[vorbis] Here is a link to what they say about "Other Formats"

[Cherniavsky Beni]

Joe \"piman\" Wreschnig wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Dec 12, 2000 at 01:05:10PM -0800, Dan Hollis wrote:
> > For instance, there is a kind of patent which doesn't prevent people from
> > using it, only prevents corporations from trying to exert monopolistic
> > control over the technology. It's a sort of open-source patent which
> > protects those people who use the technology from litigation by bad
> > people.
> 
> "Open source patents" are stupid. If you publish without copyright, someone
> else can still copyright it, so you need free licenses there. But if you
> publish without patent, no one else can patent it.

I think you hadn't considered the point of "based works" which the GPL protects.
The question is whether some company can split a private development from the
free non-patented code, *improve* it in some way and patent the improved one.

Maybe if Xiph had patents, then the company's patent would be infringing on
Xiph's and Xiph could deny that company a lisence unless they in turn adopt
the same free lisencing policy.

I don't know patent laws well (a great deal of what I do came from reading this
mailing list :-), so I don't know if this point that exists in sofware
copyrights
(and is one of the main ideas of GPL) can be parralled in patents.

-- 
Beni Cherniavsky <cben at crosswinds.net>
                 (also scben at t2,cben at tx in Technion)

  S.O.S   My country, Israel, is on fire.
  http://www.projectonesoul.com

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