Re: RTAI/RtLinux

Re: RTAI/RtLinux

[Wolfgang Denk]

In message <57.c083d0f.2a237c49@aol.com> Joachim Martillo wrote:
> 
> Hardly seems surprising.  Linux is a general purpose multiuser
> moderate weight multiprocessing preemptive time sliced time 
> shared virtual memory operating system.  Embedded system
> developers generally need single purpose extremely lightweight
> limited process count nonpreemptive cooperative real memory
> operating systems.  

Joachim, your perception of "Embedded Systems" is  not  up  to  date.
There  is  a  lot  of devices which fall into this group that provide
resources you have been dreaming of for your workstation just 5 years
ago. For instance, your digital video recorder may have  a  200+  MHz
PowerPC  CPU,  tens  of  megabytes RAM and tens of gigabytes harddisk
space. Can you remember the configuration of your fastest workstation
from 10 or 5 years ago?

Yes, there are embedded systems with limited resources where Linux is
just overkill. And probably (by number of units sold)  these  devices
are the majority.

But there are also lots of embedded devices that not only provide the
resources for a more powerful OS  like  Linux,  but  also  demand  it
because  of  the  complexity of applications they are running. And if
you look at current trends you will find that  this  is  one  of  the
fastest growing parts on the market.

> There is not so much overlap between the two types of
> operating systems.  It is to the credit of the Linux design
> that with hacking Linux can generally be adapter to real
> time uses unlike some other common proprietary operating
> systems.

Again, this is not quite  correct.  There  have  been  Real-Time  and
Embedded  Unix  systems  before  (LynxOS, to name one). And there are
other "common proprietary operating systems" that can be adapted  for
embedded needs (WinCE).

The big advantages of Linux are in  defferent  areas  (free  sources,
excellent  support  of  all  modern technologies, not single-sourced,
...).


The problems with Linux  in  Embedded  and  especially  in  Real-Time
Systems  are not technical ones. It is the political situation, where
the user is left in uncertainty about what he can legally do and what
not.

And if you look at the (missing) answers to  all  specific  questions
about  this  you  can  see  that there is method to it. "Go and see a
lawyer" is all you get.

Hell, would you do busines with ANY company who tell  you  "ask  your
laywer"  when  you  ask  for explanations of the conditions of use of
their products?

THIS is the main problem of Linux in the real-time market.


But who knows, maybe VY will provide clear "yes" / "no" answers  this
time...

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
Software Engineering:  Embedded and Realtime Systems,  Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-4596-87  Fax: (+49)-8142-4596-88  Email: wd@denx.de
Man did not weave the web of life; he  is  merely  a  strand  in  it.
Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.     - Seattle [1854]

A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[yodaiken]

Tape loops and arguments
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and this contains no legal advice. 

Many years ago during one of the earlier episodes of this, now regular,
attack, I asked one of the first RTLinux contributors why he did not
speak up to defend us and he said something like: I agree with all of your
complaints, but I don't need the abuse I'd get for speaking up. 

It's standard practice on the Internet that the loudest, most persistent, 
and most intransigent can "win" arguments by making it simply too unpleasant
for everyone else. 

I don't participate in these disputes anymore, since they don't seem to get
anywhere. I do want to address some claims that are widely made here.


1. MYTH: "The acceptance of Linux in embedded is being harmed by uncertainty over
    intellectual property"
    
	This is not correct from what I can see. Our customers include 
	several Fortune 500 companies, and an incredible range of smaller
	companies around the world. The use of the free GPL RTLinux is hard
	to quantify, but we from all indications it is enormous. There are
	multiple mirrors, and we still had to limit download bandwidth on our
	site to 1G/day.

	Our resellers and OEM partners include some of the most serious
	players in the embedded Linux business:  LynuxWorks, RedSonic, and
	Red Hat. 

	And most of embedded Linux use does not require hard real-time.

	This issue is perhaps based on problems seen by
	the people who are yelling so loud - although I do not doubt that
	all the yelling does put off some potential adopters. 
	There are also some issues particular to RTAI technology and 
	support that we believe will put off adopters: an API in flux,
	no solid commercial support, stability issues and so on.

	RTLinux is doing very well and there is no uncertainty about
	it. If other variants are not doing well, there are other reasons.


