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To: Larry McVoy <lm@work.bitmover.com>
Cc: Nicolas Pitre <nico@cam.org>, lkml <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: openbkweb-0.0
References: <20030214235724.GA24139@work.bitmover.com>
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From: kilobug@freesurf.fr (=?iso-8859-1?q?Ga=EBl?= Le Mignot)
Organization: HurdFr - http://hurdfr.org
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Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 15:42:21 +0100
In-Reply-To: <20030215181211.GA12315@work.bitmover.com> (Larry McVoy's
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 > One answer, maybe the only viable answer, is to use patents to protect
 > our technology.  To date we've been very sparing in where we have done
 > that, there are substantial chunks of BK without patent protection.  Some
 > leaders in the kernel group have privately told me to not ship BK without
 > patent protection.  That slows down how fast you get a better BK, it's not
 > something we can just wave our hands and make be so, it's lots of time and
 > money.  A single patent costs more than enough bandwidth to keep all of 
 > you happy for a year.  Whatever.  If you guys can't come to some sort
 > of consensus, then patents are the route we'll choose, even German law
 > respects patents.

European law,  for now, doesn't  allow software patents. For  the same
reason  that we  have a  right of  fair use,  and a  right  of reverse
engineering. We value freedom more than money. Maybe this will change,
but it'ld be the worse thing  that could happen to whole Free Software
movement - and even to the Open Source movement, and to most companies
that  do non-free  software too.  You  should speak  to lawyer  before
saying such false statements.

By threating to use patents to prevent us for ever using the same idea
as you do (even if they grew up in our own minds), you've just added a
last proof to the fact that you don't care at all about Free Software,
and even  Open Source  or the  Linux kernel, but  just care  about the
money you can earn.

This is your right, but don't  ask us to follow your rules then. Since
you are _not_ on our side.

-- 
Gael Le Mignot "Kilobug" - kilobug@nerim.net - http://kilobug.free.fr
GSM         : 06.71.47.18.22 (in France)   ICQ UIN   : 7299959
Fingerprint : 1F2C 9804 7505 79DF 95E6 7323 B66B F67B 7103 C5DA

Member of HurdFr: http://hurdfr.org - The GNU Hurd: http://hurd.gnu.org
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