Re: patent on O_ATOMICLOOKUP [Re: [PATCH] loopable tmpfs (2.4.17)]

Re: patent on O_ATOMICLOOKUP [Re: [PATCH] loopable tmpfs (2.4.17)]

[peter]

"Adam J. Richter" <adam@yggdrasil.com> wrote:
> 	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).

Forgive me for not trimming this, but it's so well said that it deserves
to be read again.

Whatever Red Hat does, it will be setting a precedent that will guide
later followers.  It can expect to be on the other end of the deal
later, so "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is
very relevant here.

Just in case someone thinks this isn't a critical issue, remember that
at least one hostile power, in the form of Microsoft:
- Has repeatedly described Linux as a number-one threat
- Has lots of lawyers, guns and money.  Well, if not guns, experience
  at software patent litigation.
- Is in the habit of buying companies for bits of intellectual property
  that interest them
- Is famous for gutting those companies in gruesome ways
- Has already identified (Hallowe'en documents) software patents as
  the most promising tool to attack free software
- Is watching very carefully.

If it's difficult to face the possibility of Red Hat at a bankruptcy
auction, consider threeguysinagarage.com.  And remember what the Church
of Scientology did to the Cult Awareness Network.


I don't mean to accuse Red Hat of anything in advance of the evidence, but
the legal obligations of a publicly traded company to its stockholders are
commonly interpreted as a requirement for purely selfish and utterly venal
(and generally very short-sighted) behaviour.  That makes me nervous.

Over Reaction! [Re: patent on O_ATOMICLOOKUP [Re: [PATCH] loopable tmpfs (2.4.17)]]

[Andre Hedrick]

Obviously it would be in everyone's best interest to set a position of
live and let live.  Everyone assumes they are going to do the wrong thing,
and that shows how the general community is thinking how do I get my piece
of the pie.  I guess we have reached the level of BSD now.

Maybe people should give then the benefit of the doubt; othewise, where do
we start the forks we have already, but not officially labelled as such?

$DISTRO-linux

This is what the larger business interests are hoping for the lemmings to
run off the cliff.  If they (UBL) is successful in fragmenting the
community then that interested party(ies) will be able to morph
GPL->BSDish and the game is over.

$0.02 and keep the change!

Andre Hedrick
LAD Storage Consulting Group

If you are a (UBL) interest holder, up yours dude!

On 28 May 2002 peter@horizon.com wrote:

> "Adam J. Richter" <adam@yggdrasil.com> wrote:
> > 	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).
> 
> Forgive me for not trimming this, but it's so well said that it deserves
> to be read again.
> 
> Whatever Red Hat does, it will be setting a precedent that will guide
> later followers.  It can expect to be on the other end of the deal
> later, so "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is
> very relevant here.
> 
> Just in case someone thinks this isn't a critical issue, remember that
> at least one hostile power, in the form of Microsoft:
> - Has repeatedly described Linux as a number-one threat
> - Has lots of lawyers, guns and money.  Well, if not guns, experience
>   at software patent litigation.
> - Is in the habit of buying companies for bits of intellectual property
>   that interest them
> - Is famous for gutting those companies in gruesome ways
> - Has already identified (Hallowe'en documents) software patents as
>   the most promising tool to attack free software
> - Is watching very carefully.
> 
> If it's difficult to face the possibility of Red Hat at a bankruptcy
> auction, consider threeguysinagarage.com.  And remember what the Church
> of Scientology did to the Cult Awareness Network.
> 
> 
> I don't mean to accuse Red Hat of anything in advance of the evidence, but
> the legal obligations of a publicly traded company to its stockholders are
> commonly interpreted as a requirement for purely selfish and utterly venal
> (and generally very short-sighted) behaviour.  That makes me nervous.
> -
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> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
> 

Re: Over Reaction! [Re: patent on O_ATOMICLOOKUP [Re: [PATCH] loopable tmpfs (2.4.17)]]

[peter]

> Obviously it would be in everyone's best interest to set a position of
> live and let live.  Everyone assumes they are going to do the wrong thing,
> and that shows how the general community is thinking how do I get my piece
> of the pie.  I guess we have reached the level of BSD now.

Perhaps I didn't take enough care in emphasizing
>> I don't mean to accuse Red Hat of anything in advance of the evidence

I'm worried, but still hopeful.  For starters, Alan Cox is on the inside,
and I own T-shirts describing his opinion on software patents.

I just wanted to echo Adam Richter's statement that Red Hat's actions
are going to have broad consequences, and I hope they'll think about
them carefully.  He showed remarkable insight, and expressed it very
well.

Re: patent on O_ATOMICLOOKUP [Re: [PATCH] loopable tmpfs (2.4.17)]

[Alan Cox]

On Tue, 2002-05-28 at 07:29, peter@horizon.com wrote:
> Whatever Red Hat does, it will be setting a precedent that will guide
> later followers.  

We know this. Red Hat has blazed trails before, as with the IPO friends
and family arrangement. Equally feedback is valuable. It is important we
get it right, and can I ask folks if we don't quite get it right on
round 1 to provide feedback to the Red Hat legal folks. *Productive*
feedback.

Alan