2. MYTH "The patent license is a terrible burden and terribly vague".  
	The real dispute here has very little to do with the 
	patent itself, and a great deal to do with GPL "linking". 
	Linux itself permits binary modules and is generally pretty 
	relaxed about what you can do to the kernel. But for companies
	like FSMLabs, Namesys, Trolltech, MySQL, and for many other
	GPL developers - controlling the right to add non-GPL components
	to our code is a business fundamental. Behind all the rhetoric
	of "I'm only in this for the greater glory of free-software" from
	our die-hard opponents, you find the demand to be allowed to make
	derivative works that incorporate non-GPL code - without payment of
	any fee. 

	Robert Schwebel has made the issue quite clear on occasion, by 
	arguing that in the embedded controller world, the valuable IP
	often is _required_ to be tightly integrated into the base real-time
	system. I think he is partly right, but this is precisely the
	advantage we have as owners of the core RTLinux copyright.
	
	The patent license is absolutely clear: GPL software can
	use the patented method without payment of any fee. So 
	any dispute is on when one can use non-GPL software as a
	component - and in many respects the 
	the real-question is whether the Linux binary module exception 
	can be imposed on everyone else. 
	In the dispute with our
	RTAI friends, most admit that RTAI derives from the RTLinux
	code base. Given this, the absence of a patent would not
	solve the problem that Schwebel sees: it would still not be
	permitted to link binary modules into the derived program without
	our permission.  RTAI "user space"  to me, does not escape this
	issue. 
	
	All that said: we're not against making allowances for small support
	companies: ask.
	
3. Although most RTAI developers agree that RTAI started from the RTLinux
   code base, this issue keeps being obscured.  In the Linux tradition:
  the code is definitive. If you look at 
    ftp://ftp.llp.fu-berlin.de/LINUX-LAB/RTAPPS/paolo/
  you can see most of the history of RTAI, from "myrtlinux 0.6" which 
  is openly billed as a variant of RTLinux 0.4  - note the peculiar copyright
  statement. 

There is certainly a lot 
more there than modified RTLinux, but whatever the virtues or lack 
thereof of this extra material, the absence of any of the RTLinux developer
copyright notices in RTAI is noteworthy.


4. The point of the argument. 
It is is obviously not worth arguing with people like David Schleef
who can baldly assert that RTAI predated RTLinux and did not fork from it.

Karim Yahgmour writes that he has
asked the same questions over and over and not received a response.
The tactic of asking questions that are really insinuations is 
to me an indication of the ethics of the questioner.
"Questions" of the
form "did you steal XYZ code?" asked in the absence of any evidence are
not  questions, they are a dishonest way of damaging a reputation.

Q:Why is there no copyrighted material in RTLinux from Paolo Mantegazza?
A: Because none of his code was incorporated.
Q: Did we take Wolfgang Denk's MPC860 patches?
A: No. Why would we? Cort and I shipped working code for MPC860/Linux
   as our first consulting project, long before FSMLabs existed.
Q: Are other people allowed to contribute code to RTLinux?
A: Learn how to use FTP.  The answer is yes. 
Q: Various questions implying shabby treatment of Michael Barabanov.
A: Karym has been "asking" such "questions" for years. In all that time
   he has refused to take my suggestion that he ask Michael whether Michael
   appreciates this effort.
   
and so on. It's both annoying and tedious.

As for the requests for legal advice: Yahgmour has been playing Internet
lawyer and encouraging people to sue us for a long time. The presence he
makes to simply be asking for information is as believable as the rest of his
pitch.

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Roman Zippel]

Hi,

On Tue, 28 May 2002 yodaiken@fsmlabs.com wrote:

> 	Our resellers and OEM partners include some of the most serious
> 	players in the embedded Linux business:  LynuxWorks, RedSonic, and
> 	Red Hat. 

I looked at the Red Hat site and didn't found a single mention of RTLinux.

> 	There are also some issues particular to RTAI technology and 
> 	support that we believe will put off adopters: an API in flux,
> 	no solid commercial support, stability issues and so on.

Oh, the usual open source myth, how original... :-(

> 	The patent license is absolutely clear: GPL software can
> 	use the patented method without payment of any fee.

