Re: ARC patent

On Monday 17 January 2005 15:15, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
> >If you want to poke around for 2 hours, I bet you wil find more patent
> >infringements.  And not looking doesn't protect you from patent
> >violations.  What is the point of removing this one.  Just because Neil
> >did some legwork.  Anyone could do some legwork and find some in any
> >software, I bet.
<snip>
>
> We have just admitted that we knowingly may infringe upon
> an IBM patent. That really is a different thing than,
> "We have some really smart people that came up with something,
> "like" this other technology".
>

Well, if I am reading that right, IBM doesn't actually have a patent on the 
technology yet, so we aren't releasing code that infringes on a patent as it 
remains to be seen whether or not the technology will be deemed patentable or 
if it is considered a natural evolution of other technology. 

That said a little bit of googling doesn't look promising for finding prior 
art, though that doesn't mean a case against can't be argued. 

> The reality I would bet is that IBM could give a flying roosters
> butt whether or not PostgreSQL infringes on their patents. However
> they will care very much, if Fujitsu or SRA does and we (the
> community) may have insured that.
>

Well, I don't know if they will care "very much", but it seems likely thier 
lawyers would contact people with ceast and desist letters which, imho would 
probably force the community to abondon any version of software with the arc 
implementation. Of course the genesis of all this was IBM opening these 
patents for use by open source projects, so if a scheme could be worked out 
leaving both an arc implementation and an lru implementation in place, with 
the understanding that the arc implementation would have issues for 
commercial distribution, it might be possible to keep both.  I also think 
that, as long as the software is being sold with an open source license (ie. 
where companies are basically reselling the community version of postgresql, 
or selling with another osi approved license) they should be in the clear. 

If folks are really concerned, there are a few things that should/could be 
done:
1) go back and see if there is a /. article about this (is it even possible 
there isn't?) and see if anyone else brought up these concerns.  If not, post 
some of these questions and see what kind of response you get.
2) There is a group (I think linked from larry lessigs website) that searches 
for prior art for software patents. You might bring this case to them and see 
if they have any interest in looking into it.  
3) See if you can find any other software packages (preferably commercial) 
that implement arc tech and see if they have looked into the issue. 
4) Have someone from the community contact IBM with some of these questions (a 
good candidate would be someone associated with the foundation) and see what 
thier take is.  I wouldn't expect much from this but you never know. 

-- 
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL