Quote from: ttookk on July 22, 2018, 01:59:05 PM

Ok, now we are getting somewhere. No ad hominems and stuff. Great! Let me state from the beginning that I don't assume malicious intent from your side. I just don't understand your reasoning.

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To begin with you called patents a 'plague' - it our eyes that's not very professional if you want to start using that term. You made your position quite clear on your view of patents.

Well, I am not a professional, I am a private person. I don't have a business under which I operate here, I have little reason to be professional. You do on the other hand. I know this is unfair, but that's how it is Grin

It looks like all your answers boil down to "we want other users to conform to the GPL". Fair enough. I just don't understand what additional protection a patent serves in that case. Could you clear that up? Because as far as I am aware, the GPL is enforcable without a patent. Why do you need a patent on top of that?

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"We've done this in order to assert our patent rights against redistributors who do not conform to the GPL license terms."

If they don't conform to the GPL, they are already breaking a contract and can be sanctioned. Or can't they?

I mean, that is why the GPL exists in the first place. You say so yourself:

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his is not really a question, because by conforming to the GPL license terms we are legally bound by the terms. We think that's pretty straight forward

See, maybe I am wrong here, but from what I am seeing, the patent system and the GPL actually contradict each other in some terms. And in case of a legal dispute, I am pretty sure that a court would side with the patent side, due to it being a state sanctioned set of rules, while the GPL is not. I am admittedly no expert in this field, though.

Also, what I am seeing is an ecosystem in which the use of patents is extremely rare, as far as i know. This makes you an exception to the rule and puts you in the position explain your actions to your users.

here's an excellent article on the topic. They can co-exist but there are specific limits which we clearly understood before embarking on this path.

https://www.fenwick.com/FenwickDocuments/Patent_Rights.pdf