[theora] Theora patent question

[Shayne Wissler]

On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 1:30 AM, Remco <remco47 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Freetype has a few known patented technologies, which are #ifdef-ed
> out at compile time by default. No known patented technology is being
> used by default.

But it wouldn't matter to FreeType ether way whether it was in by
default, because they don't make a profit off it, correct? If you
wanted to sue someone, you'd have to go find someone who you knew was
using FreeType, and who was making a profit. That might be a more
expensive process than patent trolls would like to engage in, with
less results than they might like to see. I mean, why sue a thousand
small companies when you can sue one big one?

> Linux infringes on no known technologies.

It won't be known until someone looks, and someone won't look until
there is sufficient incentive. The normal patent trolls don't have
much incentive, they pick on big business first. Is there something
wrong with my reasoning here?

> Software patents suck.

Indeed.


Shayne