LWN.net Logo

CA makes a patent pledge

CA makes a patent pledge

Posted Sep 7, 2005 18:49 UTC (Wed) by MathFox (guest, #6104)
In reply to: CA makes a patent pledge by cpm
Parent article: CA makes a patent pledge

In simple words, CA says that it won't proscecute people that use, make and distribute software with OSI-approved licenses, for infringement of any of the 14 patents in their list. That is, unless you're attacking OSS with patents.

Thanks CA!

P.S. Makers of commercial software still are expected to buy a license.


(Log in to post comments)

CA makes a patent pledge

Posted Sep 8, 2005 1:08 UTC (Thu) by krishna (guest, #24080) [Link]

P.S. Makers of commercial software still are expected to buy a license.

RMS distinguishes commercial and proprietary, and I try to preserve this distinction when I discuss OSS/FS -- mostly because it helps clarify free (redistributable source) / non-free(proprietary) and free (beer) / non-free (commercially directed and hopefully viable).

CA makes a patent pledge

Posted Sep 8, 2005 7:15 UTC (Thu) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]

I just don't like his definition of "proprietary".

"proprietary" is the opposite of "public domain", ie someone(s) own it. In other words, gcc is proprietary - the FSF owns it. Linux is proprietary - Linus amongst many others own it. Etc etc.

It's probably all down to MS (as usual) and their advertising campaign of "Unix is proprietary, Windows is open". They've changed the meaning. We now use "proprietary" like journalists use "hacker" - in a warped sense that no longer fits its etymology.

Cheers,
Wol

CA makes a patent pledge

Posted Sep 8, 2005 8:49 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Er, an arbitrarily high number of the words in the English language no longer `fit their etymology', depending on how far back you're willing to trace the etymologies. If you go back to PIE I'd expect the percentage to approach 100%.

Language changes. Live with it.

CA makes a patent pledge

Posted Sep 8, 2005 8:57 UTC (Thu) by job (subscriber, #670) [Link]

Say "non-free", then. Which is what Debian uses, and sometimes FSF too.

Copyright © 2012, Eklektix, Inc.
Comments and public postings are copyrighted by their creators.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds