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On Mon, Sep 20, 2021 at 01:27:37PM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote: |
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> On Mon, Sep 20, 2021 at 12:46 PM Alec Warner <antarus@g.o> wrote: |
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> > |
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> > Could we add some text to the license concepts covering patents? It |
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> > seems to have been omitted? |
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> > Is my understanding of how we manage patented software correct? |
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> |
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> I think you have the gist of it. Is there actually anything in the |
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> repo these days which is patent-encumbered? I realize this is a |
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> little tangential, but I think this is probably why we don't have a |
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> well-thought policy: it just doesn't come up much. |
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Elliptic Curve cryptography is the most topical & impactful thing I'm |
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aware of. |
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|
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RedHat have for many years stripped parts of it out of their OpenSSL & |
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libgcrypt packages, and continue to do it with OpenSSL-3 [1] (I note |
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that somebody has dropped these patches from Gentoo's openssl as of v3 |
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and I intend to restore them). |
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|
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RedHat's legal team clearly know something there that they aren't |
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disclosing the details of publicly, because the patches said the patents |
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expire in 2020, but when I asked off-list if EC could be re-enabled |
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based on the expiry dates in the files, they claimed that patent issues |
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were still present, without giving any detail. |
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|
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Somebody else ALSO asked about the Brainpool EC curves specifically and |
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similarly got nowhere [2]. |
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|
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[1] https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/openssl/c/347681c6b246d9b6a08c73bb40e5eefaf8596d71?branch=rawhide |
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[2] https://www.spinics.net/linux/fedora/fedora-legal/msg03673.html |
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|
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I feel that generally software patents as an issue for FOSS became less |
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common because of patent grant programs: grants existed to encourage |
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broad adoption of newer ideas from patents. |
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|
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> Things that used to be patent-encumbered that were prevalent in FOSS |
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> in the past include: |
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> 1. The GIF file format. |
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> 2. FAT-based filesystems. |
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> 3. MPEG-related codecs (codecs might be a space where patents are |
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> still relevant). |
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> 4. RSA |
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I have some more fields for patents to add, where I believe active |
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patents DO still exist: |
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|
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5. Elliptic Curve cryptography |
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6. "Quantum" cryptography |
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7. 3D Printing |
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8. DRM |
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9. UAVs/Drones (also hits EAR/ITAR) |
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10. Rocketry (also hits EAR/ITAR) |
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|
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Other past patent stuff touching open source: |
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11. Model Trains (see JMRI vs Katzer) |
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|
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-- |
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Robin Hugh Johnson |
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Gentoo Linux: Dev, Infra Lead, Foundation Treasurer |
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E-Mail : robbat2@g.o |
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GnuPG FP : 11ACBA4F 4778E3F6 E4EDF38E B27B944E 34884E85 |
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GnuPG FP : 7D0B3CEB E9B85B1F 825BCECF EE05E6F6 A48F6136 |
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