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

Linus Torvalds
2002-05-25T18:52:26Z

On Sat, 25 May 2002, Wolfgang Denk wrote:
> > On Sat, 25 May 2002, Wolfgang Denk wrote:
> > >
> > > What do you think: it it OK (both from the legal and from the ethic
> > > point of view) that somebody writes and distributes proprietary
> > > application code?
> >
> > That's not my point.
> ...
> > Have I made myself sufficiently clear by splitting up the issues into a
> > technical part and a FUD part?
>
> Yes, and I completely agree with you.
>
> Nevertheless, you din't answer above question with a clear "yes" or
> "no"...

Am I going to sue the RTAI people for doing something like what they are
doing, considering it "illegal" or "immoral"? Obviously the answer there
is "no". It's not illegal to disagree with my opinions (*).

But I don't want to have their FUD down my throat either.

Getting people to say "patent issues" to some random inquiry isn't all
that hard. It's something that it's easy to blame all your problems on,
and it's something that the open source crowd tends to lap up a bit too
eagerly in my opinion ("ooh, if it weren't for those evil patents, we'd
rule the world").

It's a hot button, and as such a really easy target for FUD.

Linus

(*) Although it obviously _should_ be. Mwhaahahahahaaa... You unbelievers
will all be shot when the revolution comes!