brainstorming

[Benjamin Rossen]

Jennifer Urban, 

Thanks. I am very interested and look forward to hearing more. 

If you would like to put some of these ideas up for a Wiki discussion you are 
welcome to use the Amiculus site. 
http://www.amiculus.com 

Benjamin Rossen.

P.S. I am not a lawyer, but having worked in the Dutch Justice System as a 
forensic psychologist for some years has given me interest and some 
background in things legal, and as a long time hobby hacker an interest from 
another angle. I cannot contribute high level expertiese, but I seem to be 
quite good at brainstorming creative angles, and that is now my profession. I 
am a corporate coach and help managers find new business models to exploit 
the opportunities that electronic market places present. Let me know if you 
think I can contribute. 

On Saturday 15 January 2005 20:12, jurban at law.usc.edu wrote:
> 
> FYI, EFF and Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive and I also think this
> is a critical issue. EFF and Brewster are working with the new
> Intellectual Property Clinic at USC on a licensing scheme--the Defensive
> Patent License-- that would allow/encourage patent-holders to license
> their patents defensively to keep the patented code open. We are still in
> the discussion stage, working out the exact model, but we will definitely
> keep you posted.
> 
> -- 
> Jennifer M. Urban
> Director, Intellectual Property Clinic
> Clinical Assistant Professor of Law
> The Law  School, Rm 410
> University of Southern California
> tel: (213) 740-1538
> fax: (213) 740-5502
> jurban at law.usc.edu
> 
> > Hello,
> >
> > No. I do not want to prevent anyone from using the software, the ideas,
> > the
> > innovations, the patterns, the algorithms or what ever else. In fact, I
> > would
> > want to encourcage them to use it, also in closed source and any other
> > kind
> > of software. However, when they use it, they agree not to take legal
> > action
> > against the Open Source community for using their ideas, innovations,
> > patterns, the algorithms or what ever else - whether patented by them or
> > not.
> >
> > Proprietary patents are useful protection against other proprietary closed
> > source software vendors. They can fight it out among themselves. In
> > reality,
> > this rarely comes to fighting - it comes down to swap deals. Philips of
> > the
> > Netherlands and Sony of Japan have such a long tradition of making swap
> > deals
> > that they even share research secrets. The swap deals are simple things,
> > like
> > this:
> > Philips may use Sony patents  AND  Sony may use Philips patents.
> >
> > They don't fight about it... they negotiate.
> >
> > The Open Source community cannot enter into that kind of relationship with
> > proprietary software companies. At present the deal is this:
> > Proprietary Software (usually also closed source) suppliers may use Open
> > Source ideas, innovations patterns, algorithms (even copy code directly)
> > from
> > the Open Source comminuty, but there is no reciprocity... Open Source may
> > not
> > use proprietary innovations if they have been patented.
> >
> > That is no deal.
> >
> > That is the problem.
> >
> > My suggestion is to frame the Open Source License in such a way that if
> > proprietary companies use any ideas from the Open Source Community in
> > their
> > own software, then Open Source community can use any of their patents
> > without
> > fear of prosecution and without requirement to pay royalties.
> >
> > This would even the playing field.
> >
> > How can this be done? It is a question. I am not taking a position here,
> > at
> > least not a postition on how the Open Source License should be framed. I
> > am
> > asking if it is possible to frame the license in a way that gives us this
> > kind of even playing field.
> >
> > Benjamin Rossen
> > http://www.amiculus.com
> >
> >
> > On Friday 14 January 2005 17:44, Thorsten Glaser wrote:
> >> Benjamin Rossen dixit:
> >>
> >> >Could this be framed in such a way that these innovations may not be
> >> used
> > in
> >> >any license other than Open Source?
> >>
> >> Not everybody wants this. It's the GNU vs BSD thing again:
> >>
> >> Most GNU advocates don't understand that BSD people don't care about
> >> companies such as Microsoft, IBM etc. are using their code in a
> >> closed-source application. Many BSD developers are even _happy_ about
> >> this because it shows their work is appreciated.
> >>
> >> You're trying to take the freedom from us to allow everyone to
> >> use them with _as few_ strings attached as possible.
> >>
> >> I hope I didn't misread your posting though.
> >>
> >> bye,
> >> //mirabile
> >>
> >
> 
> 
>