It is absolutely not clear and I already explained why.
>From your statements it's obvious that you mean some sort of "free for
noncommercial use" license. Why don't you say it like that? I think there
enough of such licenses, which you can use an example. Maybe there would
be then a small problem, that you would be in violation of the GPL and you
couldn't freely use the work of others for your product?
Especially if I see sentences like "If you distribute your software or
market your software through some web site [..], you must make source code
for the software [..] immediately available on the World-Wide-Web for all
to access.", it says to me that you actually mean "Do all your work for
free or pay". Such a requirement goes even further than even the GPL
requires.
(Should I mention that your license had even worse problems in the past?)

> 	it would still not be
> 	permitted to link binary modules into the derived program without
> 	our permission.  RTAI "user space"  to me, does not escape this
> 	issue. 

AFAIK the patent doesn't give you the right to forbid anyone from using
the technology, you only have a right to demand a compensation. If I am
correct with this, you are possibly violating the GPL here. The binary
module exception is an additional right granted to you by Linus, which
you can't simply deny to others. The user space issue is even more clear,
because that is clearly defined.
While we are at copyright violations, I was browsing your web site and I'm
curious why you sell a separate binary UP and SMP version, wouldn't it be
just enough to recompile the kernel and the modules? Are the additional
4000$ for the source version your definition of "cost of physically
performing source distribution"?

> 	All that said: we're not against making allowances for small support
> 	companies: ask.

It seems people did. Did you made a single serious offer to a RTAI user to
license the patent?

bye, Roman

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Alan Cox]

On Tue, 2002-05-28 at 15:37, Roman Zippel wrote:
> On Tue, 28 May 2002 yodaiken@fsmlabs.com wrote:
> 
> > 	Our resellers and OEM partners include some of the most serious
> > 	players in the embedded Linux business:  LynuxWorks, RedSonic, and
> > 	Red Hat. 
> 
> I looked at the Red Hat site and didn't found a single mention of RTLinux.

If you look through the older Red Hat news you will find info on this.
You didn't look very hard did you

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Roman Zippel]

Hi,

On 28 May 2002, Alan Cox wrote:

> > I looked at the Red Hat site and didn't found a single mention of RTLinux.
> 
> If you look through the older Red Hat news you will find info on this.
> You didn't look very hard did you

I used Google: "fsmlabs OR rtlinux site:redhat.com" (almost only hits on
mailing lists).
But isn't it a strange partnership, if I can only read about it in some
old news? I couldn't find any rtlinux related product.

bye, Roman

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Alan Cox]

On Tue, 2002-05-28 at 16:11, Roman Zippel wrote:
> I used Google: "fsmlabs OR rtlinux site:redhat.com" (almost only hits on
> mailing lists).
> But isn't it a strange partnership, if I can only read about it in some
> old news? I couldn't find any rtlinux related product.

No its not a strange partnership at all. Perhaps you should spend your
time thinking instead of insinuating everyone on the planet who isnt
working for rtai is a liar ?

Here is some of the press coverage on it
http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20010927S0074

Alan

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Roman Zippel]

Hi,

Alan Cox wrote:

> Perhaps you should spend your
> time thinking instead of insinuating everyone on the planet who isnt
> working for rtai is a liar ?

I am watching this whole mess already quite some time and I am trying
very hard to make sense out of this. Victor pretends to be the nice guy
here, but if one looks closer, one can see how little respect he has for
the open source community and how much he is only interested in his own
advantage. Alan, believe me that I am not doing such accusation easily
and I'm quite aware that I'm not making myself any friends this way, but
I'm not afraid to speak out what I think. I am thinking very carefully
about this and I am not taking this easy.
Victor denies the RTAI people any clear answers about the license.
Victor refuses to explain the application of the license to the RTAI
situation. Why does he refuses to define ambiguous statements? Why can't
he say whether the license applies to RTAI or not? It wouldn't be any
problem, if the license didn't apply, but if everyone clearly knew that
(what only Victor can say), they could sit together and talk about a
license which is accommodated to RTAI's situation. All Victor had to say
is that the LPGL parts of RTAI make use of the patented process and they
need to talk about a license. The RTAI developers are asking for that
for years without any reaction from Victor. Sorry, but I can't see any
fault from them and I can understand that they get impatient to get
issue resolved.
Alan, what am I supposed to think about this? You should know me a bit
by now, I always accept arguments and I have no problems to admit a
mistake and to apologize for it, but I won't take bullshit.

