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Hi Neil Thanks for your letter, yes I am aware that you have been in contact with Bob. However what I fail to see is why this is relevant in this case. (I am not implying your input was not important, but I do not think it has to do with the current problem). Surely the problem is that KAM industries is claiming that they invented the system used (by both them and JMRI) to talk between the computer and the command station. And they go on to say that Bob must pay them a royalty for every free copy of JMRI which has been distributed. To my mind it is irrelevant who invented it first, as most software engineers have the same "box of tools", and presented with the same problem will come out roughly with the same answer. What worries me is that as we in this country seem only to import the bad things from the US, so it will happen here. One then has the vision of anyone of us, sitting at home, writting a bit of code to solve a problem, perhaps giving copies to friends, and then being hit by a big player. (And it appears that most of us end up paying up and shutting up, the risks of taking on a large "whatever" are just to great for most of us. I hate M$ bashing but they have (a something) which is buying up software patents and ideas and registering them. (Using the broadest possible language). I feel the ramifications of the JMRI case will be felt throughout the US and also here. If he looses I think it will be a great blow to free software. You ask what I have done, well as you can see from the terminology used in my letter I am not "up to speed" on such things. I have obviously contributed to the "fighting fund". Thanks for hearing me out. Peter -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html