Gianugo Rabellino wrote:
Just so it is clear: I am comfortable with POI proceeding if everybody understands that in the event that patent threats surface that I will be advocating that the affected code be remedied and/or jettisoned. I am also comfortable with assisting Andy with his efforts to reduce the possibility that this ever occurs.+1, as in not only I agree but I will be the first one to act in that case,but is this something Andy would be comfortable with?I made two statements there. I am comfortable with both. I take it that you are comfortable with the first and have no objection to the second.That's correct.
I'm not comfortable with the present risk profile of that happening. I am working to reduce it and will do so in collaboration with others. Provided we work together to do so then I have a positive recourse to my concern. If we do not then I have a civil disobedience recourse to do so...a less dramatic -- and less fatal -- electronic version of Thich Quang Duc's protest (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thich_Quang_Duc). At the moment the former seems a more productive...and appealing course.
While I, too, can't speak FOR Microsoft, I am quite willing to speak WITH Microsoft. Particularly if the request was modestly scoped, and if doing so would sort the issue right from the start.Same here, with a caveat (ASF hat on): I wouldn't like the ASF to make a special case for Microsoft, be it red carpets or ordeals. Microsoft isn't the only one with patents funding Open Source stuff: unless we limit our requests to clarification of existing stuff such as the OSP, whatever we come up with should be general enough to become a standard procedure.
You mean that Apache would start doing its homework up front and not get surprised on the business end of say TCK licenses with OSD-killing restrictions and other nastiness and write an endless number of mostly ineffective open letters as its only resort at the end? Wow...that would be really cool!!!!
++;I do not have any particular ax to grind with Microsoft that I don't have with say Sun or IBM in some cases. I advocate making them provide patent grants for any work they fund through third parties. However I'm only volunteering to do this for POI. I do not accept creating a procedure and implementing it across Apache as a pre-condition for this work (though I fully support your implementing this across Apache and setting clear guidelines). In the event that third parties who have or purport to have patents contribute to POI directly or via third parties without patent grants, I will most certainly raise the exact same issue.
-andy
Ciao,
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