[ODE] Quickstep and patents

[Charlls Quarra]

--- metanet software <metanet_gda4 at yahoo.ca> escribió:

> hi,
> I'm working on a physics solver, and have recently
> discovered that  
several well-known techniques are in
> fact patented. I'm eager to opensource my project,
> however doing so will make it obvious what methods
> i'm using, and one of them is definitely patented. 
>

Well, i might sound overconfident, but i think there
are reasons _right now_ to NOT worry about this. ODE
has had quickstep probably before 2001 (check
archives) and it is released under BSD license.
Usually BSD is read like "do anything you want with
this" but i hesitate to believe that would include
"patent it and make it become non-compliant to that
patent retroactively". There are hundreds of thousands
of lines of valuable but orphaned code (like ODE)
below the BSD or even more relaxed licenses out there
in the world. That line of thought would lead us to
conclude that most of it can become unusable if some
company start to lay claims over it. The reality is
that no company has attempted that (With the well
known notable exception of SCO Unix of course). 




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