Re: RTLinux patent
On Mon, Oct 16, 2000 at 08:31:59AM -0500, owinebar@free-expression.org wrote:
> This is not compatible with the GPL (or the DSFG, I believe). The
> The GPL is about reading, writing, modifying, and distributing software.
> It doesn't restrict platform compatibility (or even require functionality
> or compilability, for that matter). And it expressly forbids patents that
> restrict the modification rights it grants. (Otherwise, you might plead
> that, technically, the GPL didn't cover use and so is disjoint from any
> restraints on running the program, which is what patents cover (i.e. the
> device the patents cover isn't actually in existence until the software
> runs)).
Fortunately not. Read sections 7 and 8 of the GPL. If a patent prevents
you from distributing a GPL'd program, you may not do so. The DFSG is
concerned with Copyright, and so does not apply here as long as the DFSG
is satisfied.
> Anyway, the GPL is freer than the patent license, so forbids
> redistribution (at least in the country in which the patent holds).
Not really. The patent would have to place restrictions on distribution
of rtlinux for it to matter. It doesn't.
--
Joseph Carter <knghtbrd@debian.org> GnuPG key 1024D/DCF9DAB3
Debian GNU/Linux (http://www.debian.org/) 20F6 2261 F185 7A3E 79FC
The QuakeForge Project (http://quakeforge.net/) 44F9 8FF7 D7A3 DCF9 DAB3
<WildTHing> ok guys .. so whens the next commit :PP
<taniwha> when they come to get me
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