Adrian Bunk wrote:
Debian doesn't seem to care much about the possible legal problems of patents.The possible legal problem of software patents is, up to the present time, AFAICT, not producing effects yet in Europe, and is a non-problem in jurisdictions like mine (down here neither business methods nor software are patentable).
OTOH, the firmware issues *is* a legal real problem (copyright infringement is even a criminal offense in a lot of juristictions -- down here, 6 months to 2 years of soft jail + fine for non-commercial and 2 to 4 years of hard-jail + fine for commercial intents).The firmware issues are an urgent real problem?
Debian should define how much legal risk they are willing to impose on their mirrors and distributors and should act accordingly in all areas.You are right, but as I told you, the mirrors are really worse when there is a chance of copyrights infringement than of patents infringement -- even on those jurisdictions that *have* software patents, things are more difficult to prosecute in the patent field.
But ignoring some areas while being more religious than RMS in other areas is simply silly.
Conceded. You are right on this. HTH, Massa