> Here is some of the press coverage on it
> http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20010927S0074

As I said, I didn't found anything on Red Hat's site. I thought it would
be interesting to point out, but in the end it's Red Hat's business.

bye, Roman

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Mark Mielke]

On Wed, May 29, 2002 at 02:31:53AM +0200, Roman Zippel wrote:
> Alan Cox wrote:
> > Perhaps you should spend your
> > time thinking instead of insinuating everyone on the planet who isnt
> > working for rtai is a liar ?
> I am watching this whole mess already quite some time and I am trying
> very hard to make sense out of this. Victor pretends to be the nice guy
> here, but if one looks closer, one can see how little respect he has for

I can't speak for Victor, but...

Is it illegal for Victor to keep his options open?

It is really simple. Either A) Victor has a patent, and code in RTAI
may need to be licensed, or B) Victor has a patent, and code in RTAI
does not need to be licensed.

The text for the patent is available. Technical people and lawyers
huddle over a table, decide whether it is worth the risk, and go from
there. This is the way that every company must go under our current
legal structure.

Even if you *did* get a 'straight' answer out of Victor, his words
would not change his ability to sue RTAI. If RTAI needs a license,
they should *get* a license. If they don't need a license, they don't
need a license.

What is clear, is that the wrong question is being asked to the wrong
person. You don't ask Victor whether you can be exempt from potential
risk. You ask Victor for a license (i.e. written down and signed by
his company), or you take the risk, and assume that you do not need a
license. In neither case do you ask "I think my code might infringe on
your patent, can you make a (verbal) statement publicly that you will
look away if indeed you ever, at any time in the future, decide that
it is?"

In fact, if such a question was posed (which I think we have
observed), I would assume that the company posing the question was not
legally responsible, and *I*, as a prospective client in need of a RT
OS for my application, would avoid. The last thing I need is the
company working on my RT OS to be sued and disappear. I would much
prefer to work with the company that has the patent.

But then again - this is the crux of the matter. RTAI is suffering due
to 'patent issues', and RTLinux is not. RTLinux owns the patent, after
all. This couldn't possibly be RTAI whining because they cannot get
a large enough customer base, could it?

Sure there are all sorts of precidences that this sets. However, I have
yet to see any sort of true evolution or development *not* set
precidences.

The only real argument I have seen from RTAI folk is that Victor isn't
being a proper Open Source priest. This may annoy other Open Source
priests, but it does not affect my own opinion of the man. I find the
'Open Source' religion to have no future. I see applications of an
Open Source-style license, but as a religion? As an ability to judge a
person based on some sort of Open Source-defined morality? Nope... no
future.

mark

-- 
mark@mielke.cc/markm@ncf.ca/markm@nortelnetworks.com __________________________
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  One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all
                       and in the darkness bind them...

                           http://mark.mielke.cc/

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Karim Yaghmour]

Mark Mielke wrote:
> The only real argument I have seen from RTAI folk is that Victor isn't
> being a proper Open Source priest. This may annoy other Open Source
> priests, but it does not affect my own opinion of the man. I find the
> 'Open Source' religion to have no future.

This is not the argument put forth, but this is definitely where the
political line falls: You either believe in open source or you don't.
No one has summarized this better than Victor:

"The GPL/RTLinux work that we do loses money -- actually, we budget it
under "marketing"."

Regardless of which side of the political spectrum you find yourself,
ask yourself this question:
Do I want to be part of Victor's marketing team?

Karim

===================================================
                 Karim Yaghmour
               karim@opersys.com
      Embedded and Real-Time Linux Expert
===================================================

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Zwane Mwaikambo]

On Tue, 28 May 2002, Karim Yaghmour wrote:

> "The GPL/RTLinux work that we do loses money -- actually, we budget it
> under "marketing"."
> 
> Regardless of which side of the political spectrum you find yourself,
> ask yourself this question:
> Do I want to be part of Victor's marketing team?

The same could be said for many distributions which allow free downloads, 
no?

You could also word it as, do i want to be a proponent for Linus' evil 
world domination schemes? Its your choice...

-- 
http://function.linuxpower.ca
		

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Dana Lacoste]

On Tue, 2002-05-28 at 21:34, Mark Mielke wrote:
> It is really simple. Either A) Victor has a patent, and code in RTAI
> may need to be licensed, or B) Victor has a patent, and code in RTAI
> does not need to be licensed.

I think this is the main, critical, horrendous point.

