[wellylug] NZ Software Patents

[Peter Lynch]

Copyright is based on restricting the use of publicly available works.

Patents of any sort, including software, are based on keeping work
secret.

Open source software is all about making your work, i.e. source code,
publicly available.  Open source is the complete antithesis of software
patents.

Regards
Peter

-----Original Message-----
From: wellylug-bounces at lists.wellylug.org.nz
[mailto:wellylug-bounces at lists.wellylug.org.nz] On Behalf Of John Durham
Sent: Wednesday, 17 June 2009 14:32
To: Wellington Linux Users Group
Subject: Re: [wellylug] NZ Software Patents

Jethro Carr wrote:
> On Wed, 2009-06-17 at 13:22 +1200, John Durham wrote:
>> In that case it might be settled quite simply. Once the writer knows
of 
>> the error, the work could be removed or changed so that it doesn't 
>> infringe the copyright. Some cases might be harder than others, but
as 
>> long as no wrong was intended by either party it could be treated as
a 
>> simple mistake (those things we make every day).
> 
> hi John,
> 
> I'm not talking about copyright, I'm talking about patents - patent
> violation is not copyright infringement.
> 
> Some work can be changed to work around the patent, but there have
been
> patents for trivial ideas that often can't be worked around properly.
> 
> regards,
> jethro
I can accept that there can be a software patent.
Exactly how would that differ from a copyrighted work?
Is it a kind of software device?
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