David Lang
shendrix@escape.widomaker.com wrote:
Date: Sat, 26 Dec 1998 00:20:54 -0500
In message <y7rd857fyih.fsf@sytry.doc.ic.ac.uk>, David Wragg writes:
OK... so again, has anyone asked ever asked the patent owners about
this? Just curious. I mean, if I knew how to make the changes to
gcc, I'd just ask them to release the patent or grant an exemption
for all GPL software, or whatever would be the best way to handle it.
I am still confused about section 7 of the GPL which doesn't
explicitely say you can't use patented code and seems to say it's
OK if the patent owner agrees to free distribution.
I know there is an earlier section of the GPL saying patents should
be freed but that seems more like discussion while the numbered
sections are the guts.
> This just goes to show that 17 years is too long for a software patent
> in an active research field. By the time it expires, its value is
> purely historical, thus the patent system has achieved nothing.
Yeah, well now it's 20 years, and the patent grants don't seem
to be slowing down.
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