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

On 2018-07-23 13:14:04 -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 23, 2018 at 11:38:47AM -0500, Nico Williams wrote:
> > On Mon, Jul 23, 2018 at 11:55:01AM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > > On Mon, Jul 23, 2018 at 11:40:41AM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > > > 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 realize what you are saying is that at the time Red Hat wrote that,
> > > they had good intentions, but they might not be able to control its
> > > behavior in a bankruptcy, so didn't mention it. Also, Oracle is suing
> > > Google over the Java API:
> > >
> > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_America,_Inc._v._Google,_Inc.
> > >
> > > which I can't imagine Sun doing, but legally Oracle can now that they
> > > own Java via Sun. Of course, Sun might not have realized the problem,
> > > and Red Hat might have, but that's also assuming that there aren't other
> > > problems that Red Hat doesn't know about.
> >
> > That's not about patents though, is it.
>
> No, it is not. It is just a case of not being able to trust any
> company's "good will". You only get what the contract says.

> > (I do believe that case is highly contrived. Sun put Java under the
> > GPL, so presumably Google can fork it under those terms. I've not
> > followed that case, so I don't really know what's up with it or why it
> > wasn't just dismissed with prejudice.)
>
> Yes, it is a big case with big ramifications if upheld.

Google didn't originally fork Dalvik from OpenJDK under the GPL though,
they re-implemented under a *more* permissive license (and reused Apache
Harmony bits). The "fix" google pursued is *precisely* to instead go for
an OpenJDK fork, to benefit from GPL protections. But that doesn't help
them with retroactive claims about the time when that wasn't true.

There was no contract granting patent rights in the relevant case. So I
fail to see what this has to do with the topic at hand.

Greetings,

Andres Freund