>> I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. However, I believe
>> that in the United States, the Uniform Commercial Code, as adopted
>> by all 50 states, requires all products sold to include all of the
>> necessary include patent permissions to use the product for its
>> advertised purpose unless otherwise stated.
>Exactly. And in this case the purpose advertised is telephone line
>communications under Windows95/98 which means that no support is
>required for any other operating system - or for no OS at all.
Well, I suppose so.
On the other hand, you could argue the same thing for any
regular internal modem that is only advertised to work with
Windows95/98. I think the patent infringement scenario is pretty far
fetched. The patent extorionists have already collected their money
when you bought the winmodem. I really doubt that they have a
separate business model that they would want to pursue for a low cost
operating system like linux, especially when the software serves to
make modems more cost advantageous in comparison to other
communication technologies. Generally, any piece of software that you
write or use is probably violating some ridiculous software patent, so
you have to be somewhat pragmatic. However, if you do find some
patent license for winmodems that says that the patent is only
licensed for the user to use Windows95/98, I encourage you to post it,
and try to forward it to the parties suing microsoft over perceived
misdeeds.
Adam J. Richter __ ______________ 4880 Stevens Creek Blvd, Suite 205
adam@yggdrasil.com \ / San Jose, California 95129-1034
+1 408 261-6630 | g g d r a s i l United States of America
fax +1 408 261-6631 "Free Software For The Rest Of Us."
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