Re: spring loaded folders

["Curtis C. Hovey" <chovey cox net>]

On Thu, 2003-02-20 at 03:36, Julien Olivier wrote:
> > I recall that the biggest stumbling block is that Apple patented
> > "spring-loaded folders".  It wasn't a high priority either.  I doubt the
> > feature will be officially added to nautilus until the patent issue is
> > settled.
> > 
> 
> I think software patents are stupid. More over, there is no software
> patent in Europe. So I don't see any problem with implementing patented
> features. That would only risk to make GNOME illegal in the USA, am I
> wrong ? What about fighting against software patents if European people
> already have to suffer from this American law ?

I quite agree.  As the Internet doesn't have national boarders, the
regional licensing and patent laws moot.  I would apply a spring-loaded
patch to nautilus today if I could.  But commercial distributions may
think twice about it.  Redhat shipped 8.0 without mp3 support--they
removed it from several applications to avoid a legal confrontation.  

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