At 11:36 AM 3/31/2009, Michael Reichenbach wrote: > > In regards to "having a legal department", that's why the OSF has one > > for Open Source projects... > >What do you mean with OSF? Open Software Foundation?
Correct. >However, I just care about laws in my own country (and the national ones). > >As I live in Germany I see no reason to ensure to follow all US laws (no >racism or whatever here, just the same way I do not ensure it for any >other country where I do not life). > >It seams to me that following additionally US laws (whenever not living >their anyway) is demanding here as a must. There is no logical >derivation that it's more important to follow own laws + national laws + >additionally US laws. Why on earth additionally the US laws? China has >much more habitants and no one here seams interested whenever we break >some of their laws. > >Because USA is English? No good argument because UK is also English and >lots of other countrys also. > >There are also loads of theocratical states and I am sure we are >violating some of their laws because we don't praise their religion. > >With all those (foreign) patents and laws I feel kinda swamped. With that attitude and mindset, you should seriously refrain from participating in the FreeDOS project, as that "could" implicate that you are adding code to the FreeDOS project that is in violation of foreign laws, not only those in the USA, but in Europe as well. And this would mean that the code you provide could get unexpecting users in those regions of the world in trouble, not to mention that this could lead to a "cease and desist" order against the project as a whole, specially when seeing requests like "LFN in the kernel"... Even though the possibility of such consequences is not very high, it still exists, and people should be so responsible to take those things into account... And the fact that patents have been granted in the USA doesn't mean that there isn't an equivalent patent, probably issued at a late date, is not granted in other regions as well. I am not certain about those Microsoft patent in question, but I know from personal experience with the LZW patent that effected the use of GIF, expired in the USA in 2003, but was valid in Europe and Japan 'til 2004. And the recent "shift" in the view on software patents in Europe (which doesn't void them there per se!) doesn't effect any patent granted more than 5-6 years ago, which as someone else pointed out, would be valid for 20 years... Ralf ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
