On Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:35:08 +1100, Matt Giuca <matt.giuca@gmail.com> wrote:
They intend to introduce FRAND ("fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory") patent licensing law, which would mean you can't simply withhold patent licenses, you need to license them to anyone who wants them under reasonable terms. But they intend to exclude free software from the definition.
The proposal concerns the adoption of European standards. The proposal allows for the adoption of patent encumbered standards, and while they do not intend to adopt standards where the patent licences can be withheld, they still allow the patent holders to charge licence fees from anyone who uses or distributes software that implements the standard, and discriminate against those who cannot pay the fees. This disadvantages free/libre software, because it enforces a particular distribution model that is incompatible with the basic freedoms. The best solution is to scrap software patents so that standards are not compromised. At worst, if there are software patents, a government should only adopt open standards where the patent holders are prevented from asserting their patent rights, otherwise they can hardly call them "open standards". Glenn -- pool.sks-keyservers.net 0xb1e82ec9228ac090