Re: patents and non-free
On Thu, 30 Aug 2001, Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS wrote:
> Nothing in the DFSG seems to refer to patents, so I don't see how a
> patent can make a program non-free in the DFSG sense. Also, the USA
> isn't the only country in the world to have software patents
> (there's also Japan), so non-us doesn't seem very useful for dealing
> with patents.
non-us is not anywhere outside us. It is precisely in Netherland.
> I believe it is unclear whether it may be a patent infringement to
> distribute a program together with a warning that use of the program
> might be an infringement. It might be all right to distribute source
> but not binaries, but nobody seems to know.
To be DFSG, a program must be free of use.
--
Jean-Christophe Dubacq
Reply to: