From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Sat, 25 May 2002 01:00:03 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Sat, 25 May 2002 01:00:02 -0400 Received: from bitmover.com ([192.132.92.2]:34256 "EHLO bitmover.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Sat, 25 May 2002 01:00:01 -0400 Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 22:00:02 -0700 From: Larry McVoy To: Karim Yaghmour Cc: Larry McVoy , Linus Torvalds , Andrea Arcangeli , Dan Kegel , Andrew Morton , Hugh Dickins , Christoph Rohland , Jens Axboe , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: patent on O_ATOMICLOOKUP [Re: [PATCH] loopable tmpfs (2.4.17)] Message-ID: <20020524220002.C22643@work.bitmover.com> Mail-Followup-To: Larry McVoy , Karim Yaghmour , Larry McVoy , Linus Torvalds , Andrea Arcangeli , Dan Kegel , Andrew Morton , Hugh Dickins , Christoph Rohland , Jens Axboe , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org In-Reply-To: <3CEEC729.74625C2B@opersys.com> <20020524162228.D28795@work.bitmover.com> <3CEF139A.1572367C@opersys.com> <3CEF1780.95C7CE66@opersys.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5.1i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Sat, May 25, 2002 at 12:48:00AM -0400, Karim Yaghmour wrote: > "Anything which is not part of the patent's claims is not covered by > the patent, and can be done by anyone anywhere anytime, without regard > to the patent." Sure. As long as it does not depend on the patent to work. I don't care if Victor says that you have to love your mother in order to license his patent. If that's what he says, those are the terms. You are *paying* for the right to use the patent. His terms are that you are 100% GPL all the way through. OK, so deal with that. Eben is absolutely right - if you want to do something completely unrelated to the patent, which does not use any aspect of the patent, you are in the clear. Unfortunately for you & Eben, that's irrelevant if what you are doing doesn't work without RT/Linux. If that's true, you're using his patent and you have to pay his price. I really don't see the problem anyway. FSMlabs worked long and hard to produce their work. And took the time and effort to patent it. And they allow you to use it for free if you are working on 100% free stuff. That's pretty reasonable. Your only complaint seems to be that you can't make money off of it without licensing the technology. Why don't you just license it and be done with it? -- --- Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitmover.com/lm