Software Patents are a complicated legal issue which requires the help of expert lawyers.
Most developers are not lawyers. Most developers would be happier if they were able to implement the best solution available and have someone else help to figure if there might be any potential patent implications. I believe developers are currently avoiding implementing certain ideas for fear of accidentally treading on some kind of software patent land mine and this may be holding Gnome back. >From what I have read attempting to indentify patents and then failing to adequetly avoid and work around could be legally even worse than not realising at all your work was at risk of software patents. Gnome has worldwide reach, software patents thankfully do not yet and hopefully never will. Unfortunately I believe concerns over software patents, particularly American software patents has led developers to avoid simply avoid certain areas or implementing certain features. I believe software patents are dragging Gnome to the lowest common denominator. In an effort to let developers do what they do best and get on with developing software [2] so I would like to propose a standard build flag which could be used to fence off code that could be effected by software patents. Freetype is a project which has done this successfully[3] in the past. http://freetype.sourceforge.net/patents.html Although no legal action has ever been brought against Freetype they have identified the contentious area of code and seperated it out. I am asking the foundation to come up with a standard build flag that could be used consisetently across Gnome and hopefully even other Free Software and other software groups. This flag would be used to conditionally exclude portions of code should they ever be called into question but allow countries unaffected by software patents to continue to develop without being forced to the lowest common denominator because they cannot afford the time or other resources to deal with such legal matters. I hope you can see the core of what I am trying to get at here and I trust people far more expert on the legal and techinical implications will figure out how best to implement my humble suggestion. This should in no way be seen as an excuse not to challenge the very existense of software patents. This should be seen as a way to allow Gnome Worldwide to be the best it can be and not be held back by legal questions developers cannot even hope to be able to solve on their own. I hope I have explained adequately what I hope Gnome can achieve and I hope you will carefully consider this matter at the next Foundation meeting. Please take your time when composing your responses and keep in mind I am only suggesting the Foundation consider this issue and find some way to enable Gnome Developers to achieve the very best they can in a way most people will be happy with and not live under the constant fear of litigation. There is absolutely no need to tear to shres my specific suggestion of a standard build flag if it is not a workable solution but the main point is how can Gnome best go forward when faced with Software Patents? Sincerely Alan Horkan [1] There has been quite a lot of vague talk of Apple holding a patent on "Spring mounted folders" and it is not entirely clear what exactly should be avoided but that is incidental to the larger question I am asking. This is but one example I happend to see recently and which prompted me to bring this to the attention of the Foundation. I am sure other projects have more and better examples. [2] I understand developers will still need to take a political interest in software patents. If you feel the need to point this out you are missing my point. [3] If you can call having to go to all that trouble in the first place a success, but if you feel the need to point this out to me you are again missing my point. _______________________________________________ foundation-list mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-list
