[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: LZW patented file left in .orig.tar source package?




Hello,

On Sat, Oct 26, 2002 at 08:15:20PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 26, 2002 at 06:34:14PM +0100, Sander Vesik wrote:
> > Speaking as the "upstream" - it would also be definately much better if
> > everyone used just the same one tarball and there wasn't a "normal source
> > tarball" and "source tarball sans 'K' files".
> 
> Speaking as a free software developer and a member of the Debian Projct,
> it would definitely be much better if you could guarantee that people
> distributing your source tarball wouldn't be sued for patent
> infringement by Unisys for doing so.

I have a problem grabbing the meaning of your words. SUN offers
pieces of code, namely the OO binaries, and the user of this code
risks a patent suit for using it? That's hard to understand, and
should probably relocate OO immediately into the bit bucket
directory until this problem is solved.

Apart from that, I don't know how anyone can make a "guarantee"
since what may be legal today may as well be illegal tomorrow.
It is very desirable to ship code that has no obvious way of
backfiring on the developer/user/... nonetheless :-|


Best,
--Toni++

Attachment: pgpn6y0KrX_pK.pgp
Description: PGP signature


Reply to: