[ILUG] Re: ILUG sends s/w patents briefing document to Irish MEPs

[Gavin McCullagh]

Hi,

Joseph Kiniry wrote:

> On 21 Mar, 2005, at 21:03, Paul O'Malley wrote:
>
>> Joseph Kiniry wrote:
>>
>>> Also, how often do you believe that serious modern "for profit" 
>>> software development does not require significant capital?
>>
>> I believe the following to be examples of serious modern and for 
>> profit software development.
>>
>> (A) Iona
>> (B) Mandrakesoft
>> (C) Novell/SuSE
>> (D) Redhat
>> (E) Sage (not the system administrators guild :))

> Ok.  But you still did not answer the question.  You gave me a list of 
> some companies, some of which focus on FOSS-based technologies, and 
> others which to my knowledge do not.
>
> Are you suggesting that none of these companies required significant 
> capital to develop the software that is the core of their businesses?

I think what Paul is pointing out is that while these companies do require
significant capital they do not require software patents to recoup/justify
it.  Your point (as I understood it, please correct) was that software
patents are needed to recoup/justify this capital.  The above companies
seem to be some of many contradictory examples.

Gavin