OSS is inherently incompatible with the whole concept of RAND patents.
Because "reasonable and non-discriminatory" is inherently not-free. It doesn't
matter if the patent license is dollars per unit, or fractions of a penny per
unit. It's still inherently non-free. The only patent licenses that are
compatible with OSS are the ones like IBM released a few years ago--completely
free for OSS use.
Now I'll admit that some people in the OSS community
think that patents should be abolished completely, but a lot of the rest of us
think that patents for actual inventions (not discoveries, or laws of
nature/mathematics/algorithms) are fine. But you know what? Neither group thinks
RAND is good for OSS. Because it's not. It's useless for OSS. And thus
irrelevant.
Thus I, at least, am completely OK with injunctions on RAND
patents, because they by definition cannot affect OSS. (If they do, you
weren't really dealing with OSS in the first place, even if you thought you
were.)
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Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for it makes them
soggy and hard to light. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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