Re: How can we submit code patches that implement our (pending) patents?

On Mon, Jul 23, 2018 at 08:19:35AM -0700, Andres Freund wrote:
> I'm fairly sure that I'm right. But my point isn't that we should "trust
> Andres implicitly ™" (although that's obviously not a bad starting point
> ;)). But rather, given that that is a reasonable assumption that such
> agreements are legally possible, we can decide whether we want to take
> advantage of such terms *assuming they are legally sound*. Then, if, and
> only if, we decide that that's interesting from a policy POV, we can
> verify those assumptions with lawyers.

>
> Given we're far from the first project dealing with this, and that
> companies that have shown themselves to be reasonably trustworthy around
> open source, like Red Hat, assuming that such agreements are sound seems
> quite reasonable.

Sun Microsystems seemed reasonably trustworthy too.

> I find it fairly hubristic to just assume bad faith, or lack of skill,
> on part of the drafters of Apache2, GLPv3, RH patent promise, ... that
> they either didn't think about bankruptcy or didn't care about
> it. They're certainly better lawyers than any of us here.

True. It would be nice if we could get an answer about bankruptcy from
Red Hat.

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Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> http://momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com

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