Steve McIntyre is the recently elected Debian Prioject Leader. He is a software engineer and a long-time Debian developer. His best known contributions have been in the field of creating Debian CD/DVD images; he is the Debian-cd team leader and is responsible for generating the official images.

What's your view on the encumbered patent deals that some Linux distributions have signed up to (e.g. Xandros, Linspire)? What do you think will be the effect on Linux in particular and FOSS in general?

I can understand that some companies may feel more comfortable by signing that kind of deal to cover themselves. Some markets like the US are notorious for problems with software patents, and I guess it comes down to a simple business decision to weigh up the costs of doing this kind of deal against the potential costs of a legal defence against a patent attack (baseless or not).

However, I strongly feel that making this kind of deal is a mistake in the longer term. It lends legitimacy to the software patent system and in particular to whatever patents may be mentioned in these deals. Doing that is bad in and of itself, but it will also lead to reduced support by the community. Free Software and its developers can only be damaged by the software patent system.

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