Adam Borowski wrote: > On Sat, Aug 19, 2006 at 10:41:29PM +0200, Marco d'Itri wrote: >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >> >> Still, the DFSG does not addrss patents. This means that there is no >> >> point in arguing that patent restrictions violate thit. >> >The DFSG doesn't talk about any particular branch of law. It talks >> >about "the rights attached to the program" and other such phrases. To >> >the extent that those rights are granted or restricted by holders of >> >patents, the DFSG addresses patents. >> Still, Debian has a long standing policy of doing the opposite. > > Yes, because DFSG can apply only to relations between you and those > involved in the given piece of software. Thus, if the creator of the > program in question grants us only limited rights, this would be a > DFSG issue regardless if it's a matter of copyright, patents, "moral > rights" or the Totem Law of the kingdom of Kbanga. > > On the other hand, it is infeasible to care about _third parties_.
I like this view. Good essay. > If I write a piece of software and give it to you, we need to care > about the laws of Poland and Italy; there is no problem if some > random punk in the US has a patent -- and in fact, for any given > piece of software a number of such punks exist. One of recent > patents covers telnet, ssh and the like -- should we pull them from > Debian? The only reason to comply with patent terrorism is when the > punk is especially litigious. > > The whole concept of patent goes completely against the ideas of > capitalism and free market. Free market relies on _scalable_ laws > and patents don't scale. They work differently for small and big > countries, fail when you deal with entities not within the same > patent system, break unless you have perfect instantenous > communication within the system, and so on. They are > government-granted monopolies and thus they fail whenever you look at > something smaller or bigger than a country. > > To the contrary, DFSG are infinitely scalable. They work as well for > a castaway on a desert island, a dissident or a world-wide > corporation. Copyrights, with all their downsides, are scalable as > well so they can be handled by DFSG well. Patents can't. > > > So, I would say that there is no way for a third party to influence > the freeness of a given piece of software. Otherwise, Debian would > have to exclude anything that's illegal in North Korea, China or the > self-described "Land of the Free". > > -- Nathanael Nerode <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Bush admitted to violating FISA and said he was proud of it. So why isn't he in prison yet?... -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]