On 07/27/2018 01:01 PM, Andres Freund wrote:
> the patch and people doing so can reasonably be expected to know about
> the patents, making further contributions by them worse.
I'm not sure this line of thinking, which seems rooted in notions of
tainted or cleanroom development from the copyright world, has the
same force wrt patents.
Sometimes a good understanding of a patented technique, including
just what aspects of it are claimed or not in the patent's claims
section, will be just what you need in order to be confident that
an alternative approach you've devised really is different in the
ways that matter. I don't think it automatically casts a cloud on
the work as it would in the copyright case.
-Chap