Pablo Manuel Rizzo wrote:
Software patents does not exists in my country and the same is valid for many other countries around the world. If software patents are legal in some country and the patent exists, that feature could be disabled for that countries, but *only* after Google complaints. Conversation grouping could be an installable module.
That's why I don't care. Software patents should not stop Free Software developers :-)
Good point. This doesn't exactly follow your argument, but:
A lack of commitment from the roundcube devs on this feature should not stop Free Software either! If you were to build and offer a nicely integrated gmail-like threading feature for roundcube as free software, I would support adding it to the project and probably others would as well. I like how roundcube is simple, but gmail-style threading is a very unique and well liked feature AFAIK.
Unless roundcube has patent lawyers that they can consult in the states, there isn't much that a small development group can do about potential patents. Someone could ask google if they hold any related patents I suppose, but volunteer geeks can't very well screen their work for patent violations because there are too many patents that would need to be examined. It just doesn't seem practical to me. For all I know roundcube could be "violating" any number of patents as we speak.
Anyone agree? Disagree?
Peace,
- Sam Nilsson