🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <29763@mimsy.umd.edu> leonard@mimsy.umd.edu (Leonard Dickens ) writes:
> I wonder if we can get around such patents.

Possibly, but not by fraud.

> * Make it _very_ easy to replace the patented algorithm with another:
>    * Put it in its own separate source file
>    * Make the interface small and clean
> and:
> * Distribute the patented algorithm with the source, maybe ifdef'ed out.

There are dozens of precedents saying that you can't get away with this.
If you make a plug 'n' play system and try to avoid the patent on
playing by letting the customer do the plugging, you're in trouble.

> The patent "owners" might then sue... whom?  Whosever machine the offending
> ftp archive or bulletin board was on; maybe ordering them to cease and desist 
> or something.  Which they would then do.  But the damage would be done: the
> file would be in the hands of thousands of users.

So they would sue for a lot more than cease-and-desist. Contributory
patent infringement can be quite expensive.

> The legal eagles could
> hardly track down all of us, could they?

And nobody can distribute archives using the patented method, because as
soon as they do, they're admitting to having used it. This is not
practical for a compression standard.

---Dan