Programs are mathematical proofs. If maths cannot be patented, software can’t be, either.
Judges and Justices are not that precise. They aim to preserved public order before anything else. If a whole industry is based on a questionable interpretation of patent, they is a lot of chances that judges would agree on it. Even in countries where you could not patent algorythm, industries patent the documentation, the “software design”, the brand name, the illustrations used, and aggregates everything together, to say they own it. And it works.
TL;DR : Class Justice
You can hear a more detailed explanation on VLC’s stance from the man himself (JB Kempf) in the FOSS pod S1E11 episode around 22:10.
Basically:
- Not that many threats become lawsuits
- Patent trolling is countered with publicly accessible prior art
- Having no money is also a good deterrent
Thanks for the heads up about FOSS pod. Had not heard of it before.
AFAIK european laws only allow to patent “inventions”. Software is considered to be a series of “words” in whatever programming language you’re using and, like sentences, it’s not an invention and can’t be patented.
On the other hand, software-assisted inventions can be patented as a whole.
With that said, software can still be considered a “work” protected by copyright laws.
And that’s fine. VLC does their own implementation of codecs so that’s not an issue. It’s the patents that make it an issue.
That’s not their stance, that’s French law
I think it both. Not all software or codec provider aim to apply the EU and French laws. Quite the contrary
This is all well and good, and where’s the Traffic Cone!?!
Under Santa’s hat
Asking the real questions here.
Can someone elaborate?
They don’t recognize or value software patents because they aren’t recognized by the government where the project is run from.
Vive la France!
Seeing the last law on immigration :/
We got fucked real bad but we are coming for our rulers and will take down their previous work
French laws don’t recognize software patents so videolan doesn’t either. This is likely a reference to vlc supporting h265 playback without verifying a license. These days most opensource software pretends that the h265 patents and licensing fees don’t exist for convenience. I believe libavcodec is distributed with support enabled by default.
Nearly every device with hardware accelerated h265 support has already had the license paid for, so there’s not much point in enforcing it. Only large companies like Microsoft and Red Hat bother.
They bother because they are US based and can be hounded by the patent
trollsholders