RTAI is free, open source software.
whether it is covered by the licence or not, it's allowed by the
free clauses in rtlinux.

The problem here (and i can see why Karim is upset) is that people
who use RTAI to make commercial, closed source software may ALSO be
required to licence RTLinux even though they're using RTAI, not
RTLinux.

This would be retarded.  I mean, seriously, making the linux kernel
require anybody who's doing any commercial real-time stuff pay Victor
because it's in the kernel source and it's patented is just plain dumb.
Linus doesn't want to force anyone to use bitkeeper, why should he force
anyone to pay Victor as well?

Of course I must point out that it's easy for me to speak up : although
I do almost entirely embedded work I have absolutely no use for RT
software here, so I'm not affected at all.  I just see it as a slippery
slope towards BSD :)

Dana Lacoste
Ottawa, Canada

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Alan Cox]

On Wed, 2002-05-29 at 14:54, Dana Lacoste wrote:
> This would be retarded.  I mean, seriously, making the linux kernel
> require anybody who's doing any commercial real-time stuff pay Victor

proprietary, not commercial. 

Alan

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Dana Lacoste]

On Wed, 2002-05-29 at 11:17, Alan Cox wrote:
> On Wed, 2002-05-29 at 14:54, Dana Lacoste wrote:
> > This would be retarded.  I mean, seriously, making the linux kernel
> > require anybody who's doing any commercial real-time stuff pay Victor
> 
> proprietary, not commercial. 

Which brings us back to Larry's comments on business models.

It's becoming increasingly difficult to operate a non-proprietary
commercial software business these days.

I wish it weren't so, but it IS.  If RedHat is filing patents, then
it's fairly apparent that RedHat thinks so too, isn't it?

Dana Lacoste
Ottawa, Canada

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Mark Mielke]

On Wed, May 29, 2002 at 10:20:29AM -0400, Dana Lacoste wrote:
> On Wed, 2002-05-29 at 11:17, Alan Cox wrote:
> > On Wed, 2002-05-29 at 14:54, Dana Lacoste wrote:
> > > This would be retarded.  I mean, seriously, making the linux kernel
> > > require anybody who's doing any commercial real-time stuff pay Victor
> > proprietary, not commercial. 
> Which brings us back to Larry's comments on business models.
> It's becoming increasingly difficult to operate a non-proprietary
> commercial software business these days.
> I wish it weren't so, but it IS.  If RedHat is filing patents, then
> it's fairly apparent that RedHat thinks so too, isn't it?

I don't see the patent stopping people from creating non-proprietary
commercial software. I *do* see the patent perhaps forcing people who
make money off non-Open Source extensions to have some sort of deal
with Victor.

I don't see what is unfair about this.

mark

-- 
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  One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all
                       and in the darkness bind them...

                           http://mark.mielke.cc/

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Dana Lacoste]

> I don't see the patent stopping people from creating non-proprietary
> commercial software. I *do* see the patent perhaps forcing people who
> make money off non-Open Source extensions to have some sort of deal
> with Victor.

> I don't see what is unfair about this.

Ahhh, so Victor makes the money off all the Linux people because
his is the only part that's _patented_.

Do you see what I'm getting at now?  When a party chooses Linux
for their platform they're choosing all of it, and maybe they'll
be taking Victor's stuff along with the rest simply because it's
the rest that they _really_ want.

Why should Victor be making money off your work?

Dana "bowing out of this conversation before the PRGN people get made at
me cuz the SEC has made everyone paranoid" Lacoste
Ottawa, Canada

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Mark Mielke]

On Wed, May 29, 2002 at 01:43:18PM -0400, Dana Lacoste wrote:
> Do you see what I'm getting at now?  When a party chooses Linux
> for their platform they're choosing all of it, and maybe they'll
> be taking Victor's stuff along with the rest simply because it's
> the rest that they _really_ want.
> Why should Victor be making money off your work?

1) I was not aware that 'Linux' came with Victor's stuff.

2) If I was truly an Open Source priest, I would not care whether
   another person made money off my work. Only non-Open Source
   priests, or fake Open Source priests are concerned with such
   things. Any true Open Source priest knows that people will not
   use non-Open Source products by the end of this millenia.

mark

-- 
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.  .  _  ._  . .   .__    .  . ._. .__ .   . . .__  | Neighbourhood Coder
|\/| |_| |_| |/    |_     |\/|  |  |_  |   |/  |_   | 
|  | | | | \ | \   |__ .  |  | .|. |__ |__ | \ |__  | Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

  One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all
                       and in the darkness bind them...

