Codec Buddy misleading.

[Andrew Farris]

Yaakov Nemoy wrote:
> The first patent holder that sues freedesktop.org is just going to
> look like a bad guy.
> 
> a) The press will look really bad
> 
> b) freedesktop.org does not make million dollar annual profits from
> these codecs the way Red Hat, Novell, or Mandrivia would and they
> could never hope to seek the same level of damages
> 
> c) lawyers might take this case on good will, because of the high
> profile nature, and the understanding of how open source works and is
> good for the legal industry, and one of these lawyers might bust these
> patents.
> 
> I hope these arguments are enough for people to realize that just
> because it's open source does not mean Red Hat can *afford* to use the
> software.

This comment really sums up the situation very well.  Those not familiar with
how US corporations have *for decades* practiced pro-active protection against
patent suits... read Yaakov's last line again.  Red Hat legal has to consider
not just whether its possible for suits to arise from patent infringement, but
WHO is going to be involved.  They would need to be very confident that the 'big
players' cannot end up on the other side of the codec issue against them and
even more careful about the numerous basically frivolous patent suit scalping
companies with no assets to lose and no intention of profiting from a patent by
protecting a product they actually make.  Thats not easy to guarantee.  There
are quite a number of patent suits in the US won by a company that just bought
the patent rights *in order* to go to court with them.

The fact that noone has gone after yet freedesktop.org (or any other example of
someone 'under US law' who is not being as careful as RH is) has NO BEARING on
whether its safe to assume noone will try against Red Hat.  There is no legal
standing with patents to say 'they infringed on it before us so its ok'.  The RH
legal guys are being reasonably cautious regarding codecs; they know they
*could* go right ahead and drop them in, but they also know that could cause
headaches later.