[KLUG Members] Knoppix notice -- effects of patentson Free Software....

[Robert G. Brown]

Thought you might like to read this from the Knoppix website:

Closed because of "Software-Patents"
In the next few days, the European Parliament will decide about the
legalisation and adoption of so-called "software patents" in Europe, which
are already used by large companies in other countries to put competitors
out of business. This can lead to the termination of many software projects
such as KNOPPIX, at least within Europe, because the holders of the over
30,000 already granted "software patents" (currently without a legal
foundation) can claim exclusive rights and collect license fees for trivial
things like "progress bars", "mouseclicks on online order forms", "scrolling
within a window" and similar. That way, software developers will have to pay
the "software-patentholders" for using these features, even in their own,
completely self-developed applications, which can completely stall the
development of innovative software for small and medium companies. Apart
from this, the expense for patent inquiries and legal assistence is high,
for even trying to find out if the self-developed software is possibly
violating "software-patents", if you want to continue to market your
software. Contrary to real patents, "software-patents" are, in the current
draft, monopolization of business ideas and methods, even without any
tangible technical implementation.

More about the current major problem at http://swpat.ffii.org/index.en.html