[Mono-list] something general about software patents

[Guy Murphy]

Hiyas.

I've argued for a while now that Open Source projects should simply "relocate" outside the USA to places like Europe.

In most cases the idea of the project having a geographic location is a fiction, but if a project is declared to be European, then surely the burden would be upon any suing party to prove that an offending piece of code was written under US juristiction... I have little to no legal experience, so this is simply based upon naive common sense (which is often wrong).

The fringe benefit that might occur if enough OS projects decalred themselves to be within the EU is twofold, to send a message to the US authorities that there may be consequence to their satnce on software copyright, and secondly to perhaps encourage EU (I don't know about Asian) authorities that their caution over software copyright might be worthwhile.

What amazes me is the US continues to batter software projects outside of large corporations, and said projects continue to identify themselves with the US (even if such identification is subtle rather than eplicit it's there, almost by default).

Set up the "mono server(s)" in an EU state, and issue a declaration that Mono is an EU project... if nothing else it'll get press.

By way of novel, but interesting wackiness... one might consider the new(ish) colocation facility sat on a fat pipe set up in the Principality of Sealand, off the coast of the UK, which as it happens, has no patent or copyright law (exlicitly)... I'm sure a deal could be sorted with them in return for the press *shrug* regard that as a thought thrown out there.

 - Guy

-----Original Message-----
From: Guenther Roith [mailto:groith@tcrz.net]
Sent: 13 March 2002 20:36
To: mono-list@ximian.com
Subject: [Mono-list] something general about software patents


 i think there are two reasons why the ms can't use their patents

- most countrys (excepts the usa) don't accept software patents
- they can't do anything against mono, as it is open source and they could
only force ximian in the usa (but not in europe) to stop the development, as
they can't forbid the use of mono to the end user, can they?


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