Response from M-Systems

[David Woodhouse]

jgg at deltatee.com said:
>  Yeah, he wouldn't. The GPL is reasonably clear that you have to give
> up patent rights. IBM's laywers and Apple's laywers both concure on
> this. If you as a compay GPL an implementation for an algorithm then
> that company must give free use patent rights to everyone who recieves
> a copy of the code, which is effectively everyone. 

And if I personally release some code under GPL, what then? Have I 
singlehandedly voided their patents, to which I didn't have any right in the 
first place?

I'd like to know precisely why IBM and Apple lawyers think that. I can't see 
it myself. Of course, I'm not a lawyer, but I'd expect to understand if I saw 
the explanation. Can you see an actual flaw in my logic?



----                                 ----                                 ----
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