Most Open Source/Free Software advocates don't see anything wrong with patents for HARDWARE.
It's software patents and patents for "obvious" things that we don't like. -----Original Message----- From: Post, Mark K [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2001 8:15 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: LCS drivers for 2.4.9 ? Hmm. As John Campbell said back in July "Our Irony is special, you see. It goes to 11." It's almost laughable to see a Red Hat employee arguing in favor of patents, and contrast his comments to the ones Kerry Kim posted earlier. Maybe there's two Red Hats and they don't work for the same company? I like David Boyes' attitude better. "Whining doesn't fix the problem. Putting up resources does. Your call -- part of the problem, or part of the solution?" Personally, I would prefer to be part of the solution, Rob van der Heij's caution against being careful with what I wish for to the contrary. I just don't know how I can help. :( Mark Post -----Original Message----- From: Arjan van de Ven [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2001 3:00 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: LCS drivers for 2.4.9 ? > Just so everyone is clear: We (IBM) do not like to resort to OCO could have fooled me. > but in this world it is the only way to protect the intellectual property > present in the drivers. Oh you mean your network card has something that all the hundreds of others don't have ? Your patent department knows how to deal with that for sure..... Unless you want to keep secret a breach of someone else's patent; or maybe that it's just a stock $15 NIC you guys sell for $8k ? > If the drivers weren't OCO, anyone could step up to the challenge to > provide support. But, when all the shouting is over, IBM or its delegate > is the one who provides support for its OCO modules, not the Open Source > community at large. What's the point here? IBM can't support the driver if it's open source? Extra eyes usually make support simpler because bugs are found (and fixes provided!!) by others. > It is obvious that many on this list have differing views about what the > word "support" means. By that, I mean more than just doing some coding. I > mean that IBM will fix something that isn't working. That promise is not > trivial and actually costs IBM real dollars to provide. We have people > that design, code, test, and document our drivers. When there's a new > driver, there's more testing. That means tying up REAL resources (people > and machines). And adding free community resources to that is not something IBM is interested in? Your ad campains may have fooled me there.... > I *know* this is frustrating to many and I am sorry for that, but we would > rather focus our efforts on opening up the interface (a difficult task at > best, with lots of legal complications) and eliminate the need for OCO > drivers altogether. This is where the win/win is to be found. Somehow I doubt this extra layer will fix the poor performance the current drivers already have.... Given how some of the other s390 kernel code works, I wouldn't be surprised that once you guys open up the driver some of the linux networking experts fixes the performance issues in a matter of days. > In the meantime, solutions can be had simply by routing your "new Linux" IP > traffic through a "certified Linux" which owns the adapters. You mean using that IBM kernel which has *KNOWN* and *PUBLISHED* local and remote exploits? No thank you. If IBM actually puts such a kernel on customers machines then I see that as deliberatly selling a defective product; US tort laws have ways with dealing with that last I heard. This year IBM spent a lot of money on Linux, a lot of that in advertising on how great Linux is. IBM: this would be a call to put your actions where your mouth is. Greetings, Arjan van de Ven
