Re: ARC patent

On Mon, 2005-01-17 at 12:30 -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> The biggest problem is going to be that if we release 8 with
> the patented stuff, then for a minimum of 3 years there will
> be liability for anyone running 8.
> 
> We still have people running 7.1 and once you get something
> into production you typically don't just "change" it.

Keep in mind that it would be conceivable to ship an 8.0.x release which
replaces ARC with another algorithm. That would be a somewhat
non-trivial change, but there's no reason we need to wait for a major
release (i.e. 8.1 or 8.2) to replace ARC.

> Basically I think the fact that we are even considering leaving
> the knowingly infringing code in 8 is presenting a horrible
> face to the community.

I agree with Tom -- this shouldn't be an impediment to releasing 8.0,
but it definitely warrants attention in the future.

-Neil