On Wed, Oct 23, 2002 at 02:30:25PM -0500, Jeff Licquia wrote: > That doesn't sound right to me. (Though, really, what do I know? All > standard disclaimers apply.) > > I was under the impression that patents are use licenses, and are as > such tied to the use you make of the objects covered by them. You can > make a car engine that infringes on a particular patent, for example, > without a license; you just can't put it in your car and drive around. > If that particular configuration of metal just happens to be very good > at distributing water to a row of plants in a garden, the patent holder > is out of luck regarding my use of the engine as a watering can (unless > s/he owns the patent on that use of the engine as well). > > If I'm right, then the source file cannot be held as violating a patent > claim unless it's compiled and executed.
I believe Freetype still contains the Apple-patented hinting; it's disabled in the source, with documentation that says "enable this only if you have a license to use it". However, that might be at the permission of Apple. I don't know. -- Glenn Maynard
