Re: ARC patent

From: Bruce Momjian <pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us>
To: Dave Held <dave(dot)held(at)arrayservicesgrp(dot)com>
Cc: pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: ARC patent
Date: 2005-04-01 16:22:59
Message-ID: 200504011622.j31GMxI23797@candle.pha.pa.us
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Dave Held wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Marian POPESCU [mailto:softexpert(at)libertysurf(dot)fr]
> > Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 8:06 AM
> > To: pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org
> > Subject: Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
> >
> > >>>Neil Conway <neilc(at)samurai(dot)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.

--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us | (610) 359-1001
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