Recently i read an article on the internet on the subject. It impressed me, and hence I would like to share that with you...
The article was written sometime during 2000 by the members of SSLUG - Skåne Sjælland Linux User Group. But, still it makes a great read. It discusses about the ethical side of the patenting innovations, among which one part really caught my attention and made me think on various aspects of it. It says that the open source community will be worst affected among all, by the increasing trend of patenting software and technology. Since, there is no single consortium that manages the open source community, and largely runs on individual capacities, the community as a whole will be in an extremely difficult situation if it is proven any of the open source software has violated a patent. There is absolutely nobody that can pay up the royalty or the sue charges. And it is equally impossible for somebody to file a lawsuit to ‘reverse’ a patent. The impact of this is a lot more than most of us even imagine – it has the potential to bring, if not entire, but a significant part of the web to a standstill. Read on…
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