Re: patent on O_ATOMICLOOKUP [Re: [PATCH] loopable tmpfs (2.4.17)]

Larry McVoy
2002-05-25T05:39:51Z

On Sat, May 25, 2002 at 01:20:30AM -0400, Karim Yaghmour wrote:
> Oh wow, people and their arguments now get to be judged on this mailing list
> because of their revenue stream???

Yup, happens all the time.

> Again, I sell 0$ of software.
>
> I like real-time and embedded software and enjoy working on it. The
> fact that I'd like to see more of it being done with Linux is really
> a desire to be working on the best of everything I like: Linux,
> real-time and embedded.

Then you have absolutely no beef with the FSMlabs patent. Let's review:

a) you get to use it if the stuff built on it, all of it, is GPLed.
b) you build on GPLed stuff.

Seems like you either have no problem or you aren't disclosing the whole
story. I really don't understand why there is a problem here. 100%
GPLed is OK, so why do you have a problem?

> Thanks Larry, that's really helpful. Instead of finding actual arguments,
> researching the mailing lists, asking potential rt users, doing
> some background checks

Err, I was on the program committee for Usenix which rejected (over
my heated objections) the RT/Linux paper. Their idiotic comments were
"it doesn't do posix so it sucks". See Linus' comment about drivers,
I share that point of view. Drivers are not for people who want to be
programming in userspace.

My point is that I've been watching this area for a long time, I know
who you are, I know what RTAI is, I know the timelines, and while I'm
sure there are many people who know it all in much more detail than I,
I'm hardly what you'd call ignorant in the area.

> My own personnal future is certainly not at stake here,
> but Linux's is.

Personally, if I were depending on RT/whatever for my business, I'd be
much happier getting it from someone with a business model that makes
sense. It's in my best interest to know that they are going to be there
tomorrow, with enough revenue to develop and support the product. So
in that sense, I couldn't disagree more.
--
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Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitmover.com/lm