"Scott David Daniels" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > IBM has recently released 500 patents for use in opensource code. > > http://www.ibm.com/ibm/licensing/patents/pledgedpatents.pdf > > "...In order to foster innovation and avoid the possibility that a > party will take advantage of this pledge and then assert patents or > other intellectual property rights of its own against Open Source > Software, thereby limiting the freedom of IBM or any other Open > Source developer to create innovative software programs, the > commitment not to assert any of these 500 U.S. patents and all > counterparts of these patents issued in other countries is > irrevocable except that IBM reserves the right to terminate this > patent pledge and commitment only with regard to any party who files > a lawsuit asserting patents or other intellectual property rights > against Open Source Software."
The exception is, of course, aimed for now at SCO and their ridiculous lawsuit against Linux and IBM with respect to Linux. from another post > I believe our current policy is that the author warrants that the code > is his/her own work and not encumbered by any patent. Without a qualifier such as 'To the best of my knowledge', the latter is an impossible warrant both practically, for an individual author without $1000s to spend on a patent search, and legally. Legally, there is no answer until the statute of limitations runs out or until there is an after-the-fact final answer provided by the court system. Terry J. Reedy _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
