On Mon, 2004-03-22 at 06:17, Bob Jamison wrote:
But..... no... Think diplomatically.
The thing to do, is email the guy, and ask permission to do the thing!! Tell him that we can be a testbed for his ideas. He might actually be enthused that there is an application to exemplify his idea.
Well, one, the ideas really aren't that new. After having talked to Nathan about the math, on principle the patent shouldn't be granted, IMO.
Secondly, it's a corporation (Geniaal), not an individual guy. Corporations (in my experience) don't negotiate like that.
And anyway, the only way it would work for us with respect to the GPL patent requirements would be if they licensed the patent for free to on a non-descriminatory basis (i.e. to all GPLed implementations [not just us], at least).
Since, judging by their web site, the company's sole business model is to license this particular piece of math, I don't see them very willing to do that.
-mental