Re: ARC patent

Neil Conway <neilc(at)samurai(dot)com> writes:
> On Tue, 2005-01-18 at 23:26 -0500, Tom Lane wrote:
>> Not yet --- I suggested it but didn't get any yeas or nays. I don't
>> feel this is solely core's decision anyway ... what do the assembled
>> hackers think?

> I'm not aware of a recent example of short development cycles working
> well in this project.

Granted, but we haven't tried very hard either.

> I think the proper fix for the ARC issue is an 8.0.x release with a new
> replacement policy. To avoid introducing instability into 8.0, we should
> obviously test the new buffer replacement policy *very* carefully.

That testing isn't going to magically appear from somewhere. Unless the
proposed fix is only a very small variation on what we have (which seems
unlikely to get around the patent), I wouldn't have any confidence in it
until it's at least survived an 8.1 beta cycle. So I don't believe in
the concept of a near-term 8.0.x fix while 8.1 slides along on a slow
devel schedule.

What this really boils down to is whether we think we have
order-of-a-year before the patent is issued. I'm nervous about
assuming that. I'd like to have a plan that will produce a tested,
credible patch in less than six months.

regards, tom lane