> For the record, the Hercules list is uncensored. Phil Payne's access was set > to moderated (he can still post, if approved by a list moderator) because he > was disrupting the list despite repeated requests from a large number of > list members to lay off on his continual FUD. He was asked to take it to a > list created especially for the purpose, and did not.
I suggest you look up 'censor' an any good dictionary. I have tried to post three times since this ban was imposed (without even the courtesy of a note to me or a note to the Yahoo group) and no post has go through. I note Phil Roberts' recent attempt to get me barred from the FLEX-ES list, too. Seems to be a strategy. The issue was (and is) that the status of Hercules' use of IBM intellectual property is undetermined - simply that. I felt that Hercules' owners were involving others in the development of the product when all along the danger exists that IBM could assert its rights and close the whole thing down. > Until I hear from IBM directly, I refuse to worry about the issue. > Fortunately, I also believe IBM understands this. Between that, and their > public comments to Eric Raymond and Bruce Perens about not enforcing their > patents against Open Source developers, I doubt that any of the dire > predictions about IBM sending a cease and desist notice for Hercules will > actually come to pass. ... not enforcing their [software] patents ... I and many others would still like a name for this completely unsupported assertion of yours. One of the most interesting aspects of all this is the status of an invention that is reimplemented in a totally different technology. Just about every major System/370 and System/390 feature has patent protection, starting (roughly) with Cross Memory Services. But most are couched in terms of hardware implementation, and courts pretty well all over the world are uneasy about patents being allowed on algorithms. It's truly a fascinating area, now becoming quite serious in the EMC/Hitachi case. The fatc that Hercules' implementation of these features is in software and not in hardware brings a fascinating aspect to bear. -- Phil Payne http://www.isham-research.com +44 7785 302 803 +49 173 6242039
