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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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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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The situation comes up less often since everything is copyrighted by |
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default, but software patents in FOSS are relatively rare. (Partially |
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because they're such a minefield that it discourages even creating |
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FOSS in the first place. Partially because they're such a minefield |
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that people tend to favor non-encumbered algorithms for things that |
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are commonplace now.) |
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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'm sure there are others I'm not thinking of offhand. All of these |
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helped drive adoption of more open standards, which is why we don't |
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run into this stuff as often. |
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Another topic like this are encryption keys like for DVDCSS and so on. |
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Those fall outside both copyright and patent law, but are legally |
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troublesome. Then there are export controls like ITAR/etc - less of |
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an issue today but might still apply to some things. |
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-- |
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Rich |
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