>'The greatest danger facing freeware today is software patents. When
>the commercial software vendors realize that they can't compete with
>the open software model on technical merits, they'll patent everything
>they do and require licenses and NDA's for any interoperability.'
>
>I have been concerned about this thing in the past. An idea struck me
>as I read this, though -- which is the main reason I'm posting. Why
>not fight fire with fire? Why don't the authors of free software
>patent *their* works of genius, and use that to require that anyone
>using their technology release the source (plus a handsome donation to
>the Free Software Foundation <vbg>)?
Well, the issue here is with software PATENTS, not with copyright. Software
patents threaten to destroy not only the free software movement, but also
small commercial software developers. It's possible for a company to get a
patent on simple code routines that could be created through circumstance;
the cost of performing a patent search for every routine in a program could
cripple smaller companies, and make things impossible for hobbyists. Take a
look at http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/patents.html for more info on this
topic.
As far as the matter of copyright, um, well, they've already got that taken
care of. The GNU Public License was created for precisely this matter, and
requires anyone who utilizes GPL software to also make their source freely
available. Pore over http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/philosophy.html if you
want more detailed information on this.
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