Policy Statement 1)Debian will not knowingly distribute software encumbered by patents; Debian contributors should not package or distribute software they know to infringe a patent. 2)Debian will not accept a patent license that is inconsistent with the Debian Social Contract or Debian Free Software Guidelines. 3)Unless communications related to patents are subject to attorney-client privilege, community members may be forced to produce them in a lawsuit. Also, patent concerns expressed publicly may turn out to be unfounded but create a good deal of fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the meantime. Therefore, please refrain from posting patent concerns publicly or discussing patents outside of communication with legal counsel, where they are subject to attorney-client privilege. This is very confusing. I have some ideas in my head that I am thinking about patenting, but I only want to torture the proprietary software people with it. I would certainly license all free software and free software users. But according to 1) that would not do any good, because 1) read literally means that if software is patented at all and software infringes on a claim, debian will have nothing to do with it. But 2) read conversely, implies that there could be a patent license that debian will accept. After all, if debian accepted absolutely no patent licenses, the clause about inconsistant with the DSC or DFSG would be unnecessary, and 2) would read: "Debian will accept no patent licenses." So what would a patent license consistant with DSC and DFSG look like? And what good would it do? 1) read literally means that if software infringes on the claims of a patent debian would have nothing to do with it, consistant license be damned. It is all very confusing. And 3 means I can't even ask anyone about this confusion. Can anybody clarify? 3) says not. -- Paul Elliott 1(512)837-1096 pelliott@BlackPatchPanel.com PMB 181, 11900 Metric Blvd Suite J http://www.free.blackpatchpanel.com/pme/ Austin TX 78758-3117 --- "Encryption works. Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on. Unfortunately, endpoint security is so terrifically weak that NSA can frequently find ways around it." Edward Snowden
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