On May 12, 2004, at 2:55 PM, Peter Reitsma wrote:
Hi,
I think that this law, if it is accepted, will proof to be totably unhandable for any justice system.
The proceedings of the SCO vs. IMB case have proven how complex these cases can become and how much in debth
knowledge and research efforts are required by the law enforcers. The sheer amount of opportunities to sue any party over breaches of any software patent law will be overwhelming and turn out to be impossible to persecute on a big scale.
I do not think any clever lawmaker should want to burden the already overloaded justice systems anymore with this lawmaking. In case they will, they will be ending up withdrawing it eventually or worse: 'gedogen'.
This is of course just another argument against this law but also a reason to downplay the somehwat apocalyptic fears that occasionally arise around this topic.
Anyway, lets hope for, and actively pursue a sound decision by the european decision makers.
Rgrds> Peter
We all know they won't do alot against many (just like with music for example) but do we who work on these opensource projects need a axe over our heads, just knowing that (like sco) we can be sued by all these companies making silly claims ?. Do i as a programmer want to take that risk ? can i afford it ?
Most programmers who work in opensource project do that partly to share and better our world what a nice signal this will send for future reference, We are 'allowed' by the powers that be to create technical freespeech (the right to speak in the modern age) as long as some weird ass company doesn't sue us over what we all agree are 99.99% silly claims.
At what point do we get upset ?
Daniel.
