OT - Curl & patents

[Christopher Barber <address@hidden>]

Richard Uhtenwoldt <ru@river.org> writes:

> In article <psoelip8w5n.fsf@jekyll.curl.com>,
> 
> >> - I ain't about to pay anybody a fee per kb of code executed! No way, no
> >> how.
> >

>>That is understandable, many people have objected to this business model and
>>we are planning to modify it, but I don't know the exact details.  If the
>>only thing stopping you from considering using Curl commercially is the
>>business model, I would encourage you to contact our sales people to work
>>something out.

> The page http://www.curl.com/html/legal.jsp contains 290 lines of
> legalese about curl.com's web *pages*.  I assume there is a separate
> license for any software downloaded from the site.
> 
> Clearly, Curl, Inc, is a very lawyer-centric place.

Most companies are, but please don't judge the product by this.
 
> at http://www.eaijournal.com/News.asp?Newsid=637 I find that Curl
> "contains patent-pending configuration and versioning technology that
> enables content built with any version of the Curl content language to
> be executed."
> 
> Programming-language design has been the focus of vigorous research
> and innovation for 45 years *without* any intellectual-property
> inducements.  Implementations have been covered by copyright, but the
> languages themselves have been covered by neither patents or
> copyrights. 

> Can you say more about Curl's patents and about how they might
> interfere with the freedom of future programming-language
> designers?

I think that if you were to look for patents filed by Applet, Microsoft, Sun,
Macromedia et al you would find many patents in the area of compiler and
language technology.  Most companies involved in developing new technology
patent their innovations when they can.

I don't see why our patents would hamper the further development of
programming languages any more than any existing patents have.  Keep in mind
that as far as language features go, it is hard to come up with anything that
has not been done before in one language or another.

As an engineer, I have mixed feelings about software patents, but given that
the law allows them to exist, it makes business sense for Curl to try to
protect our stockholders considerable investment.  We are not really trying to
protect ourselves from academic language designers, but from larger commercial
competitors.

- Christopher