Re: specificity of claims (was: SEPostgres - on track for 8.4?)

On Friday 24 October 2008 09:28:28 Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> Suggesting that people should start
> looking for such problems was in fact what Robert was saying, and I
> agree with Josh Berkus that it's a very bad idea to do so.
>

I did no such thing. I simply asked if anyone was looking into it. There is no
suggestion for anyone to go and do it if not, I just wanted to know if anyone
was currently doing it... maybe I wanted to tell them to stop.

Further I also said, in far fewer words that what you just dumped out, that if
someone does know about a patent the applies to postgresql code, that it is
best to bring it forward, rather than cover it up. I dont think you disagree
with that. And again, no suggestion to go looking for trouble.

Now, I would say that, IMHO, as the probability approaches 100% that you are
violating a patent, you might want to start to care somewhere before you
actually get to 100%, but I'm not going to speculate on where that line is
exactly. And I suppose it is possible that I mentioned the whole thing
because of the specific feature involved, my knowledge of other databases
systems, and the information that was told to me which I might not have
wanted to go into detail about on a public list...

But if you really think it is more likely that I am trying to get everyone to
start reading through patent databases in there spare time, at this point, I
guess I am comfortable letting you live with that assumption...

--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter LAMP :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL