From: jthomas@kolanut.mitre.org (Joe Thomas)
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 93 08:06:58 PDT
To: peter honeyman <honey@citi.umich.edu>
Subject: Re: birth of Software Patent Institute
Message-ID: <9308111505.AA02818@kolanut>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


> > the first question to ask would be whether they're in
> touch with LPF at all.
> 

> the next question would be whether lpf is willing to work
> with them. rms has never been known to put progress ahead
> of politics.

First, rms isn't the LPF.  He's practically the FSF, and supports the  
LPF, but the two organizations aren't synonymous.  


Second, I believe the LPF has made an official statement that they  
will _not_ work with SPI.  SPI is primarily funded by large holders  
of software patents, and LPF believes that this database will give  
patent holders an advantage in defending their patents in court (i.e.  
against suits by LPF to invalidate the patents).  I'm not even a  
member of the LPF; you should write to them for their actual  
arguments.

Third, I'm not sure this is appropriate to the list, unless someone  
expects to find "folklore" about public key cryptography that  
predates RSA, etc.

Joe