From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Sat, 25 May 2002 16:08:22 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Sat, 25 May 2002 16:08:21 -0400 Received: from dsl-213-023-040-043.arcor-ip.net ([213.23.40.43]:48847 "EHLO starship") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Sat, 25 May 2002 16:08:20 -0400 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII From: Daniel Phillips To: Karim Yaghmour , Linus Torvalds Subject: Re: patent on O_ATOMICLOOKUP [Re: [PATCH] loopable tmpfs (2.4.17)] Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 22:07:37 +0200 X-Mailer: KMail [version 1.3.2] Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org In-Reply-To: <3CEFCE9F.9C0D5A8C@opersys.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Message-Id: Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Saturday 25 May 2002 19:49, Karim Yaghmour wrote: > > The thing that disgusts me is that this "patent" thing is used as a > > complete red herring, and the real issue is that some people don't like > > the fact that the kernel is under the GPL. Tough cookies. > > I have no disagreement with the kernel being GPL. I'd like to take this opportunity to take a turn back towards the original issue: supposing that Ingo's/Red Hat's patented extension to the dcache is accepted into the kernel. Would not the GPL's patent trap provision prevent Red Hat from distributing the result, unless Red Hat also provides a license for the patent permitting unrestricted use *regardless of commercial or noncommercial use* of the patent in the context of the GPL'd code? So it's either provide the license, or don't incorporate the code into Linux. (The issue of whether it's a good thing that the latter course would also foreclose anybody else from using the same technique is separate.) Supposing that Red Hat distributes a version of Linux accompanied with the appropriate license, so that the result can be distributed in compliance with the GPL: could Red Hat then prevent other distributors from distributing their own version of Linux that has the same extension? I hope not, otherwise we have a real problem. -- Daniel