Re: [OT] use of patented algorithms in the kernel ok or not?

[Lennert Buytenhek <buytenh@gnu.org>]

On Sat, Dec 20, 2003 at 05:25:04PM -0800, jw schultz wrote:

> > What am I to do?  Ignore the patent?  Or should I refrain from submitting
> > the patch I wrote, and look for an unencumbered algorithm instead?
> 
> This whole thing seems strange to me.
> 
> Why do you even know the algorithm is patented?  And if you
> knew it was, why implement it?  If you implemented it and
> then did a search you poisoned yourself.

I implemented the algorithm, and before submitting it, I asked
the authors of the paper I used to implement the algorithm what
the patent status of this algorithm is.  The paper doesn't say
anything about any patents (in retrospect, obviously it wouldn't.)


> I've not poked around in the routing code but it seems to me
> that the kernel would need a longest-prefix match algorithm
> already so you shouldn't have to look far for one.

There is one already, and it's suboptimal, to say it mildly.


> As for asking the patent holder for a license.  If the
> patent were owned by a network hardware company i cannot see
> them licensing it because the speed of their equipment is
> their competitive advantage.  But you indicated the the
> patent is not owned by the HW company but exclusively
> licensed.  An existing exclusive license would preclude
> FLOSS being granted a license and a gratis sublicense would 
> likely violate the existing license.

I asked this question on l-k because there seem to be many 'common'
techniques in wide use which have US patents covering them.

Considering the circumstances, yes, licensing is probably out of the
question.


> It would be completely OT to wonder at what point source
> code crossed the line of expressing information of public
> record into being a patent violation. <niggle>

I wouldn't be surprised if publishing source code implementing a patented
algorithm would itself be considered as a patent violation (I'm not saying
that it would make sense to me though.)

I think this l-k thread was sufficiently instructive for me to decide that
I won't be publishing my implementation of this algorithm, and I'll just
wait until another (free) LPM algorithm pops up.


--L