Em 08-12-2010 20:32, Jan de Groot escreveu:
On Wed, 2010-12-08 at 19:47 -0200, Armando M. Baratti wrote:
It works because the patents are granted perpetually to OIN members
that
have jointed before the closing date, even in the case of a sell
(like
occurred in this case).
If Microsoft wants to get you, they will do so anyways, OIN member or
not. OIN does not have a patent license for ALL patents that are being
sold, and even if they had them, Microsoft has several other trivial
patents like the ones on VFAT that can be used to sue everybody.
Newsflash: they don't.
Remember Google getting sued by Oracle? Both are OIN members, it's just
a fact that not all patents owned by Oracle are shared with OIN, so
Oracle is free to sue any OIN-member that uses those patents without a
license.
Yes, OIN doesn't have *all* patents. But neither does MS.
Probably they have many patents that affect MS and this can make a OIN
member less desirable to be a target for harassment.
Remember, MS is not interested on the small companies, they want to use
them just to spread FUD. They want only the cases where they can be sure
they'll win so they can offer an undisclosed agreement. With the big
boys the matter is different...
I'm not a lawyer. I just read Groklaw's article and though it could be
of some value to Arch Linux and/or another people in the list.
Armando
