From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S269032AbUI2UnH (ORCPT ); Wed, 29 Sep 2004 16:43:07 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S269026AbUI2UnF (ORCPT ); Wed, 29 Sep 2004 16:43:05 -0400 Received: from c7ns3.center7.com ([216.250.142.14]:39917 "EHLO smtp.slc03.viawest.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S269032AbUI2Uim (ORCPT ); Wed, 29 Sep 2004 16:38:42 -0400 Message-ID: <415B152A.2010008@drdos.com> Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 14:03:54 -0600 From: "Jeff V. Merkey" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040510 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: jonathan@jonmasters.org Cc: Christoph Hellwig , Alan Cox , Robert Love , Ankit Jain , Linux Kernel Mailing List Subject: Re: processor affinity References: <20040928122517.9741.qmail@web52907.mail.yahoo.com> <41596F7F.1000905@drdos.com> <1096387088.4911.4.camel@betsy.boston.ximian.com> <41598B23.50702@drdos.com> <1096408318.13983.47.camel@localhost.localdomain> <415AE953.3070105@drdos.com> <20040929184510.A15692@infradead.org> <415B0BFA.6050203@drdos.com> <35fb2e5904092913081a802944@mail.gmail.com> <415B1064.1080302@drdos.com> <35fb2e590409291328458ebebd@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <35fb2e590409291328458ebebd@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Jon Masters wrote: >On Wed, 29 Sep 2004 13:43:32 -0600, Jeff V. Merkey wrote: > > > >>Since they are hiring as many top Linux folks as possible, and they have >>invested their entire future in Linux, I think their actions speak so loud, >> >> > >I only asked because I'd not heard of an official patent position from >them (but I've not looked) and I wondered if someone happened to know >- words are completely meaningless. > > > >Wow, tha'ts one bitter mail you sent. Sorry to hear about it but I'd >rather not start a general discussion about big business practices and >Novell - just interested in the patent situation. > >Jon. > > > Just letting you have a little insight into what their position might be. It's not bitter, it's factual, and I got over Novell a long time ago. They will probably ignore you for now, but in the future, if Linux contains IP from sources they consider theirs, it would be possible for them to shut out competitors without a license from them. Not only on this topic, but any other area their employees have contributed for which they hold patents. This case may be a special one, but anytime you use patented materials are even areas where there is a doubt there is exposure. I have a release from them and I can use any IP I retained in a non-tangible form that would have been theirs. So I can use this patent without concern of infringement claims. But since I did not instrument the affinity code in Linux, it's not protected this way. NWFS is protected this way and people can use it without fear of claims from Novell. Jeff