Re: Re: Open Movie Editor

Hi Bob,

> There is not really a problem with patents unless there is the desire to 
> not pay licenses

I think people should pay if they want to use proprietary software, but 
the problem I have with software patents is that they can be used to 
extract tribute from competing but independently developed free software 
- even when the patent holder has demonstrated little genuine innovation 
and has added nothing of value to the state of the art. Plus the 
practical problem that you can't play the patent game unless you have a 
lot of cash up front.

> There are open source 
> implementations of many algorithms which require paying license fees.

That depends on the country which you live in. Certainly that would be 
the position of a US patent lawyer.

> What is needed is a non-profit IP clearing house so that users of the 
> software can go to one place to pay their license fees.

That's pretty much what Fluendo are doing, albeit in a commercial context.

> There should also be an evaluation of existing open source licenses to 
> see which ones are compatible with paying patent license fees.

Fluendo have performed this analysis, and consulted with the FSF legal 
team. Their conclusion was that GPL applications using LGPL Gstreamer to 
access proprietary plugins need a GPL exception clause. The Totem media 
player has this clause, which was why we made it the default media 
player in 64 Studio.

Cheers!

Daniel


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