Fedora - DELL ?

[Les Mikesell]

Andy Green wrote:
> 
>> That's a valid point, but in the US anyone can sue anyone else over 
>> just about anything and it's not over till the appeals are used up.  
>> How can you be sure that someone won't claim ownership of some obscure 
>> parts of Linux and sue over that - again?
> 
> What is your point here?  Because on any given car journey you might get 
> rear-ended you should just revv it up and drive it into a wall?

My point is that the mp3 patent suit against Microsoft is an oddball 
case, not really settled yet, and not relevant to the real issue which 
is how to legally obtain the components you need to use together.

> If MSFT have a secret stock of attack patents that can't be helped.  A 
> Meteorite could land on our heads any time.  But for sure MP3 will get 
> someone like Redhat attacked at the moment seeing as Microsoft are 
> attacked successfully.

Exactly, so the question for any potential user is, how do they get a 
complete, legal system that does everything they need and are willing to 
meet the licensing requirement for.  In the mp3 case I'm perfectly 
willing to spend some small amount towards licensing and in fact have 
(probably like most of us) done so as a part of the cost of several 
devices and OS's.  I'm not particularly interested in arranging my own 
licensing with some vast number of individual copyright/patent holders 
though, so what is the appropriate way to do this and deliver it 
together with GPL'd content?

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com