Re: ARC patent

On Mon, Jan 17, 2005 at 02:37:44PM -0500, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>
> We can modify the code slightly to hopefully avoid the patent. With the

I guess what I'm very much worried about is that there is
potentially-infringing code there, we know about it, and we may press
ahead and release with it anyway. IBM would justifiably jump on us
for that as a result. What I simply don't know is what they can
require be done as a remedy. If merely modifying the code is good
enough, fine. But given how widely the code base will be
disseminated, I'm worried they might demand that we somehow track it
down and get rid of it. That would be a significant distraction, I
think.

> US granting patents on even obvious ideas, I would think that most large
> software projects, including commercial ones, already have tons of
> patent violations in their code. Does anyone think otherwise?

First, that's hardly a justification, and second, they're not all
subject to inspection. Plus, this is a case where we _know_ about
the potential violation, and have had it pointed out to us, before
the code has been declared "released".

> However, I will grant that ARC is not an obvious idea.

Precisely, or we wouldn't be pleased with the implementation.

A

--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs(at)crankycanuck(dot)ca
I remember when computers were frustrating because they *did* exactly what
you told them to. That actually seems sort of quaint now.
--J.D. Baldwin