Re: GraphicsMagick & LZW compression

At 04:20 PM 6/17/03 -0500, you wrote:
>
>We have no effective means to *prevent* someone from another country
>from importing the software into their country and dissobeying the
>laws of their country.
>
>The real issue is what is the package author's liability if a citizen
>of a country where LZW is still patented imports and illegally uses
>the patented algorithm?  I contend that the package author has no
>liability if the package author took reasonable steps to ensure that
>the importer was aware that the software used an algorithm which may
>be protected by patent in his country.

What are "reasonable steps"?

I think anything short of forcing the user to take some explicit step
such as typing "--enable-lzw-compression" isn't enough.  Putting a
cautionary note in the README isn't enough because we know that only
a small fraction of users read READMEs.  A checkbox where they certify
that they aren't in a protected country might be enough.

BTW ImageMagick is presently planning to renege on earlier promises to
supply LZW-enabled binaries and instead wait until all patents have
expired.


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