Message-ID: <01FD6EC775C6D4119CDF0090273F74A455A655@emwatent02.meters.com.au>
From: "da Silva, Joe" <Joe DOT daSilva AT emailmetering DOT com>
To: "'opendos AT delorie DOT com'" <opendos AT delorie DOT com>
Subject: RE: Proposal for new partition type IDs for use with future DOSes
Date: Mon, 4 Jun 2001 10:17:15 +1000 
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Reply-To: opendos AT delorie DOT com

Please note that I was not suggesting to disregard patent law. Quite
the opposite. Unlike M$, I take these things seriously. However, I
believe there are some exemptions in patent law - from memory, for
instance, an individual may use a patented invention for their own
private use, without a license. What I was asking is if anyone knew
this stuff properly, and could advise us how far such exemptions go.

Anyway, after thinking more about this issue, it occurs to me that
there is another approach here, as follows :

The biggest threat to MonoSoft (my new name for M$ ;-) is Linux.
Therefore, we can actually use this ridiculous patent issue *against*
MonoSoft, by contrasting their closed, proprietary O/S, with the open
system philosophy of Linux. The fact that MonoSoft have patented
something as trivial as file name storage, gives a perfect illustration
of just how proprietary MonoSoft stuff is ... !!!

Another thing that occurs to me, is that if we cannot support LFN
and FAT32 stuff properly in DOS, we should take the view that
the MonoSoft O/S is ultimately doomed and support the GNU/Linux
file system instead. That is, DOS needs to be compatible with a
mainstream O/S. If MonoSoft wants to be proprietary about this stuff,
then we don't support it, and we help GNU/Linux supplant it! So,
if the DR-DOS kernel becomes open,  this may be the future for
DOS. Of course, existing (non-LFN) FAT drive support will have
to stay, for the foreseeable future, although it's compatibility with
LFN needs to be improved, if at all possible.

Joe.
> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Bernie [SMTP:bernie AT mbox302 DOT swipnet DOT se]
> Sent:	Saturday, 2 June 2001 17:51
> To:	opendos AT delorie DOT com
> Subject:	RE: Proposal for new partition type IDs for use with future
> DOSes
> 
> Joe wrote:
> >1) If anyone has a friend with expertise about patent law, perhaps they
> >   could advise what circumstances allow for others to use patented
> stuff.
> >   For instance, some people claim freeware is exempt - is it actually?
> 
> I'm not an expert, but if a patent is used without authorisation what you
> can do is sue. If there's no contact information at all there would be
> noone to sue. However someone must stand behind (a possible even more open
> <g>) DR-DOS and FreeDOS, atleast for making downloads possible.
> In short, whatever you do that is illegal is still illegal if it's done
> without taking out a cost. The question is if you can find the guilty
> party.
> //Bernie