> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bruce Momjian [mailto:pgman@candle.pha.pa.us]
> Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 10:23 AM
> To: Dave Held
> Cc: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
> Subject: Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
>
>
> Dave Held wrote:
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Marian POPESCU [mailto:softexpert@libertysurf.fr]
> > > Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 8:06 AM
> > > To: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
> > > Subject: Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
> > >
> > > >>>Neil Conway <neilc@samurai.com> writes:
> > > >>>
> > > >>>
> > > >>>>FYI, IBM has applied for a patent on ARC (AFAICS the
> > > >>>>patent application is still pending, although the USPTO
> > > >>>>site is a little hard to grok):
> > > >>>
> > > >>>Ugh. We could hope that the patent wouldn't be granted,
> > > >>>but I think it unlikely, unless Jan is aware of prior art
> > > >>>(like a publication predating the filing date). I fear we'll
> > > >>>have to change or remove that code.
> >
> > Why not just ask IBM for a free license first? After all, they put
> > 1,000+ patents in the public domain or something, didn't they? I
> > realize that they might use this technology in DB2, and don't want
> > to encourage competitors. But IBM seems a lot more friendly to OSS
> > than most companies, and it doesn't seem like it would hurt to ask.
> > At the worst they say "no" and you just proceed as you would have
> > originally.
>
> The problem is that they would have to license all commercial,
> closed-source distributions of PostgreSQL too, and I doubt
> they would do
> that.
Why would they have to do that? Why couldn't they just give a license
for OSS distributions of PostgreSQL, and make commercial distributions
obtain their own license for the ARC code? Doesn't IBM hire lawyers
exactly for the purpose of writing complicated legal documents of this
nature? ;> Or is it that the Postgres team wouldn't use an algorithm
that wasn't freely available to everyone?
__
David B. Held
Software Engineer/Array Services Group
200 14th Ave. East, Sartell, MN 56377
320.534.3637 320.253.7800 800.752.8129
