🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <19950109.204722.59@banana.demon.co.uk>,
kevq@banana.demon.co.uk wrote:
 
> > I am upholding my boycott on Unisys products.  It is not very
> > difficult because Unisys does not have very much to offer
> > technologically or otherwise. 
> 
> Harrumph.  It's easy to boycott something when you have no commercial
> interest in it.

Agreed. It's interesting that the same outcry wasn't heard when Stac won
against Microsoft. Where was the net outcry when Novell was challenged
with a patent suit by an individual claiming rights to their network
technology? It's only fashionable to declare rightous indignation when
someone you like is on the receiving end.

> For what it's worth, if you're outside the US, I don't believe that
> patents such as this have ever been successfully pursued.  On the
> other hand, I don't know if anyone has actually ever tried to uphold
> one outside the US.  Since you're in Finland, it seems you're making
> a mountain out of a mole-hill.

Actually, one of the pain tenets in GATT was intellectual property. If
Finland is a signatory, most copyright and patent rules as they exist in
the US would apply to them also.

> For the record, I don't believe that the LZW patent should be allowed
> to stand, after it has been perceived as public domain for a long time.
> I find it difficult to believe that Unisys have only recently noticed
> how widespread the use of LZW has become.  However, their present policy
> of making their due cut from commercial software and waiving fees for
> freeware and software already sold is quite reasonable, given that the
> patent is legal and enforceable.

Compuserve may have considered it in the public domain, but the FSF sure
didn't, that's why GZIP was created. Unisys may have recently noticed that
it was used in GIF, but 100 other licensees seems to indicate that they've
not been sitting around on their duffs. I don't know the ratio of hardware
vs. software, (and I doubt Unisys will disclose the list) but I've seen no
evidence that they didn't enforce where they knew of it's use.

-- 
--------- Keith Stone                   | Voice: (910) 777-0511 
|\\\ ///| Crewstone Consulting ltd.     | FAX:   (910) 777-1191
|/// \\\| 1001 South Marshall Suite 118 | "Beware of geeks bearing
--------- Winston-Salem, NC 27101       |  GIFs"