[Fsfe-ie] patents letter stuff

[Ciaran O'Riordan]

Hi all,

  I'm still writing that patents letter, although I've overcommitted
myself a bit recently so work is slow.  I have a draft, but it gets
rewritten every time I look at it, so it's not yet at a stage where it
would be useful to post it and ask for comments.

A request:
  Can people find a few great technologies that *aren't* patented?

I'm thinking about SMS text messaging? is that patent-free?
Does anyone know of other technologies that have really taken off?

so that we can say "look at how progress really happens"

It has to be stuff that a politician would know about.
Telecommunications stuff is extra-brill since the big telecoms are
pushing for patents, so it would be great if we could distinguish
between what's good for one (foreign) company, and what's good for
progress (or useful innovation).

I'll be looking into this myself, but I'm not very technology-aware.

Aidan Delaney previously mentioned Voice Over IP as an example.

Lasty (rushed mail), the FTC's patents report is brilliant, the software
patents section starts on p153 (printed page 44) and is 13 pages long.
The whole doc is 315 pages, but just reading the software section is
very encouraging. 

Ian provided a link to the FTC report in a recent post.

Stallman is quoted 16 times in the report!

-- 
Ciaran O'Riordan - http://www.compsoc.com/~coriordan/