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Section Editor: Jon Corbet

Letters to the editor

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 09:36:12 +0200
From: Marko Samastur <markos@elite.org>
To: letters@lwn.net
Subject: Proliferation of licenses

Hello,

There seems to be an ongoing argument, that increasing number of
licenses is somehow bad. The arguments for this are basically that it
makes harder to understand the interactions between different licenses
when a product is build on top of existing ones.

I disagree with you on this one. I don't think that proliferation of
licenses in itself is a good thing, but it is important to keep in view
what a license really is.

It's an agreement between two parties, the producer of the product and
the customer (or licensee). This agreement explains conditions on which
the producer is willing to sell, give etc. its product to the customer
and rights that are granted to the customer with it. It should also
describe things like how (usually where) conflicts should be resolved
and other similar things that to most are just legal babble. In terms,
it defines the relationship between them.

From this, at least to me, follow at least two conclusions. As with any
other agreement (legal or not) and relationships, all involving parties
should treat computer licenses seriously. That means you should read it
and understand what you are about to agree to. If you don't, don't agree
to it. There's enough software out there that you should be able to find
something that meets your needs and is given on enough liberal terms for
you. If it doesn't, then I guess you have to weigh what's more important
to you, the benefits of particular software or particular license.

The other point is the view of the producer. Just as a customer should
have the right to choose, so should the producer and this reflects
(among other things) also in license which it chooses. Why should it use
a different license, which doesn't meet all its needs, just to support
unforgivable laziness of the other party?

We (well, most of us do) live in countries which are regulated by laws.
This should be reason enough to pay more attention to legal things in
our lives. A call "don't roll your own", which might have a positive
effect of not complicating things more than they should be, also might
have a side effect of giving further support to the general ignorance.
After all, how many people have read at least one of the licenses you've
mentioned? I'd be willing to bet most haven't.

Reading license agreements might not be the most fun thing to do, but if
you intend to seriously use or rely on something, being a software,
hardware or mortgage for a house, you should do it. It's time well
spent.

Best regards,

	Marko

P.S: I'm not a lawyer & I don't like reading legal texts. But I do it
anyway.

Date: 3 Nov 1999 06:14:21 -0000
From: kenengel <kenengel@linuxstart.com>
To: letters@lwn.net
Subject: The Experts say...

I have read about Linux almost every day for over two years now -
hundreds of news items articles, anecdotes and reports about its
flexibility, reliability, and even usability. So nowadays, whenever I
read some pundit spewing FUD, or simply advising caution - "Linux is
not ready for the enterprise or the home user's desktop, but they're
working on it; it might be ready in 2 or 3 or 50 years..." - I think
of the movie "Airplane!" Long after Striker has brought the plane
safely to a dead halt, and all passengers are on safe ground, the air
traffic control officer McCroskey is still advising, supporting and
guiding, steadily, steadily, through grave danger and stormy
conditions to an empty cockpit.

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 1999 12:55:36 +0100 (MET)
From: Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de>
To: letters@lwn.net
Subject: Bogus patents

IMHO the biggest problem of the US PTO isn't that they approve bogus
patents (even the most careful examiner can oversee previous art), but that they
don't have a period of public review of the patent. The only way to let such
a patent die is in court, and we all know that's not cheap; and you can do
so only defensive (when asked for money).

The German patent law allows public caveats in the first 6 months after
approval and publication of a patent. It costs nothing but the stamp on the
letter you write to the German PTO (e-mail not yet).

If you write to the US PTO or to your senator, don't request that they
should prohibit bogus patents - bogus patents are already prohibited. Tell them
that a public review is the only way to find out in a timely and efficient
way whether a patent is bogus or not. And it is much cheaper than hiring
competent examiners.

BTW Linux time.c code: I suggest removing that code, in two months. We can
keep it around as example for previous art, but we won't need it any more
(same with the same sort of code that should be in date).

-- 
Bernd Paysan
"If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself"
http://www.jwdt.com/~paysan/

Date: Wed, 03 Nov 1999 12:46:18 +0000
From: James Durie <jdurie@anvil.co.uk>
To: letters@lwn.net
Subject: "windowing" patent

I just read your article about the windowing patent and thought you
might like to knoe about this page here.
http://www.UNIX-systems.org/version2/whatsnew/year2000.html
It is part of the Open groups recommendations about unix and the Year
2000 problem.

They recommend doing windowing with a year border of 69.  I wonder how
many companies have followed their recommendations, I know my company
has and although we are not directly affected by this in Europe, we do
have clients in North America.

James

-- 
James Durie               Phone:  +44 171 749 7908
Anvil Software Limited    Fax:    +44 171 749 7916
46-48 Rivington Street    e-mail: jdurie@anvil.co.uk
London EC2A 3QP

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 1999 05:16:32 -0500 (EST)
From: Kristofer Coward <kris@melon.org>
To: letters@lwn.net
Subject: McDonnell Douglas patent nonsense

You mention in your article that "McDonnell Douglas is actively trying to
shake down companies using the windowing technique" Is there any mention
of which companies anywhere, and has anyone tried to present the Linux
prior art to these companies before MD goes after a linux company? If the
free software community can tip the off to the prior art, and possibly
co-ordinate some funding for legal aid, it would provide yet another chunk
of good open source publicity.

Kris Coward

From: "Bermingham, Charles E." <berminghamc@ada.org>
To: "'letters@lwn.net'" <letters@lwn.net>
Subject: Software patents: Idiotic and greedy
Date: Wed, 3 Nov 1999 10:04:32 -0600 

The windowing-technique patent mantioned in this week's Linux Weekly News is
a good example of how people have learned to use ignorance and greed to
achieve their objective, maybe even to "earn" a living.

I saw code like this in COBOL prgrams at Chicago's Cook County Hospital as
early as 1980.  I saw some when I was working on a COBOL project in 1984 or
1985 here at my current job.  These were examples of windowing to fix
century problems in the opposite direction:

	IF BIRTH YEAR > CURRENT-YEAR
	    SUBTRACT 1 FROM CENTURY

etc.  This kind of thing goes on and on in code all over the place.

I don't suppose any government official will ever ask me, but if they did, I
would tell them that software patenting is ultimately doomed.  If not
because of the philosophical problems involved, then at least because such
exclusivism is an insult to programmers everywhere.  I must admit, I
reluctantly applaud those companies which use patenting *against itself* by
patenting simple ideas and then not charging any royalties.  I'd be happier
if those organizations would help nail the coffin.

I don't even know if such comments would do any good; it's been long since
I've lost any trust of politicians.

Remeber the "AT" patent that Hayes got for their modems?  When that company
went out of business, I laughed and laughed.  They deserved what they got.
They made things unnessarily miserable for not only their competitors, but
for thousands upon thousands of system administrators all over the world.
On top of that, most of us programmers knew that the use of a timing
algorithm to make  control decisions was just another basic principle of
software.

And for those of you who support software patents, it comes down to this:
when you take ideas that others are willing to share with you and use them
as your "property", and then you try to shake people down for their
hard-earned living, you are the lowest of the low.  Alexander Bell's
followers did this very thing with A T & T, to garner control of telephone
service the world over; because of this, and since the U.S. government broke
up their monopoly, I am now hard-pressed to choose AT&T for *anything*, no
matter how hard they compete.

I hope those of you who are in Europe watch this situation carefully, and do
whatever you can to remove this scourge from your continent.  No widows or
orphans are going to go hungry if you do.  If you don't, some very greedy
people are going to be hated instead.