Z:gnu-www-ja-free-system-distribution-guidelines--219b24-It is effectively impossible f/en

It is effectively impossible for free software developers and distributors to know whether or not a given piece of software infringes any patents: there are too many of them, they vary from country to country, they're often worded so as to make it hard to tell what they do or don't cover, and it isn't easy to tell which ones are valid. Therefore, we don't generally ask free system distributions to exclude software because of possible threats from patents. On the other hand, we also don't object if a distributor chooses to omit some software in order to avoid patent risk.