Questions that need answering
Posted Dec 6, 2006 21:18 UTC (Wed) by
nix (subscriber, #2304)
In reply to:
Questions that need answering by NigelK
Parent article:
Of hypocrisy and the FSF (Libervis)
I don't see why anyone has `explaining' to do if it should turn out that
some or all free software is covered by patents. It is widely known that
*all* nontrivial software is covered by a myriad of overlapping patents,
and that it's essentially impossible to license them all (many demand
royalties: many demand *percentage of profits* royalties, which mean that
you can't license more than a few of them). Most of these patents are of
course covering extremely trivial stuff, or trivial combinations of
nontrivial stuff, but *nobody* has the money to pay to get them all
invalidated.
As for the FSF: yes, their current and previous staff *may* all be engaged
in a coordinated campaign of lies, shared with those companies that have
admitted to receiving such letters (or whose staff have admitted it).
Equally, the Moon landings may be a hoax, and jet aircraft may actually be
winched across the (solid) roof of the sky on cable-car stanchions. These
are all pretty much equally insane conspiracy theories to hold to, and
require comparable degrees of misreading of people's characters. (I mean,
RMS, lie about the FSF? It is to laugh.)
As for your anti-PJ stuff, I can't be bothered to engage in debate with
someone with a personal grudge.
(
Log in to post comments)
