X-Original-To: pgsql-www-postgresql.org@localhost.postgresql.org Received: from localhost (unknown [200.46.204.2]) by svr1.postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 474A5D1B9EB for ; Mon, 12 Apr 2004 10:42:56 -0300 (ADT) Received: from svr1.postgresql.org ([200.46.204.71]) by localhost (neptune.hub.org [200.46.204.2]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 90052-04 for ; Mon, 12 Apr 2004 10:42:50 -0300 (ADT) Received: from sss.pgh.pa.us (sss.pgh.pa.us [66.207.139.130]) by svr1.postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2276CD1D803 for ; Mon, 12 Apr 2004 10:42:40 -0300 (ADT) Received: from sss2.sss.pgh.pa.us (tgl@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sss.pgh.pa.us (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id i3CDgfwP009384; Mon, 12 Apr 2004 09:42:41 -0400 (EDT) To: "Marc G. Fournier" Cc: jclift@digitaldistribution.com, Greg Sabino Mullane , pgsql-www@postgresql.org Subject: Re: [webmaster] online demonstration against EU Software In-reply-to: <20040412100022.W25086@ganymede.hub.org> References: <14e60411734dd9ce338f09c3c5c8916d@biglumber.com> <407A907A.5040208@postgresql.org> <20040412100022.W25086@ganymede.hub.org> Comments: In-reply-to "Marc G. Fournier" message dated "Mon, 12 Apr 2004 10:03:12 -0300" Date: Mon, 12 Apr 2004 09:42:41 -0400 Message-ID: <9383.1081777361@sss.pgh.pa.us> From: Tom Lane X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new at postgresql.org X-Archive-Number: 200404/85 X-Sequence-Number: 4189 > On Mon, 12 Apr 2004, Justin Clift wrote: >> This is not really a political issue. It's looking after our own long >> term interests. It certainly is a political issue, but I agree that it's in our long term interests to worry about it. Being apolitical in this situation is unilateral disarmament: we can be as apolitical as we like, but that's not going to stop the lawyers from putting us out of business. "Marc G. Fournier" writes: > Nobody has yet mentioned how this is the case ... how would such a patent > affect us? By making it illegal or dangerous for European software developers to work on Postgres. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to think that Microsoft is pushing this (behind the scenes of course). Bill Gates is on record as seeing "cut off your opponent's air supply" as legitimate competitive behavior. In this case the air supply he's hoping to cut off for open source is the availability of developers. If people are afraid to contribute at all, or spend all their time researching patent issues instead of doing productive coding, then open-source development dies. regards, tom lane