Re: Are Microsoft’s patent lawyers really this dumb?

[Kurt Häusler]

On Sun, 08 Jul 2007 11:55:07 +0200, David Kastrup wrote:

> Kurt Häusler <usenet@haeusler.NO.co.SPAM.nz> writes:

>> Now I wrote most of the code, and placed the copyright under
>> ownership of the FSF.
> 
> How so?

By leaving their name in the text of the gpl license file rather than say
overwriting it with either my name or my employer's name. Which is
standard practice right?

>> What does "patent protection" consist of in this case? I understand
>> that patent owners have to actively defend their patents against
>> unlicensed use by threatening lawsuits, but what can I do as a coder
>> / distributor do to protect others from said lawsuits beyond
>> releasing the source under the terms of the gplv3?
> 
> Releasing under GPLv3 protects from lawsuits by _downstream_
> distributors.  It can't magically apply itself to upstream.

Oh now everything makes sense. Can't really see how any downstream
additions of patent encumbered source would have much effect (on me
at least) anyway.