[Fsfe-ie] U.S. Office Joins an Effort to Improve Software Patents, by John Markoff, NY Times, 10 Jan 2006

Ciaran O'Riordan ciaran at fsfe.org
Tue Jan 10 13:15:27 CET 2006


Joseph Kiniry <kiniry at acm.org> writes:
> Has anyone tracked these proposed software projects?

This is the first I've heard of them.

They're probably not worth too much attention though.  They say they're
trying to help free software, but they're avoiding our main problem (that
patents could block us from writing useful free software replacements for
popular proprietary software), and they're addressing the problem that hits
Microsoft and the big proprietary companies as much as it hits us (patent
thickets and trolls/zombies living off litigation based on patents bought
from less-litigious companies).

I'm not saying that initiatives like this are not backed by good intentions,
but there's not much that people in the USA can actually do to prevent the
harm that software patents do to free software (and software freedom in
general).


-- 
Ciarán O'Riordan, _________|  Support free software: join FSFE's Fellowship
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