Improvement: Difference between revisions
exacerbate? simple english? consistency? lemme sleep sometime?
(what it is legally, why it matters) |
(exacerbate? simple english? consistency? lemme sleep sometime?) |
||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
An '''improvement''', in [[patent]] law, is something that qualifies for a patent of its own. [[Required reintegration]] clauses in a [[software license]] (or presumably other types of [[license]] as well such as the [[GFDL]]) keep one unified "best version" licensed under the same terms as the original patent or copyrighted document. | An '''improvement''', in [[patent]] law, is something that qualifies for a patent of its own. [[Required reintegration]] clauses in a [[software license]] (or presumably other types of [[license]] as well such as the [[GFDL]]) keep one unified "best version" licensed under the same terms as the original patent or copyrighted document. | ||
The [[Consumerium License]] will have to specify how any [[improvement]] that is generated in the [[R&D wiki]] or [[opinion wiki]] or [[Consumerium maintenance]] etc. is to be documented, published, owned and integrated. To ignore this issue, as [[open source]] tries to do, is really quite a disaster and opens the door to a [[self-interested fork problem]] as various players and [[faction]]s all define their own "better versions" and patent them to prevent "the enemy" from using them. This in turn generates [[politics as usual]], which can be reduced somewhat by being clear about improvements from day one. Many [[threats]] and [[worst cases]] focus on this issue and how a [[fork]] can generate both improvements and | The [[Consumerium License]] will have to specify how any [[improvement]] that is generated in the [[R&D wiki]] or [[opinion wiki]] or [[Consumerium maintenance]] etc. is to be documented, published, owned and integrated. To ignore this issue, as [[open source]] tries to do, is really quite a disaster and opens the door to a [[self-interested fork problem]] as various players and [[faction]]s all define their own "better versions" and patent them to prevent "the enemy" from using them. This in turn generates [[politics as usual]], which can be reduced somewhat by being clear about improvements from day one. Many [[threats]] and [[worst cases]] focus on this issue and how a [[fork]] can generate both improvements and cause a [[bad copy problem]]. | ||