🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <kstone-1001951613010001@kstone.crewstone.com> kstone@crewstone.com (Keith Stone) writes:

   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.

Ummm slight difference in cases...Microsoft had an agreement with STAC
for certain use of their (STAC's) technology. Microsoft apparently
violated that agreement. Microsoft and STAC had an agreement going in.
Unisys has no such agreement with the many developers building GIF
applications. Unisys is attempting to collect royalties from these
developers. STAC attempted to protect their "intellectual property"
right from the start with its agreements with Microsoft. Unisys has
made no such effort to protect their "intellectual property".

   > 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.

One of the reasons GZIP was developed was because Unisys was making
these same noises about the UNIX "compress" and "zcat"
utilities. After much outcry (similar to what is occuring with GIF)
FSF decided to "roll their own" compression utility to replace zcat
and company..

The problem with software patents is that they stifle progress in a
rapidly evolving market. Patent laws were originally written to
protect the small inventor from the large corporations. Now they are
being used to keep the small software "inventor" out of the market.

Hmmm...can you imagine what would happen if someone had patented the
AND, OR, NOT, and XOR algorithms ? Or perhaps patented "algorithms"
for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division ? I can just
see every school kid learning their multiplication tables having to
pay a royalty to XYZ Corp...:-)

John
--
--
John Burton                      
jcburt@gatsibm.larc.nasa.gov     G & A Technical Software, Inc.
jcburt@gats486.larc.nasa.gov     28 Research Dr. Hampton, Va. 23666
(804) 865-7491 (voice)           (804) 865-1021 (fax)