On Mon, 2008-12-15 at 16:23 -0700, Chad Perrin wrote: > On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 07:07:36AM +1000, Da Rock wrote: > > On Mon, 2008-12-15 at 13:43 -0700, Chad Perrin wrote: > > > On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 02:16:34AM -0800, per...@pluto.rain.com wrote: > > > > > > Unfortunately, anything covered by a patent, as I hinted > > > > > > above, is verboten. > > > > > > > > Er, doesn't it depend on what is patented? If the h/w itself is > > > > patented, but its software-visible interface is not, there should be > > > > no problem writing a driver for that h/w. OTOH if the algorithms > > > > used in the driver are patented it would be an infringement to > > > > reproduce them. > > > > > > I said anything covered by patent. If the software is not covered by > > > patent, you're fine to write software. Be aware, though, that a lot of > > > patents are intentionally written in a somewhat vague way so they can be > > > extended via case law at a later date. > > > > > > Nothing is "legal" under the current US system unless you can defend it > > > in civil court. That's my general rule of thumb. > > > > That doesn't sound like a good system (US not yours) - how on earth did > > it get so screwed up? (Thats rhetorical btw, I don't mean to start a > > whole discussion on that topic on this list.) > > It's much the same everywhere, from what I've seen. The problems just > arise in different guises. Usually, judging by my observations, they > arise in large part because of the common notion that a problem can be > fixed with more of the behavior that created the problem in the first > place. > > . . . but beyond that, I'd probably start a flame war, so I don't think I > want to get more specific on the list. >
Probably not- the flames would probably be directed at a common enemy rather than amongst ourselves here. _______________________________________________ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org"
