JED sighed and wrote::
Quote
SiegfriedN wrote:
>Remember:
>It is better for all of us to know as little as possible about
>software patents.. This way you can not be sued, afaik..
Igorance of the law is not defense of the law.
So what you are implying is that instead of reactively
waiting for lawsuits, one must actively search high and
low for all software patents and determine whether
or not each part of one's code violate any known
software patent? (Ok, possibly an fallacious point.)
What about the Patent Pendings?
Since most commercial in-house built software systems
are kept, well, in-house (ie. under lock and key
within the company), no one else can know whether
or not any part of the code contains patent violations.
The part that kind of puzzles me is that say in
such a company, a junior developer somehow finds out
part of the company code violates a patent.
As you said, feigning ignorance is not
a defense of the law, so ignoring the said
violation is not an option. Blow the whistle
on the company? Come to terms with the
rest of the development team and come up
with a possible work-around? Sounds logical,
but this will necessarily be 'wasting' the
team's time doing something over again. And
you know what happens when you do something
over again and the notorious introduction of
more bugs.
Here's where I'm confused and might just indicate
how useless a software patent is unless the
violating software is a publicly known/open-sourced
project. Perhaps you can clarify whether I've
analysed this properly.
From the software patent holder, it cannot
be feasible or even possible to make sure his/her
patent isn't being used without your express
permission. I think I can say it is impossible
for such a patent holder to attempt at checking
*every* system for patent infraction. Open source
is easier, but what about the countless of in-house
systems in private companies? He has no knowledge
or will *never* have access to any of the code.
From a software developer's point of view, it's not
feasible/possible to search one's code and compare
it to the patented routines. There's really
not enough time in the day to do both software
developing and checking patents, or as someone
on this thread mentioned, 'looking behind
one's shoulder.'(paraphrased..)
Thankfully, Borland isn't going after Wine, but I do
agree that they should consider consulting Borland.
But I guess them finding work-arounds do at least give
credence to their motto of having a fully free-software
without any legal 'entanglements'. :)
Edmund