A Possible Workaround For The S3TC Patent Situation

[F.Ultra]

Debian as a project on its own is not registered anywhere (it's not a legal entity) AFAIK, but SPI (which provides services to them, like handling their finances to some degree) is registered in the US as a non-profit. In theory Debian does not have to care, but individual developers and SPI might be vulnerable to lawsuits (even if I doubt SPI can be held legally responsible for anything Debian does, a lawsuit by a company with lots of cash could force them into bankruptcy, meanwhile blocking (or stealing away) important Debian projects fundings...).

Regardless of where you are registered a court can still order you illegal in the US meaning all US mirrors has to be closed down. What loss if any that would be to Debian I don't know.

But we also has to remember that patent law does not only apply to the distribution, all users of Debian is also a target for litigation if Debian haven't licensed the patent in such a way that it's users are covered. There was a company a few years ago that had patents against MSSQL and they never sued Microsoft, instead they sued a few companies that they knew used MSSQL.

[divVerent]

They could only go after users of which they know they use S3TC compression algorithms.

I.e. only users who

• use runtime compression (as opposed to making precompressed textures with nvcompress or Compressonator)
• use software rendering with runtime decompression (e.g. llvmpipe with S3TC input)
• happen to encounter a software fallback path

Whether someone does, is near impossible to find out unless they tell on their own...

This is different from e.g. using MSSQL, which e.g. may appear visibly on error message pages.

[F.Ultra]

It might be sufficient to have the S3TC enabled software installed.

[Eduard Munteanu]

Come on, let's be realistic. How likely is it for an average Joe to get caught running, say, VDrift with S3TC enabled? He (or someone willing to enable him) could even set up an encrypted S3TC runner that contains all the encumbered code. It's not like IP enforcement is easy or cheap anyway. What will they do, go after average Linux gamers?

Besides, I don't think major distributions have to take huge risks to enable this. Just provide a dialog box with a big warning and a download link, much like Gentoo handles fetch restrictions. The encumbered software itself could easily be hosted by somebody else, somewhere else.

If FOSS people aren't giving them a hard time, then who is? Also, like I previously said, remember this isn't only about S3TC: in many cases it's really unclear whether some piece of code infringes on patents.

[crispy]

I'm not sure simply ignoring a patent somehow makes it go away...

Actually it does if they dont sue and know about the 'infringing'.

[F.Ultra]

Besides, I don't think major distributions have to take huge risks to enable this. Just provide a dialog box with a big warning and a download link, much like Gentoo handles fetch restrictions. The encumbered software itself could easily be hosted by somebody else, somewhere else.

But that makes the distribution liable for "enabling their users to use the patent without a license" and that will probably be seen as illegal by a court.

Actually it does if they dont sue and know about the 'infringing'.

They can freely choose when and who to sue at any time. Even if they knew that you used the patent they can sue you 19 years later and claim damages due to 19 years of you using the patent without paying a license.

Add to that that sometime in the future probably even individual users will be targeted, the patent trolls like Lodsys consists only of layers so for them to litigate in court is completely free of charge, while you have to pay your lawyer a substantial amount of money meaning that you will more likely pay a settlement than bring the case to court (this is how the entertainment industry earns money from (supposedly) file sharers).

[smitty3268]

Actually it does if they dont sue and know about the 'infringing'.

The owners of the MP3 patents would beg to differ.

[DeepDayze]

The owners of the MP3 patents would beg to differ.

Isn't that Thomson/Fraunhofer? The mp3 patents should be expiring soon

[deanjo]

Isn't that Thomson/Fraunhofer? The mp3 patents should be expiring soon

2017 for the last of them.

[smitty3268]

The point is that the patents weren't enforced early on, but then after the mp3 format was being used everywhere they suddenly started charging money and threatening people with lawsuits. I never heard anyone claim that their patents weren't valid just because they didn't enforce them immediately.