Hey if I understand the whole software patent problem correctly and I hope I don't, If it worked wouldn't everyone with like software sue each other nobody could distribute anything and wouldn't the whole Idea of open source and Linux become extinct?

I'm not an expert, but yeah, there is certainly that possibility. There's already quite a bit of legal precedent for the validity of software patents in the USA, and while I don't know of any case where Linux was directly involved, there've been a number of proprietary companies suing each other. A recent one involved a small company that had a patent on a media algorithm that Microsoft used in MSIE; they sucessfully sued Microsoft. While I'm always happy to see Microsoft getting a taste of their own medicine, cases like this are pretty scary since they could just as easily stifle any kind of real innovation and competition.

I'm not sure who could be sued, if some open-source software was found to be infringing on software patents. But it's not just open-source that could become extinct - software as a whole could return to the dark ages. All sorts of trivial software concepts could in theory be patented (if they aren't already), and then we're pretty much at the mercy of the patent-holder. Scary stuff!

Moving to General where discussions like such live

You should look into taking it seriously ( I am not implying you aren't, this is more of a generalized statement ), and do your part to not let it happen

Cool

check out www.knopper.net and click through to the knoppix section...

Scary, eh?

yarggggghhghhh

-Shade

Everyone that has posted in this topic is stateside, I'm in UK and it is scaring the s*&t out of me. I program (not that well) and my uni course is computing. What the hell am I going to do in 2 years when all the patents have been snapped up and I can't develop software for fear of being sued for daring to use a capital 'F' in the text for my file menu!

I believe that all of us, people that develop software, we first need to know many little details of that matter. there will be plenty patents, but I doubt that most of them would be used against you in a lawsuit... menus and such...

although you might be late, since the vote's supposed to be today (maybe has been already). My memory sucks, but there was at least FFII and the other has been mentioned (do some googling ) in this thread.

It won't help to wring our hands, we must fight!

As far as software patents, they really are an invention of the Devil. Like, let's say someone had patented "automobile", so no-one coould make another 4-wheel vehicle driven by an internal-combustion engine - or any kind of engine.

If I see the date of your post right, the voting was the day before yesterday for me (September 24).
Visit FFII's website, it has results, summaries and so on. It's better than expected!

when I posted, it was thursday, but I thought it still was wednesday...

Sometimes I lose a day here and there...

software is not patentable in Europe for the foreseeable future. The European parliament amended their original bill so that software itself is not patentable.

In other words, there should be a technical advancement, which could be interpreted to mean that stuff like embedded systems can be patented w/ software included.

Much is, of course, left up to the enforcement of the directive. But seeing as how Europeans are not nearly as litigious as our American cousins, I'd say that it'll not be a big problem for us. A strict and Big BUsiness-favorable system would be extremely harmful to the whole software industry, and I think perhaps linux would be more likely to stay alive than many others.

It pays to prepare the worst, though, and it's good that there are some European consortiums strongly motivated to keep linux alive, and better yet, keep up the development cycle.