On Fri, Aug 13, 2010 at 5:09 PM, David Gerard <[email protected]> wrote: > I wasn't aware of "if we can probably get away with it" in the WMF > guidelines regarding free software.
If software is non-free just because someone files patent suits against those who use it, then Linux is non-free also. Microsoft has claimed for years to have patents that make it illegal to redistribute Linux without its permission, and it has sued one company (TomTom) on those grounds. Likewise, Apple recently sued HTC on a theory that boils down to the claim that probably all web browsers infringe its patents, IIRC. How is this different from Oracle suing Google? Almost all software might theoretically be covered by someone's patents, but practically speaking, that doesn't make it non-free. It's still free as long as modified versions can be widely disseminated in practice, and that's still the case for Java up until Oracle starts collecting royalties as a matter of course. _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
