Hi Looks like we are getting a lot of discussions on patents in fedora-devel list now. Perhaps the section on patents can explicitly mention our stand point on patents a bit more clearer? I am thinking of something like the following within the guidelines or in a separate page references by the guidelines: --- Any patent system that allows patents over software (Not just US but other countries around the world) is flawed and it is almost impossible to develop any complex software without infringing on patents and this is a pretty difficult problem especially for Free and open source software. The Fedora policy is that we will try to avoid patent infringement issues by refraining from including software that has patent encumbered components where the patent owners are known to be aggressive and are enforcing the patents actively. If you suspect that you might be including code that is affected by patents such aggressive enforcers, it is recommend that you contact Fedora Legal in private (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal#Contact) since raising these issues in a public forum can draw the attention of patent owners and bring unnecessary legal trouble to developers. Free software developers should avoid trying to do the patent searches themselves. Many software patents are unenforceable or invalid but knowingly infringing on patents will have a higher penalty in many legal systems (In US, you will have to pay triple damages). There are multiple ways of dealing with problematic patent issues. a) get the patent owners to license the patents in writing in way that is compatible with free and open source including but not limited to the requirements of GPL license (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/LicensingGuidelines#Patented_Software). b) upstream developers might be able to use a plugin system and Fedora can simply refrain from including those plugins. Users from regions where software patents are not valid can continue using such plugins obtained from third party repositories. This is the case for multimedia frameworks such as gstreamer included in Fedora c) upstream developers might be able to workaround the patent by using a different implementation technique. You must coordinate with professional legal people on this. d) find prior art that invalidates those patents with the help of professional legal people. --- Comments? Rahul _______________________________________________ Fedora-legal-list mailing list Fedora-legal-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-legal-list
