__/ [ nessuno@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ] on Tuesday 15 May 2007 01:33 \__
> The RMS quote is put into context by the Vaughan-Nichols article:
>
> <Quote>
> If we look closer at Microsoft claims, we see that we don't need a
> court to dismiss them. Take a hard look, for example, at Stallman's
> comment. He was referring to that same 2004 study I talked about at
> the start. The same study, where the author, Dan Ravicher, an attorney
> and executive director of PUBPAT (the Public Patent Foundation, told
> me at the time, "Microsoft is up to its usual FUD [fear, uncertainty
> and doubt]."
>
> Ravicher's point: Under today's cockamamie patent law, "the number we
> found, to anyone familiar with this issue, is so average as to be
> boring; almost any piece of software potentially infringes at least
> that many patents." He continued, "The point of the study was actually
> to eliminate the FUD about Linux's alleged legal problems by attaching
> a quantifiable measure versus the speculation."
> </Quote>
>
> http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2129663,00.asp
>
>>It is almost impossible that the number is non-zero, considering some of
>>the broad patents Microsoft has.
>
> This is probably true. Micorsoft has so many patents that it is
> impossible to write a computer program nowadays without infringing on
> some of them. Didn't they patent "Hello world"? Or was it the smiley
> face? And they are now revealing their intention that no one shall
> write any computer program that they do not control. If they
> succeed, it will be bad for technology, bad for consumers, and bad for
> the US.
http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20070403114157109
"Richard Stallman: Well, every large program infringes lots of patents.
Microsoft has lots of patents. Most large programs, I would expect, infringe
some Microsoft patents. This just goes to show why software patents
shouldn't exist."
--
~~ Best regards
Roy S. Schestowitz | Linux: mint and self-contained 'out of the box'
http://Schestowitz.com | RHAT Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
3:05am up 16 days 11:27, 5 users, load average: 0.74, 1.26, 1.30
http://iuron.com - Open Source knowledge engine project
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