Re[2]: GDL2 on MacOS X

On Mon, 25 Nov 2002 12:20:02 +0000 (GMT) Nicola Pero <[email protected]> wrote:

 >| 
 >| >    How are you dealing with the fact that EOModel and EOEditingContext 
 >| > are patented (6,085,197; 5,956,728; 5,873,093)?
 >| 
 >| Almost anything in the computer science world is patented - from telnet to
 >| software managing installation of other software to anything else.  Just
 >| browse the US patent archive for a list.

right, helas :-(


 >| I'm not involved in the development of EOF2, and I'm not sure if the
 >| actual authors are aware of the patents, but as far as I can say, there is
 >| a lot of previous art making those patents invalid.  

I think so too. I haven't a list but....


 >| If you look on old
 >| mailing lists on the net, I remember someone posting a detailed,
 >| documented list of quite a few books and papers published before the
 >| patents were filed, describing precisely the concepts implemented by the
 >| patents.  There is nothing particularly new in those patents (from a
 >| computer science research point of view), really.

...as you,  I think there's nothing really new from a base computing science point of view.


 >| gdl2 was also, for the most part, developed in Europe, where - I think -
 >| such patents (being US patents) do not hold.

Right, AFAIK.




 >| The FSF, and GNUstep, are not for profit organizations - there is no money
 >| to win for Apple from a litigation with the FSF - just a lot of bad
 >| marketing and a very bad feeling for OSX developers or porters to OSX.  
 >| Btw, Apple itself is using and distributing *a lot* of copyrighted FSF
 >| software in its own MacOS X system.

I agree. IMHO, Apple can't fight the rest of the world so having support (compatible frameworks) from 3rd party should
be intresting for them.
If I were an IT manager, I'll prefer to have an alternative solution so I could choose Apple tools with less risks.



 >| also considering that
 >| Apple is not selling an Objective-C version of EOF2 themselves ... what's
 >| the point ?  the gdl2 authors are just providing free quality software to
 >| run on Mac OSX ..

One could interpret european law to say that it's legal to provide solutions to allow working 
application to run even if some parts are discontinuated/not supported.


 >| Anyway - this was just my personal rant - everyone has to make his own
 >| legal evaluations and choices.

It could be nice to have an official feedback from Apple saying they're not against GNustep 
project but.... wait & see.

Manuel