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

[Karim Yaghmour <karim@opersys.com>]

Larry McVoy wrote:
> Err, I'm willing to believe that this is all hurting you badly, from what
> I can gather, you make your money off of RTAI.  That means you have a
> beef with FSMlabs because they hold the patent on technology you need
> for your revenue stream.  That's a problem for you, butI fail to see
> who that turns into a problem for Linux.

Oh wow, people and their arguments now get to be judged on this mailing list
because of their revenue stream???

I'm certainly not going to start discussing how much I make and where
it comes from, but I can assure you that RTAI is currently not part
of my revenue stream and that I'm making a very good living without
it.

> Oh, come on.  Yeah, there have been lots of visible failures but my
> opinion is that it is exaclty because of a lack of anything like this
> patent.  You need a business model.  If you have no IP then it's
> awfully hard to sell what you don't own for more than the next guy.
> The free market will drive the price down to the absolute minimum
> possible, which will amount to consulting fees for enhancements and
> bug fixes and that's it.  Life is hard.

Again, I sell 0$ of software.

But all this is total crap Larry and, for what's it's worth, I find
your comments quite insulting.

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.

> the patent is invalid, you are welcome to challenge it in court.  If you
> aren't going to do that, then I fail to see how raising a stink here is
> going to help you.  If anything, it's going to make more clear that you
> don't own the technology on which you depend for your revenue.  Not a
> good business position...

Thanks Larry, that's really helpful. Instead of finding actual arguments,
researching the mailing lists, asking potential rt users, doing
some background checks, and trying out the software, all you can find
to say is that you "fail to see how raising a stink here is going to
help" me.

Forget about who I am and forget about what I do and please don't take
my word for anything I wrote. Ask around. Try posting your questions to
the following lists and see what you get or even try the archives:
rtl-advocacy@rtlinux.org
rtai@rtai.org

It seems that the LKML prefers to ignore the issue. Fair enough. I
did my part, I conveyed the worries of the rest of real-time Linux
community. My own personnal future is certainly not at stake here,
but Linux's is.

Thanks anyway Larry,

Karim

===================================================
                 Karim Yaghmour
               karim@opersys.com
      Embedded and Real-Time Linux Expert
===================================================