia before, started to look a lot more like common sense.
That's not the case at all. The nature of innovation is incremental. A patent will often be used below a new invention.
IF available public key encryption patented
THEN develop innovative public key protocol
Again you're missing the point. If the use of the one-way mathematical functions that enable public key crypto is patented, you don't necessarily have any alternatives.
You are not liable for damages before you are notified by the patent holder that you are infringing.
It would be nice if that were true. It's not. Sorry. Perhaps you are confused about the Doctrine of Laches. That says that if you delay prosecution until it is advantageous to you, you may lose the right to prosecute. But laches is hardly a get-out-of-jail card. It's a hard case to make, and generally the delay has to be 6 years or more for the court to accept it.
I think you are confusing software with mathematics. There are an infinite number of ways to write software. There are a limited number of ways to find a mathematical solution, or to perform a particular logical operation. You can write a program differently, but you can not necessarily bypass an algorithm.
The problem is even worse when the algorithm is embedded in a standard, a file format or intercommunication format. Bypass the algorithm and you're incompatible.
What could happen is bad enough that I don't understand why you would not want to talk about it.
There's this guy with a gun outside of my door, officer.
Has he shot you yet? No. Then why do you think he will shoot you? I don't see why we should do anything about it.
Well, it sounds as if we lost the TUX2 phase-tree filesystem, something very innovative, because its author was intimidated by a patent holder. We couldn't use public key encryption in free software for a long time. There is a NeXT patent that is keeping us from putting instant-test in our GUI construction programs. I could go on.
I would have done this differently if it wasn't down-to-the-wire. Given that there's about a day until the vote, I wanted to get this out without rallying the usual suspects to sign on to it first. Then, I would have been on a better foundation to say "we".
Yes, I will count on someone else, like the standards organization, ponying up the $500,000 for my defense. The problem with this is that lots of SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises) and open source developers are injured before the case is won.
GIFs could be replaced. Not all algorithms can. And your head is already a block of gouda:-)
This patent is going to expire anyway, and one can already claim for partial relief in the US because of a law passed when they increased the patent term from the old 17 years. All of that means GIF is not the best example we have, but I didn't choose it as an example.
Well, consider that you are an open source developer. You get sued. You lose or settle. The patent holder gets your copyrights, your home, your car. The EU notes the damage and reports on it. How does this protect you?
It would work the way you say in an ideal world. What we have instead is a telephone company enforcing its patent upon the operator of any web site that uses frames. Said telephone company did not invent frames, and its patent was trivial and should not have been allowed. Dynamic content embedded in static content. What an invention!
Slashdot Mirror
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
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Bruce
How?
I am going to assume from your message that you have never done a patent search. Patents are often so poorly descriptive of the invention that you can never be assured that you are finished searching.
What about undisclosed patents? In the U.S., a patent can be filed up to a year after the purported invention date, and can stay undisclosed for years after that. When it becomes published, you get sued.
The problem isn't so clear as you thought.
Bruce
And have you tried a patent search lately? Many software patents are so poorly descriptive of the invention that you are never assured that you're finished searching.
Bruce
Bruce
Richard predicted much that is now happening when he started the GNU project in '84. This was most poignant when DMCA and then the Hollings bill were proposed. What might have sounded like paranoia before, started to look a lot more like common sense.
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
It would be nice if that were true. It's not. Sorry. Perhaps you are confused about the Doctrine of Laches. That says that if you delay prosecution until it is advantageous to you, you may lose the right to prosecute. But laches is hardly a get-out-of-jail card. It's a hard case to make, and generally the delay has to be 6 years or more for the court to accept it.
Bruce
The problem is even worse when the algorithm is embedded in a standard, a file format or intercommunication format. Bypass the algorithm and you're incompatible.
Bruce
Well, it sounds as if we lost the TUX2 phase-tree filesystem, something very innovative, because its author was intimidated by a patent holder. We couldn't use public key encryption in free software for a long time. There is a NeXT patent that is keeping us from putting instant-test in our GUI construction programs. I could go on.
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
He's really the last one I'd suspect as a crypto-fascist.
bruce
GIFs could be replaced. Not all algorithms can. And your head is already a block of gouda :-)
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce
Bruce