Nokia to acquire Trolltech

[Eduardo Robles]

I've found an interview [1] at the DOT to Eirik Eng,* *president of
Trolltech in 2004. At the end of the interview, Eirik is asked about the
position of Trolltech and software patents.

This is his answer:

"Trolltech is against software patenting. We think it is a bad thing and we
see with horror what is happening to the US software market because of the
patent policy over there. From my limited understanding of the subject, US
patent law isn't that bad, it's the actual application of that law by the US
patent office which is the problem. We sincerely hope that we will not get a
parallel situation in Europe and we think that would be a catastrophe to the
software industry in Europe. We think that we are well protected by
copyright laws and other laws. we think that software is a very different
product from other types of commercial production products. And we think
that it is very important for innovation that people can continue to share
ideas and that companies are not allowed to patent things which are very
obvious."


Will this still be the position of Trolltech when acquired by Nokia? I don't
think so. I'll belive it when I read it, straight in nokia.com signed by
them, and when they join forces with the FFII and enter in campaings like
nosoftwarepatents.com. Working in favor of software patents means working
against open source and against the community.

--
[1] http://dot.kde.org/1081772638/
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