Upgrading to Firefox 2.0?

Ian Petersen ispeters-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org
Mon Nov 6 03:21:43 UTC 2006


> It cant' work that way.  If MS *did* try that.  Eg., with the FAT
> code, you could, for example do this:
>
> 1. strip the FAT code from Debian.
> 2. Take the FAT code from MSuSE
> 3. Put the FAT code from MSuSE into Debian
>
> MS can't put a redistribution clause on GPL'd code and they can't
> un-GPL it.  If they rewrote the code as BSD license and demanded
> royalties, competitors with large patent portfolios could do the same
> in return.

I am not a lawyer, and all that, but my understanding is that it
doesn't work that way.  Patents and copyrights are two different
beasts, and GPL2 doesn't discuss patents, IIRC.  Your step 3, above,
is perfectly legal from a copyright perspective, but using the
patented algorithm without the permission of the patent-holder (MS) is
still illegal, regardless of the expression of the patented "idea" and
who controlls the expression

Perhaps, because of the "no other restrictions" clause in the GPL,
it's illegal to distribute FAT-related, GPL code in any form, whether
by MSuSe or otherwise, but you can't "work around" a patented idea the
same way that you can "work around" copyright problems with a
clean-room implementation.

Ian

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