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Article #73564

Re: Ben Franklin on patents

#73564
From: Jon Allen Boone
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 1991 16:45
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horne-scott@cs.yale.edu (Scott Horne) writes:
> Excuse me, but I don't see GNU champing at the bit to use anyone's patented
> ideas.

  One of the reasons for the existence of the LPF (League For
Programming Freedom) is to help put an end to silly patents.  Since
almost any trivial algorithm can now be patented, every piece of code
produced by the FSF for their GNU project *may infringe upon 1 or more
patents*.  The proposal would not only help clean up a messy
situation, but, indeed, something like Public Key RSA (which is
patented, and, some say *ought* to be patented) could be licensed for
3-5% of the selling cost - there could be a GNU RSA implementation
which would be FREE - something we can *not* get here - today!  I'm
sure that the GNU project could easily find a use for that idea - not
to mention other notable patented ideas such as LZ(W)-compression,
combining scroll-bars, buttons, and windows together (some wierd Apple
patent for hyper-text), etc.





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From: jb3o+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jon Allen Boone)
Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: Ben Franklin on patents
Message-ID: <ocgdWcO00j5u8zdfNg@andrew.cmu.edu>
Date: 21 Aug 91 16:45:28 GMT
References: <PCG.91Aug18210217@aberda.aber.ac.uk> <04PX74w164w@mantis.co.uk> <0cgKBxK00j5uAwB4cs@andrew.cmu.edu>
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