Patent infringement suit filed against Red Hat (No Lobbyists As Such)

Posted Jul 3, 2006 22:02 UTC (Mon) by pyellman (guest, #4997) [Link]

If allegations are unverifiable for the simple reason that they are false, I can assure you, as a native English speaker, that the only appropriate phrase to use would be "they are false". My opinion is that Mr. Webbink's use of the term "unverifiable" demonstrates his confidence that the only person(s) in a position to "verify" these allegations are extremely unlikely to do so. I suspect that as with politicians in our country, EU politicians are exceedingly unlikely to volunteer details on their conversations with lobbyists, and can rarely even be compelled to do so.

In any case this story is mildly interesting but barely ranks as news. Anyone who's having trouble believing that RedHat (NASDAQ RHAT), a large, publicly traded US software corporation, might actually not favor the complete or even near complete elimination of software patentability in one of its major markets, really has his head in the sand. And anyone who might be counting on RedHat as a reliable ally in rolling back software patents in the US has some major disappointments coming. What baffles me is how the mere mention of Florian Mueller's name seems capable of reducing otherwise sensible, intelligent people to enraged incoherence. What if Florian Mueller said the world was round? Would a debate errupt? Would we see converts to the flat earth society?

I'm not looking to be Mr. Mueller's defender, but if that goes hand in hand with open minded common sense, so be it. What I find more disturbing is the possibility that if RedHat had not withdrawn its financial support for Mr. Mueller's organization, he would never have brought these charges to light.

Peter Yellman