Don Armstrong <[email protected]> writes: > On Tue, 10 Feb 2026, Simon Josefsson wrote: >> Is that in effect? Under what authority? It looks like a random >> webpage on debian.org without clear authorship or status. > > It's documenting the legal advice on patents that Debian obtained. (If I > remember correctly in consultation with the SFLC.[1,2]) > > Its purpose is to limit the risk to Debian as a whole from patents and > provide appropriate legal avenues with attorney-client privilege to > discuss specific issues about specific patents. > >> That Debian patent policy reads out of touch with todays reality IMHO. > > It's a baseline policy.
Is anyone following the policy? https://www.debian.org/legal/patent Is a violation against the policy RC-worthy? Without being linked by the Debian Policy (or some other relevant document), it seems the document is not actually operative. If we would start to look, I believe there are tons of violations in Debian here, to the point where one would quickly question if enforcing this policy is a realistic goal. Patent encumbered FOSS is widely deployed these days. While I like the policy (and see now particular reason to work on a change), I suspect that its consequences (e.g., removing ML-KEM from OpenSSL) is not something most Debian developers would sympathise with. Or we don't have general agreement how to interpret the policy. /Simon > There are probably some areas that we can improve the stance of the > project and FOSS in general in the patent area, but it's challenging > without a portfolio of patents and cash to spend on lawyers. [And even > that would be risky, as that may increase our strategic exposure to > patent related lawsuits.] > > If that's an area that you're interested in, worth talking to our > friends in the SFLC and other free software distributions to figure out > a strategy. > > 1: https://www.debian.org/reports/patent-faq > 2: https://softwarefreedom.org/news/2011/aug/18/debian-patent-faq/ >
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