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The information on Groklaw is not intended to constitute legal advice. While Mark is a lawyer and he has asked other lawyers and law students to contribute articles, all of these articles are offered to help educate, not to provide specific legal advice. They are not your lawyers.

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Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Dare I suggest
Authored by: Wol on Monday, July 30 2012 @ 01:18 PM EDT
You try "open source" in small letters ...

As in "here's my proprietary product, you can have read-only source, but
you don't have a licence to modify it as long as I'm around. If I'm hit by a
bus, all restrictions vanish".

Sure, some companies won't care, some companies might take advantage, but a lot
of PEOPLE at companies will prefer to deal with you because if everything goes
tits-up for you they're not left in the lurch.

Cheers,
Wol

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Reply to all...
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, July 30 2012 @ 06:16 PM EDT
a) Are you willing to fix all of the bugs in your software, when and as they are
found? Even things that you might not consider to be bugs, but features?

b) Are you willing to incorporate all RFEs that are submitted?

I'm writing my own software, because the developers of the closed source
software I use, won't fix the bugs I keep running into, nor add the RFEs I've
requested.

However, I won't be publicly releasing that software, because of patents whose
claim # 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, include the magic phrases of:
«
"3. The method of claim 1, further characterized by the step of: using a
computer system to automatically ...."
"4. The method of claim 3, further characterized by the step of: using a
computer system to ...."
"5. The method of claim 3, further characterized by the step of: using a
computer system to ...."
"6. The method of claim 3, further characterized by the step of: using a
computer system to ...."
"7. The method of claim 3, further characterized by the step of: using a
computer system to ...."
»
All of which were described in the relevant literature in the eighteenth
century, albeit without the "using a computer system to ...." part.
Instead, it was done using a pen, paper, and basic mathematical routines. (The
parts I omitted are basic fundamental mathematical algorithms.)

If I had source code for the software I was using, I wouldn't have to roll my
own. Instead, I'd fix the bugs, and add the enhancements I've requested. That
wouldn't get around the non-patents, but those non-patents were granted in
violation of both statute law and case law.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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