[vlc] Busting patent law myths

[J.B. Nicholson-Owens]

Rémi Denis-Courmont wrote:
> It is surely not a myth. They (Linux distributors) are surely not responsible 
> for third parties distributing would-be patent encumbered software for their 
> distribution, under any remotely sensible legal system.

This doesn't address the point I raised.  Any distributor is responsible 
for what they distribute, not what others distribute.  I'm guessing this 
is why Red Hat doesn't distribute VLC; VLC has an MP3 decoder in it and 
therefore (in the US, where Red Hat is based) has a good chance of 
infringing on Fraunhofer's (actively-enforced) MP3 decoding patents.

> If it were false, I wonder how Microsoft would not have gone bankrupt out of 
> paying patent infringment damages, since it is their platform that has both 
> the largest user base and the largest set of applications from third parties.

Large patent-holders (such as Microsoft but most notably IBM) often 
cross-license with one another.  IBM said they get an order of magnitude 
more value from cross-licensing patents than they get from collecting 
patent license fees 
(http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Links/prep.ai.mit.edu/ibm.think.article).  See 
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/software-patents.html for more on the 
value of cross-licensing for multinational mega-corporations.

I still don't see the logic behind the idea of distributing source code 
as a means of evading patent law (again, only applicable in countries 
that have software patents).  If this were so, there would be no 
practical threat from software patents as we'd all exclusively 
distribute source code and any ideas implemented in that code would be 
immune from patent infringement.

I also don't see how those from software patent-encumbered countries 
(like the US) are somehow immune from risking losing a patent 
infringement lawsuit when they obtain software from a country that 
doesn't have software patents (like France).  If this were so, FLOSS 
development would mostly come from countries without software patents 
and again the threat of software patents would be minimal.  Hence, I can 
see why Americans would be reluctant to distribute VLC where the French 
are not.