[Ecommerce] Re : NUCLEAR WAR OVER SOFTWARE PATENTS?

[Philippe Aigrain]

The Business week article is quite confused. It mixes aspect regarding the DRM
provisions of the GPLv3 draft and its patent provisions, and regarding these
if fails to mention that they are only optional clauses deemed compatible
with the GPL. In reality the patent retaliations clauses are already present
in IBM licenses and the Apache Software License 2.0, and the main point for
introducing them as an option in the GPL is to ensure compatibility with
these licenses.

The DRM provisions raise a more complex debate, which is not surprising. DRMs
themselves raise concerns on their possible impact  on software freedom and
information freedom at large (considering the legal prohibition of
circumvention provisions in DMCA and the European EUCD and various proposals
to make DRM compulsory). There are various views on how to deal with this
situation within the information and software commons players, and the GPLv3
revision process is a welcome opportunity for debating these views.

Philippe Aigrain

From: "Michelle Childs" <michelle.childs@cptech.org> wrote :
To: ecommerce@lists.essential.org
Subject: [Ecommerce] NUCLEAR WAR OVER SOFTWARE PATENTS?

Nuclear War over Software Patents?
'Richard Stallman's Free Software Foundation wants radical rule changes
for open source code. Others disagree. Can diplomacy save the day?'

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/feb2006/tc20060206_503666.htm