On 2/24/2010 2:54 PM, Buhrmaster, Gary wrote: >> I'm not sure if this is a valid analogy, but this reminds me of how >> (I've been told) IBM PCs in the 80s were reverse-engineered by IBM-clone >> makers. They'd have someone look at some BIOS microcode or something, >> and write a spec from it. > > IANAL > > The network protocol equivalent (and what someone told me the > SAMBA team did), to have a "clean room" implementation is to > have one person do a tcpdump of the wire protocols, figure out > the transactions bits/bytes, write it down as a specification, > and someone else write an equivalent implementation. Test, > and repeat as needed to get everything working. You also > have to document the process to be able to demonstrate later > that you did not use insider information. > > For OpenAFS, almost all of the interested parties are already > "contaminated" by having seen the IBM code itself, so would > not likely meet a "clean room" reimplementation test. > > And, in any case, patents (in the US at least), can still > encumber independent implementations (it is the invention > that counts for patents). Perhaps "In re Bilski" will change > all that for software, but that is still a pending case. > > IBM learned that lesson for PCs with the PS/2 MCA bus (patents > on everything, and (just by accident) specified a card size > which required fab capability to get enough stuff on the board > (no more simple 74xxx logic gates on the card like you could > do with the ISA cards), raising the barrier to entry for a few > years). > > Gary
Gary: Patents are less of a concern for OpenAFS in this case. IBM contributed the use of any applicable patent as part of the IBM Public License 1.0. Jeffrey Altman
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