Re: [Patents] Re: IBM, Microsoft, BEA Snub W3C
Russell McOrmond <[email protected]>
| Newsgroups | gmane.org.dmca-activists |
|---|---|
| Message-ID | <[email protected]> |
(I received this on [email protected], and suspect that only that forum will receive my reply given I am not a member of the others) On Sat, 19 Apr 2003, Richard Stallman wrote: > I wonder if what we are seeing is an attempt to create a > patent-restricted standard. If so, perhaps public pressure > is called for now. It should be remembered that this is not the only standard that is part of OASIS, with the Open Office technical committee being very important to our community. http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office We need to look at this not as a single standard that may become an issue, but try to bring whatever pressure we can onto all software standards bodies to not accept royalty-bearing or "field of use" restricted patented methods. I tried to have a conversation with an IBM person at a recent government conference that featured some FLOSS presentations(*), and he simply didn't get it. There is a misconception that patents can not be used defensively against other patents if they are RF licensed, and this misconception needs to be cleared up. Anyone wanting to use RAND (or worse) licensing are doing so because they want to use them for offensive purposes, not defensive purposes, and this fact needs to be made clear. While what Microsoft is doing with software patents makes sense given their clear dependency on legacy business models, what IBM is doing is sitting on the fence by both supporting Free Software (such as Linux) and opposing Free Software (via RAND software patents) at the same time. I often surprise customers when I recommend against purchases from IBM until I explain IBM's position on software patents. (*) I described Eben Moglen's awesome presentation at: http://www.canopener.ca/pipermail/discuss/2003-April/000951.html --- Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> Any 'hardware assist' for communications, whether it be eye-glasses, VCR's, or personal computers, must be under the control of the citizen and not a third party. -- http://www.flora.ca/russell/