Re: New idea for finessing patent issues (was: lame (again!))

[Barak Pearlmutter <bap@cs.unm.edu>]

I think chose my terminology poorly.  When I wrote "click through
license" I was using the word "license" sarcastically.  Hence the
scare quotes.

> From: Steve Greenland <stevegr@debian.org> 
> ... The fact that proprietary software vendors engage in those acts
> is not an argument in favor of Debian doing the same. (Nor is it an
> argument against doing it, either.)

Yes, that is quite true.  But it wasn't my point.

The fact that vendors of proprietary software use these mechanisms is
an argument that, if Debian used click-through notices, Debian could
trust them to have some legal weight.

The idea itself actually click-though notification.  The "click
through" was meant to imply that we could count on this being a valid
information distribution mechanism just as much as many software
vendors count on their click though licenses.  Ie, we could pretty
bloody well count on them being read and understood, in the same legal
fiction sense that vendors count on click through licenses being read
and understood.

Let me note that we actually have many click-through notifications
already.  Some are so aggressive that a package won't configure
without the system administrator acknowledging the notification.  Some
email the notification to the administer if there is suspicion the
notice hasn't really been read.

I'm not thrilled about the idea of notifying users of potentially
relevant patents.  I wish the issue were moot, and that we lived in a
world without software patents.  I do what I can to make that true in
this world.

But the alternative - namely the status quo - is I think worse.

 STATUS QUO: do not distribute package
 ALTERNATIVE: distribute normally, but mention relevant patents

Which of these is

 - less disruptive of development activities?
 - less sensitive to changes in the software patent situation?
 - more expressive of our disapproval of software patents?
 - more encouraging of development of free software whose use might
    violate some stupid patent in some stupid country?
 - more convenient for users in software-patent-honoring countries?
 - more convenient for users in countries without software patents?

I would contend that the ALTERNATIVE seems favorable by these
criteria.  On the second-to-last it is a wash, on all the others it is
winner.