🚀 go-pugleaf

>As some of you probably know, Adobe's Level 2 PostScript
>specification includes facilities for data compression and
>decompression according to the LZW (Lempel-Ziv-Welch) method.  I
>would like to provide these facilities in Ghostscript.
>Unfortunately, this method is claimed to be the subject of two
>different patents ...

I wonder if we can get around such patents.  Let us assume that there
exists some patented algorithm that really is better than other competing
algorithms, and the owners won't licence it reasonably.  Unlike proprietary 
stuff (like PostScript), Gnu stuff comes with source. People could:

* 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.
  You are allowed to talk about patented algorithms, right?  Just not 
  _implement_ them.  So, does a source code "discussion" of an algorithm
  count as patent infringement if there is no machine code implementation?
 [As a separate thread, I wonder what the difference is between an English
  description of an algorithm and a C description.  One hopes that the 
  English used in textbooks is clear enough for a person to learn the
  algorithm.  So, if there were an English to machine-language compiler,
  would talking about patented algorithms be illegal?]

or even:
* Get somebody to post an implementation of the algorithm to the appropriate 
  lists; perhaps anonymously.

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

It may not be strictly legal.  But under questionably just laws.  Think
of it as civil disobedience.

-Leonard