Z:gnu-www-ja-stallman-mec-india--f9f715-When the United States entered/en

When the United States entered World War I, nobody in the US could make a modern airplane. And the reason was that modern airplanes use several different techniques that were patented by different companies, and the owners hated each other. So nobody could get a license to use all these patents. Well, the US government decided that this was an unacceptable state of affairs, and essentially paid those patent holders a lump sum and said &ldquo;we have nationalized these patents; now, everybody, go make airplanes for us!&rdquo;