Paul A Bristow wrote: [...]
silly software patents that are doing little but enrich some members of the legal progression.
C'mon, $$$ licensing aside (it enriches shareholders), unless prosecuted, RCU patents enrich the LTC guys. IBM's Invention Achievement Plateau Awards and all that. :-) Ha! Note that under SCO's crackpot theory (inspired by the FSF's crackpot theory regarding "based on" copyright derivation a la "Subclassing is creating a derivative work. Therefore, the terms of the GPL affect the whole program where you create a subclass of a GPL'ed class." www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#OOPLang), IBM does (kind of) own RCU but can't publicly disclose it (due to nonsensical reading of AT&T contracts, ignoring side letters, etc.) because it's sorta "UNIX derivative" method and/or concept and/or code infected by viral SCO's license on ancient SysV stuff that it was in contact (is "based on") and hence got contaminated (same as with FSF's contamination theory***). And since patenting requires public disclosure... IBM just can't patent it without owing SCO a petabuck or two in contractual damages (copyright claim arising from subsequent use of purportedly SCO's copyrighted material after license termination for breach aside for a moment). Man oh man. ***) http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/assignunisrule.html ----- Once code is written and placed under the GPL, any code based on that code and distributed will also placed under the GPL. Thus, there is nothing a university could do with a developer's code if it is based on previously GPL'd code anyway. There is no good reason NOT to assign code to the FSF. ----- and http://www.google.com/search?q=jacobson+FSF yields "From: "Jonas Jacobson via RT" <copyright-clerk at fsf dot org>" and "FSF Assignment Administrator Jonas Jacobson". Man oh man. regards, alexander.