Subject:
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Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct
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Date:
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Wed, 30 Apr 2003 02:52:33 GMT
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Viewed:
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2427 times
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In my opinion, what killed the community's enthusiuasm for working with LEGO
was LEGO's intention to patent the file format (and complicate it to do so.)
Since then, LEGO has obtained a government monopoly on CAD that is so broad,
it could even be construed to cover LDRAW (if not for the obvious fact that
LDRAW is prior art, aside from the lack of documentation of that fact.)
At the least, no one can know where they stand without hiring a lawyer.
Since we are writing code for free, that's not really in the cards.
For this reason, it is necessary for LEGO to freely license its
recently-acquired "intellectual property" (I emphasize the dubious nature of
software patents) if it wants something in return, i.e. that we all work
with LEGO for free. Anything less will leave uncertainty, fear and doubt.
The matter will probably never be clear. I doubt Compaq will license its
software patents for virtual LEGO.
-Erik
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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| (...) That's raises an interesting moral and ethical dilemma: Is it morally acceptable to support the LXF format? Do you think anyone will boycott it? (...) Aren't millions of copies of USENET articles dating back to 1994-5 documentation enough? (...) (21 years ago, 30-Apr-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Announcing LEGO Digital Designer 1.0
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| (...) But, whether or not it's meant to compete, it will compete, won't it? Or will it have such a limited parts selection that only kids would want to use it? What about the more complex powerful LEGO building tools mentioned below? Won't those (...) (21 years ago, 30-Apr-03, to lugnet.cad, lugnet.lego.direct)
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