Andrew Gillham <gillham@vaultron.com> writes:

> On Tue, Aug 14, 2001 at 02:41:27PM -0400, Nathan J. Williams wrote:
> > 
> > There's no DMCA issue. It's an issue of contributory patent
> > infringement. I doubt a judge would agree that the tools you list are
> > in the same category as a system that allows one to type "make all
> > install" and have patent-infringing software ready-to-go.
> 
> You missed my point.  I'm saying don't allow "make all install", force
> the person to download the distribution file first, just like with other
> things like StarOffice.

StarOffice is different because there is an approved-by-the-IP-owner
procedure to get the distribution. But if you think you can come up
with a non-contributory-infringing mechanisim to make this work, by
all means, see if you can find a good patent lawyer who agrees with you.

> It would be better, IMHO, to go through and remove any possibly infringing
> packages rather than leaving them in place until threatened by legal action.
> That just says you care about the legal threat, not infringing on someone's
> patent.

Yes. Unfortunately, without someone doing a lot of legwork to check up
on every one of our packages, the first time we know about
infringement is likely to be a letter from the laywers.

        - Nathan