On 12/17/2010 12:19 PM, Reinier Zwitserloot wrote:
Ah, I see. Groklaw is a bunch of different authors and are known for
occasional bouts of hyperbole. Nevertheless, an interesting twist, to
be sure.
My guess is that this case is so crazy, even groklaw can't make much
sense of the ulterior agendas of all involved parties.
There's a thing that I hoped it would come out of this mess, but I'm
pessimistic. This story demonstrated, in case we weren't already
convinced of it, that we mere mortals can't just guess the patent mess.
Tons of contradictory things have been said about the GPLv2 and patents,
and clearly even lawyers don't get to a shared opinion. Initially I
hoped that the turn out of the lawsuit would shed some light, creating a
sound precedence. Now I fear that one day we'll just read "Oracle and
Google are happy to announce that...", then *some* details of the deal,
but we won't be able to guess whether each single weapon was fatal or not.
Frankly, it's this climate of uncertainty, rather than the direct threat
of patents, that has high chances of killing, or more probably give
severe wounds, to the open source model (or at least, parts of it). In
my naive engineer mind, I was thinking whether some entities in our
world, who have the means for doing that, couldn't try to set up a sort
of "driven lawsuit" to get to the final consequences. E.g. you and me
grab some patents (something really small and with a low price, that we
can afford) involved in some way with a FLOSS license and then we sue
each other claiming $1 of damage. Of course, we don't want to hurt each
other, but just probe how lethal the patents we own are and how can
really affect our FLOSS licenses. Then bring the lawsuit until a judge
deliberates and creates a precedent. Of course, the entities doing this
would need to spend a lot of money, mainly for the lawyers. I wonder
whether some open source foundation couldn't do that. Surely, there's
something practical that prevents this from happening or getting to a
meaningful end.
--
Fabrizio Giudici - Java Architect, Project Manager
Tidalwave s.a.s. - "We make Java work. Everywhere."
java.net/blog/fabriziogiudici - www.tidalwave.it/people
[email protected] h one
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