VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds

Posted Jun 30, 2009 17:32 UTC (Tue) by clugstj (subscriber, #4020)
Parent article: VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds

I was hoping that someone would respond to my comment's content, but let me try again.

My point is that this kind of patch (we can't tell you why we wrote it, just trust us), should be rejected on those grounds alone. Secrecy is deadly to the openness upon which Free/Open Source Software is based.

I also think the lawyers are covering their own backsides and laying a minefield for everyone else with wording that draws attention to the possible patent issues that they added in the configuration flag that enables the current behaviour (read/write both short and long filenames).

VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds

Posted Jul 1, 2009 5:27 UTC (Wed) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link]

They can tell you why they wrote it. They wrote a whole FAQ. They're just asking that if you disagree with their (public) reasoning, you attempt to hash things out in private first, because in this case, paradoxically, a public discussion of a *potential* flaw could, itself, become an *actual* flaw.

VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds

Posted Jul 2, 2009 4:39 UTC (Thu) by faramir (subscriber, #2327) [Link]

It seems to me that this is a similar situation to people signing NDAs with hardware manufacturers and then writing free software drivers. There are some things they aren't telling you and will refuse to discuss with you.

Why people are upset about a similar situation involving patents, I just don't understand.