Hello all,
with similiar concerns, like mentioned below by Jan-Peter, I talked some
months ago with Geog Greve from FSF europe. He expressed his support in
the question of a lawsuit based on software patents. This would turn a
patent claim into a highly political action. Further I am not shure, what
this implies in curt. So I am cc'ing him here.
As long as lcms deals with the ICC spec it is entyrely an software issue.
Of course as seen with the SCO versus ibm lawsuit, a company loosing
ground may try to get money by curt. But I am in doubt EFI is able
to win such a lawsuit, at least not in europe.
regards
Kai-Uwe Behrmann
+ development for color management
+ imaging / panoramas
+ email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
+ http://www.behrmann.name
Am 19.10.05, 10:03 +0200 schrieb Jan-Peter Homann:
> Hello list, hello Bob and Marti
> ---
> I´m just observing the colormanagement market. Actually littleCMS has grown up
> to a status, that is comparable or even better than e.g.
> - Microsoft ICM
> - AppleCMM
> - AdobeCMM
> - KodakCMM
> - EFICMM
> Now, commercial companies are using it for free, without giving back something
> to Marti or the open-source community.
> People, which are familiar with colormanagement-business, should remember,
> that 10 years ago, EFI was more or less suiting every company, which had in
> their software a functionality to separate RGB to CMYK, because they are
> violationg the "Schreiber-Patent" which EFI is the owner of.
> Even if we all don´t like such fields of politics and patent wars,
> we are now on very thin ice, because Marti is doing an incredible good job
> with littleCMS.
>
> The future of littleCMS is clearly in the hand of Marti, because it is his
> project, and he wrote more or less 100% of the code. But legal issues can also
> be important to projects which are using littleCMS.
>
> One example from the past:
> In the middle of the 90ties the german software-company BEST had the idea to
> write CMYK-drivers for inkjet-printers and putting it together with the
> commercial version of GhostScript and a CMM in a solution for digital proofing
> in the graphic arts market.
> At the beginning, the big players in the proofing market laughed about this
> small company:
>
> "It will never be possible to use cheap inkjet printers for high-end
> proofing".
>
> 5 years later, BEST was selling worldwide the highest quantity of digital
> proofing solutions.
> One big issue at BEST was the question, which CMM they should licence, that
> they are shure, that the owner of the CMM has strong enough patents
> not to be suited by EFI or others.
>
> So legal issues concerning littleCMM are also legal issues for projects, which
> make use of littleCMS.
>
> Somekind of foundation could "may be" a solution which is clearing such legal
> issues, so that Marti can do the things he likes:
>
> "coding"
>
> The decision what to do with littleCMS is mainly Martis decision.
> But on this list, we can share our views of the colormanagement market and
> open source vs. color-patent issues.
>
> Greetings
> :-) Jan-Peter
>
>
>
> Bob Friesenhahn wrote:
> > On Tue, 18 Oct 2005, Jan-Peter Homann wrote:
>
> > > Even for commercial companies, which wish to sponsor littleCMS or
> > > Marti, it is really hard to transfer money, because, there is no
> > > infrastructure for it.
> > >
> > > From my view, littleCMS is shortly before becoming the "apache" of
> > > cross-plattform ICC-based colormanagement.
> >
> >
> > I hope not! The projects you mentioned are ponderous political
> > nightmares designed to support large infrastructures. From what I see,
> > Little CMS is still Marti's project and it should stay that way. It
> > should operate as he sees fit.
> >
> > There is *plenty* of infrastructure available to send money to Marti. An
> > umbrella organization (which takes ownership away from the software's
> > original author in exchange for vauge legal protections) is not required.
> > The fact of the matter is that Marti has not requested contributions from
> > Little CMS users. Requesting contributions could be as simple as setting
> > up payment via Paypal and adding a "Contribute to Little CMS" link on the
> > web site, or using the existing contribution mechanism offered via
> > SourceForge.
> >
> > Marti is a master of his craft and can pull in lots of income on a
> > consulting basis if he chooses to. Perhaps he does so already. Marti's
> > private finances are not our concern.
>
>
>
> --
> --
>
> homann colormanagement ------ fon/fax +49 30 611 075 18
> Jan-Peter Homann ------------- mobile +49 171 54 70 358
> Kastanienallee 71 ------- http://www.colormanagement.de
> 10435 Berlin --------- mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
