Re: Can we get patents?

On Sun, 8 May 2005, Alvaro Herrera wrote:

> Hackers,
>
> I was reading LWN.net and noticed an article about Eben Moglen's keynote
> at linux.conf.au.  Apparently he advises free software projects to get
> patents on their best ideas.
>
>     Eben encouraged free software developers to record their novel
>     inventions and to obtain patents on the best of them. Free legal
>     help can be made available to obtain patents on the best ideas.
>     Until the rules of the game can be changed, we must play the
>     game, and having the right patents available may make all the
>     difference in defending against an attack.
>
> http://lwn.net/Articles/133421/
>
> Eben Moglen is the FSF's attorney.
>
> I'm wondering, could the PostgreSQL Foundation (or some other entity)
> get patents on some parts of Postgres?  Maybe ResourceOwners for
> example; or the newer parts of the optimizer.
>
> The patents would be freely licensed to everyone (including commercial
> redistributors and developers/users of competing products), except to
> patent litigators, or something like that.

Individual developers could get their work patent'd, I would imagine ...

----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy@hub.org           Yahoo!: yscrappy              ICQ: 7615664