Does the iPod manual that documents how to operate the volume give the user rights to the iPod interface patent? Unfortunately -- no, thus all the goofy knock-offs.
EVERY hardware vendor has patents related to its interface and implementation. EVERY hardware vendor that submits open source documents, demonstrates, and utilizes that hardware interface. To presume that the vendor is summarily dismissing its rights to its related patents is -- well -- wrong. Let's suppose that I'm wrong. If there *really* is a legal risk, then *every* hardware vendor shares that risk and a clause should be added to the generic GPL template. Otherwise, it does nothing but confuse and expand the legal encumbrance users assume when they download -- and that is very very bad. Linux absolutely needs hardware vendors and therefore must be sensitive to protecting their legal rights, but the Linux community must also be diligent in keeping the open source legal landscape as simple and uniform as possible -- or the value of open source dies one clause at a time. Thu, 2005-12-29 at 18:56 -0800, Johann George wrote: > > The plain reading of pathscale's license grants an unencumbered license > > *to the code*. It merely refrains from waving any related hardware rights. > > That is exactly PathScale's intentions. > > > The code is not being restricted to work only with the patented hardware, > > correct? > > Absolutely. PathScale is not trying to restrict use of the code in any way. > > Johann > _______________________________________________ > openib-general mailing list > [email protected] > http://openib.org/mailman/listinfo/openib-general > > To unsubscribe, please visit http://openib.org/mailman/listinfo/openib-general _______________________________________________ openib-general mailing list [email protected] http://openib.org/mailman/listinfo/openib-general To unsubscribe, please visit http://openib.org/mailman/listinfo/openib-general
