[AD] patetns are still very dangerous thread (WAS: GIF patent / support)

[Enrico Weigelt <weigelt@xxxxxxxxxx>]

* Omar Cornut <cornut@xxxxxxxxxx> [2004-03-02 19:56:41 +0100]:

<snip>
> GIF patent has expired in USA on 2003/06/23, and has expired
> or is going to expire in other country within the year.
> (Canada may be the latest, I am not sure, on 2004/07/07).

The impact of software patents - a modern way of feudalism - 
is still valid.

All developers around the world are asked to get off from behind
there computers and become active!

Especially here in Europe - where software patents are still illegal,
(but the EPO has granted over 30.000 monopoly rights on software
concepts - against the law!) - it is really, really important to act 
NOW or the opensource software will effectively become illegal as
well as most of the SMEs too. Note that by the European Commission's
plans the courts will have no chance to limit too broad and trivial 
patent claims as the US courts are able to so.

    http://patinfo.ffii.org/
    http://swpat.ffii.org/

You should all know that the GIF monopoly was quite irrelevant 
against those 30.000 trivial patents, like "archiving email",
"xor-cursors", "paletts in dialogs", "35h working per week"


regards,
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