🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1991Nov17.151222.21312@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> huntley@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (Haydn Huntley) writes:
>In the past, I have argued that the FSF is unfair in punishing Apple,
>but not punishing other companies.  Some of the other companies are
>Xerox (which sued Apple, but isn't usually mentioned on the boycott
>list), and AT&T which claims to own the concept of 'backing store' and
>which is threatening users of X Windows.

	Actually, the LPF is boycotting Xerox.  As for AT&T, the
LPF has not officially declared a boycott, but the LPF does ask that
everyone who decides not to make some purchase from AT&T as a result
of AT&T's legal threats send mail to league@prep.ai.mit.edu.  In the
mean time, AT&T has asked the patent office to reexamine their "backing
store" patent.

>Also, IBM, DEC, MIPS, Xerox
>and AT&T are filing algorithm patents as fast as they can, and
>algorithm patents are much more pernicious than user interface
>copyrights, yet the FSF does *nothing* to discourage these companies
>from patenting everything in sight!

	The LPF is opposed to software patents.  In fact, one of our
two position papers, _Against Software Patents_, is dedicated entirely
to this subject.  We've just finished a letter writing campaign in
response to the 5/16/91 "Request for comments for the Advisory
Commission on Patent Law Reform."  It is my understanding that there
will be an LPF contingent on hand to protest Rob Pike's talk at MIT
a few days from now (according to message that I received about this
event, Pike publicly advocates software patents).

	If the LPF were to target specific companies in some action
against software patents, I suspect that we'd want to single out
some of the worst offenders (such as companies that are trying to
change the interpretation of the law to be more restrictive, as is the
case with Lotus and Apple in UI copyrights).  Because there are so
many companies filing for software patents, and because some people
claim that such activities need to be done for the purpose of defense
from other patent infringement lawsuits, the worst offenders would be
companies that do more than just file for patents.

Adam J. Richter			adam@soda.berkeley.edu
409 Evelyn Avenue, Apt. 312	....!ucbvax!soda!adam
Albany, CA 94706		(510)528-3209