Re: exFAT fuse driver and the patent situation
On Mon, Jan 02, 2012 at 01:18:23PM +0100, Sven Hoexter wrote:
> In the end I'm not concerned about myself or the Debian project
> but our users building commercial products on top of Debian.
> Seems to be a very thin line between supporting our users and
> creating a complicated trap for others. :(
Right, but that's not our fault. It's the (software) patent system that
is brain dead and we can do very little about it. Every non trivial
piece of software might --- and eventually will, unless this madness
stops --- be considered patent encumbered by some patent-friendly court.
Ultimately, whether a user will be sued or not for patents has very
little to do with the actual (alleged) patents, and a lot to do with the
respective strategic positions of the user and its competitors. Giving
guarantees to users of no patent encumbrance is a red herring and Debian
should not be in that business.
Cheers.
--
Stefano Zacchiroli zack@{upsilon.cc,pps.jussieu.fr,debian.org} . o .
Maître de conférences ...... http://upsilon.cc/zack ...... . . o
Debian Project Leader ....... @zack on identi.ca ....... o o o
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