Package management patented?

[Fraser Campbell]

On November 3, 2003 08:24 am, JoeHill wrote:
>http://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/patog/week42/OG/html/1275-3/US06636857-20031021.html
>
> Look out Mandrake and Debian, urpmi and apt-get may have to be licensed
> from these creative geniuses... ;-)

I saw that, either it is a joke or the USPTO is the joke.

Oh well the good news is that apt-get uses http or ftp not the "world wide 
web".  apt-get doesn't involve any transmission to "remote storage medium", 
it works by pulling not pushing.

It sounds like they're trying to patent things like Netscape 4.5's roaming 
access.  If they went much further they'd be claiming a patent on thin 
clients.

-- 
Fraser Campbell <fraser-Txk5XLRqZ6CsTnJN9+BGXg at public.gmane.org>                 http://www.wehave.net/
Georgetown, Ontario, Canada                               Debian GNU/Linux

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