Please,

have a look here and sign the petition if you want to influence the decision ...

http://thankpoland.info/

Thanks,

Vincent

Moved: This thread is more suitable in General, and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.


It's a very good thing I think, but sadly not a Linux-question.

But they have this in america right? And it hasnt crippled their software industry and you can still write e.g. linux there without being sued for infringing a patent on e.g. adding numbers. Or am I wrong?

Anyone know anything more about this and the ramifications and how it has worke in the usa?

In the USA, Linux in only permitted if:
- without DVD support,
- without GIF support,
- without MP3 support.

And that's only what I'm aware of, as I don't live there.

Besides, even though patents in the USA (like in the European Union) should not apply to software, there's a very big difference: in the USA, the law is not all written, like it is in the EU. In the USA, most of the "law" (and court ruling) depends on "jurisprudence" (don't know the right English word). Slowly but surely, it came that "jurisprudence" made software patents possible with less restrictions each day. But the country (USA) is now more and more oposing this trend! And as "jurisprudence" is more souple (or even reversible) than written law, I think they can hope.
In the EU, if the law is accepted, it will become THE law, written hard, and no amount of oposition will change one word of what is written.

IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO ENGAGE THE FIGHT! Go and SIGN the petition, and please also read the actions to follow: co-sign some other documents, send postmail...

Yves.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?...ectID=10115247

:/ ... I dislike the suckers more every day, and 5 years ago
I thought that I hit rock-bottom with them ;}


Cheers,
Tink

Hmm, here I am, sitting here in America, watching a DVD in a window as I type this, looking at .gif button images on this very web page, and wouldn't ya know it, just last night I was listening to MP3 files on this very computer. How about that?

The only thing that Suse Linux didn't do out of the above without modification was play *encrypted* dvds, out of "potential" (not even real, since the DeCSS case was thrown out of court) legal implications, and that took a whole ten minutes to fix. AND, wouldn't ya know it, even if Sony, Philips, et. al. on the DVD consortium are reading this, there isn't a damn thing they can do about it even under the DMCA because even the almighty DMCA allows for interoperability, if anyone bothers to take a moment to actually READ the darn thing.

Software patents aren't all bad. The problem is that Europe allows for EASY abuse of the system. Here in the US if there is prior art or if the use or application of a technique or technology is "obvious" the patent is not supposed to be approved. That is not to say that patent clerks here in America are not always following those rules/guidelines and not all of them are not lazy (some are, hence the Amazon "single click" patent) but here there is no way you'd be able to patent, say, a "submit" or "close" or "exit" button unless a patent clerk is either lazy or simply doesn't give a rat's behind about actually obeying patent law.

Patents are intended to protect the little guy. The bad thing is that the European system is allowing Microsoft, Sun, etc. to patent prior art and then extort monies from small companies which have been in business producing those very items for YEARS already. What you need to do is not ELIMINATE patents, but FIX THE PROBLEM, which is, introduce checks and balances that we in America enjoy.

This is just one example of the ludicrous things people will try to patent if it becomes law.

Be very afraid!

http://www.gamedev.net/community/for...opic_id=302492

There are many, many examples to found on the net. Another worrying thing is that ideas are being patented, even if the code hasn't been written yet!

There is a thread discussing patents v. copyright here:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...0&pagenumber=1