Re: [gentoo-dev] Guidance on distributed patented software

["Robin H. Johnson" <robbat2@gentoo.org>]

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On Mon, Sep 20, 2021 at 01:27:37PM -0400, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 20, 2021 at 12:46 PM Alec Warner <antarus@gentoo.org> wrote:
> >
> > Could we add some text to the license concepts covering patents? It
> > seems to have been omitted?
> > Is my understanding of how we manage patented software correct?
> 
> I think you have the gist of it.  Is there actually anything in the
> repo these days which is patent-encumbered?  I realize this is a
> little tangential, but I think this is probably why we don't have a
> well-thought policy: it just doesn't come up much.
Elliptic Curve cryptography is the most topical & impactful thing I'm
aware of.

RedHat have for many years stripped parts of it out of their OpenSSL &
libgcrypt packages, and continue to do it with OpenSSL-3 [1] (I note
that somebody has dropped these patches from Gentoo's openssl as of v3
and I intend to restore them).

RedHat's legal team clearly know something there that they aren't
disclosing the details of publicly, because the patches said the patents
expire in 2020, but when I asked off-list if EC could be re-enabled
based on the expiry dates in the files, they claimed that patent issues
were still present, without giving any detail.

Somebody else ALSO asked about the Brainpool EC curves specifically and
similarly got nowhere [2].

[1] https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/openssl/c/347681c6b246d9b6a08c73bb40e5eefaf8596d71?branch=rawhide
[2] https://www.spinics.net/linux/fedora/fedora-legal/msg03673.html

I feel that generally software patents as an issue for FOSS became less
common because of patent grant programs: grants existed to encourage
broad adoption of newer ideas from patents.

> Things that used to be patent-encumbered that were prevalent in FOSS
> in the past include:
> 1. The GIF file format.
> 2. FAT-based filesystems.
> 3. MPEG-related codecs (codecs might be a space where patents are
> still relevant).
> 4. RSA
I have some more fields for patents to add, where I believe active
patents DO still exist:

5. Elliptic Curve cryptography
6. "Quantum" cryptography
7. 3D Printing
8. DRM
9. UAVs/Drones (also hits EAR/ITAR)
10. Rocketry (also hits EAR/ITAR)

Other past patent stuff touching open source:
11. Model Trains (see JMRI vs Katzer)

-- 
Robin Hugh Johnson
Gentoo Linux: Dev, Infra Lead, Foundation Treasurer
E-Mail   : robbat2@gentoo.org
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