On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 12:35 PM, Matt Giuca <matt.giuca@gmail.com> wrote:
Well, looks like Europe just did the exact *opposite* of this -- it was on Slashdot this morning:
http://press.ffii.org/Press%20releases/EuroParliament%20to%20exclude%20Free%...
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. (I'm not too sure on the details, but it doesn't sound good.)
The details are here: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexplus!prod!DocNumber&lg=EN&type_doc=COMfinal&an_doc=2011&nu_doc=0315 The (F)RAND requirements are exposed in "ANNEX II REQUIREMENTS FOR THE RECOGNITION OF TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS IN THE FIELD OF ICT" I searched for "open source" and "free software" in the entire document - 0 occurrences. Adrian