Patents != patents ?

[Ralf Corsepius]

On Fri, 2006-09-29 at 10:56 +0200, Axel Thimm wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 29, 2006 at 10:37:55AM +0200, Linus Walleij wrote:
> > On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Axel Thimm wrote:
> > 
> > >I would ask the patent holders if they can explicitely allow Fedora
> > >redistribution of vtk if it is deemed a viable modus by fedora
> > >(legal?).
> > 
> > Which license is vtk under? If it is BSD-like I understand the issue, but 
> > if it's (L)GPL the license text says it implies that the authors give a 
> > royalty-free license of their own patents for anyone using the code under 
> > the (L)GPL, and this is actually quite common I think, and then there is 
> > no issue, we (all (L)GPL software) already have a license for the patents.
> 
> Unfortunately it's BSD like. I wasn't aware of this kind of difference
> between the licenses, thanks for clarifying.
> 
> Still the issue remains: The authors have hold of the patents and
> fedora extras would need special permission.
I fail to understand this issue - I don't see how them holding patents
matters at all:

The authors are selling a product and grant their product's users
certain rights to use their product (aka. "License").

I my understanding, this license also means _them_ granting _their_
users certain rights to use _their_ intellectual property as part of
their works. Wrt. to this, I don't see how a patented algorithm would be
any different from copyright.


Ralf