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That's noble and I respect that. Unfortunately it fails to address software patents at all, and that doesn't make the problem go away. Copyrights are essenti

by bbanyc 13y ago

That's noble and I respect that. Unfortunately it fails to address software patents at all, and that doesn't make the problem go away. Copyrights are essentially about copying. Patents aren't - you can write a clean-room program that's entirely your own work, absolutely guaranteeing that you aren't infringing anyone's copyright, but it could still infringe a patent you've never heard of. Or you could accept code from a friendly company which has a few defensive patents on it, and some years later the friendly company comes under less friendly ownership and the defensive patents turn offensive. Apache, being based in the US (which has many software patents) and accepting code from many companies that have patents, has to deal with these scenarios. OpenBSD, being based in Canada (with far fewer - but not zero! - software patents), isn't as affected by it so Theo calls it bullshit. But it's not so black-and-white.

clarry 13y ago
You are right, copyrights are about copying. Copyright licenses cannot address software patents any more than they can address US export restrictions, trade marks, contracts, or any other international or local laws that might deny you some freedoms. Theo cannot grant you rights to Microsoft's or Cisco's patents. What he can grant you is rights to his code. Now you can try to "address" software patents e.g. by obligating distributors to grant rights to their patents, but that is a restriction; it might be giving someone more rights, and by the same token is taking more rights away from someone else! More importantly, that would be a restriction imposed by the copyright holder, rather than an external restriction imposed on you by a third entity the copyright holder does not control. OpenBSD does not want to impose such restrictions on you or anyone else. They make their code free. You seem to think that OpenBSD or Theo simply disregard patent issues because they hail from Canada. Maybe you should learn about CARP[1][2], or figure out why many of the ports' Makefiles have a line like this: PERMIT_PACKAGE_CDROM= patents [1] http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#35 http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#35 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Address_Redundancy_Protocol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Address_Redundancy_Prot...
midas007 13y ago
(I lean on the *BSD side of anarchistic, DWTFYL.) Patents + OSS is a huge, under-served point that unfortunately Lessig is no longer working on. I and others that open source tons of code will be the first to wave the FOSS banner all day long, but it's not going change the reality of the present landscape. As such, open source projects and startup founders repeatedly fail to anticipate the consequences of nonparticipating in the patent scheme. If the other side (a company) holds a (shitty) patent, and a project doesn't... they can still squish them like the cockroaches they are should the project become significant. So there's options: either play the game, fight city hall or get fucked by pretending it doesn't exist. Not choosing an action is still a choice. Perhaps one of the larger OSS orgs would show leadership on this to help projects manage this tricky minefield.

by bbanyc 13y ago

clarry 13y ago

You are right, copyrights are about copying. Copyright licenses cannot address software patents any more than they can address US export restrictions, trade marks, contracts, or any other international or local laws that might deny you some freedoms. Theo cannot grant you rights to Microsoft's or Cisco's patents. What he can grant you is rights to his code. Now you can try to "address" software patents e.g. by obligating distributors to grant rights to their patents, but that is a restriction; it might be giving someone more rights, and by the same token is taking more rights away from someone else! More importantly, that would be a restriction imposed by the copyright holder, rather than an external restriction imposed on you by a third entity the copyright holder does not control. OpenBSD does not want to impose such restrictions on you or anyone else. They make their code free. You seem to think that OpenBSD or Theo simply disregard patent issues because they hail from Canada. Maybe you should learn about CARP[1][2], or figure out why many of the ports' Makefiles have a line like this: PERMIT_PACKAGE_CDROM= patents [1] http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#35 http://www.openbsd.org/lyrics.html#35 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Address_Redundancy_Protocol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Address_Redundancy_Prot...

midas007 13y ago

(I lean on the *BSD side of anarchistic, DWTFYL.) Patents + OSS is a huge, under-served point that unfortunately Lessig is no longer working on. I and others that open source tons of code will be the first to wave the FOSS banner all day long, but it's not going change the reality of the present landscape. As such, open source projects and startup founders repeatedly fail to anticipate the consequences of nonparticipating in the patent scheme. If the other side (a company) holds a (shitty) patent, and a project doesn't... they can still squish them like the cockroaches they are should the project become significant. So there's options: either play the game, fight city hall or get fucked by pretending it doesn't exist. Not choosing an action is still a choice. Perhaps one of the larger OSS orgs would show leadership on this to help projects manage this tricky minefield.