From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Mon, 27 May 2002 17:52:22 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Mon, 27 May 2002 17:52:21 -0400 Received: from h-64-105-136-78.SNVACAID.covad.net ([64.105.136.78]:34706 "EHLO freya.yggdrasil.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Mon, 27 May 2002 17:52:20 -0400 From: "Adam J. Richter" Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 14:52:13 -0700 Message-Id: <200205272152.OAA03070@adam.yggdrasil.com> To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: patent on O_ATOMICLOOKUP [Re: [PATCH] loopable tmpfs (2.4.17)] Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org If Red Hat is able to leave the licensing issues for their Linux patents unresolved and they still manage to be regarded as being in good standing with most contributors and would-be customers, then, in the coming months, many other Linux companies will take this is a green light to file for many patents and remain silent when asked to explictly grant permission to the public to practice the patents in free software. There is little or no business reason to publicly grant such permission if one can get away with not doing so. Although other companies today already have many patents that they could argue are infringed by certain free software components. The Linux patents are different as a practical matter, however, in that the chance of prevailing in that argument will be greater when if alleged infringer is using the code for which the patent was originally submitted. Eventually, as some companies are bought or go out of business, it is a statistical certainty that some of these patents will pass into the control of parties that do not care about the GPL's penalties for enforcing a software patent (after all, that would allow litigation only against copiers of the software, and a copyright owner would have to sue, which is approximately already the level of danger one has with an unlicensed software patent). Adam J. Richter __ ______________ 575 Oroville Road adam@yggdrasil.com \ / Milpitas, California 95035 +1 408 309-6081 | g g d r a s i l United States of America "Free Software For The Rest Of Us."