                           http://mark.mielke.cc/

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Alan Cox]

On Wed, 2002-05-29 at 15:20, Dana Lacoste wrote:
> I wish it weren't so, but it IS.  If RedHat is filing patents, then
> it's fairly apparent that RedHat thinks so too, isn't it?

Strange line of reasoning. Red Hat is an open source company. It doesn't
have a proprietary installer, random bits of the binaries and libraries
that are licensed per seat, embedded setups that happen to generate
partially non free per unit licensed embedded targets.

There are years old Cygnus patents on bits of gcc, there are current Red
Hat filed patents with GPL grants, there are countless thousands of IBM
patents a few of which have GPL grants. People keep assuming this is
something new, yet I would not be suprised if some of the gcc related
patents pre-date Red Hat's existance.

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[yodaiken]

On Wed, May 29, 2002 at 10:20:29AM -0400, Dana Lacoste wrote:
> I wish it weren't so, but it IS.  If RedHat is filing patents, then
> it's fairly apparent that RedHat thinks so too, isn't it?
> 
> Dana Lacoste
> Ottawa, Canada

What about Peregrine Software? From your address I guess that you are
willing to work for them, right?  They own software patents. 

United States Patent   6,046,988




---------------------------------------------------------
Victor Yodaiken 
Finite State Machine Labs: The RTLinux Company.
 www.fsmlabs.com  www.rtlinux.com

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Dana Lacoste]

> What about Peregrine Software? From your address I guess that you are
> willing to work for them, right?  They own software patents. 

> United States Patent   6,046,988

Hell of a lot more than just that one :)
(and if you plot PRGN's stock price in the last 12 months you can
see where it got us :)

(You missed my point.  I'm not saying that RedHat patenting is the
bad part, I'm saying that trying to force people to use free software
and pushing the GPL-domination of the (software) world WHILE patenting
software is the bad part.  Alan works for RedHat after all (though as
he pointed out, RedHat hasn't been REALLY patenting stuff, they've
merely bought other people who DID :)

I work for a commercial company, and I don't have a problem with this.
I'm arguing that if one includes patented software in a 'free' platform
then many commercial users of that platform will move to something else
rather than deal with the patent.  There are other free software
alternatives after all.  I spent a lot of time working with Linux,
I don't want to have to tell my managers to switch to BSD instead :)
(ok, maybe that's not 100% true :) :) :)

Personally, I think the EU has it right : software patents are
ridiculous.  So is the DMCA (and the follow ups to it.)  So are
many of the actions performed by the US government.  (As Chomsky
defines them, terrorist actions.)

But this isn't a political forum, this is a mailing list devoted
to developing the best free unix-like OS in the world.

That doesn't change the fact that in a capitalist world people need
to survive, they need to participate in that worlds' rules.  Which
means Software patents in the US and CDR taxes in Canada.  So I get
to live in both the free and commercial worlds and I hope that other
people here can see that too.  (Larry has shown a great example of
how that IS possible :)

Dana Lacoste
Ottawa, Canada

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Rob Landley]

On Wednesday 29 May 2002 10:20 am, Dana Lacoste wrote:
> On Wed, 2002-05-29 at 11:17, Alan Cox wrote:
> > On Wed, 2002-05-29 at 14:54, Dana Lacoste wrote:
> > > This would be retarded.  I mean, seriously, making the linux kernel
> > > require anybody who's doing any commercial real-time stuff pay Victor
> >
> > proprietary, not commercial.
>
> Which brings us back to Larry's comments on business models.
>
> It's becoming increasingly difficult to operate a non-proprietary
> commercial software business these days.

It has become increasingly difficult to operate a proprietary commercial 
software business too.  (It's called a recession... 8)

Rob

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Alan Cox]

On Wed, 2002-05-29 at 01:31, Roman Zippel wrote:
> I am watching this whole mess already quite some time and I am trying
> very hard to make sense out of this. Victor pretends to be the nice guy
> here, but if one looks closer, one can see how little respect he has for
> the open source community and how much he is only interested in his own
> advantage. Alan, believe me that I am not doing such accusation easily
> and I'm quite aware that I'm not making myself any friends this way, but
> I'm not afraid to speak out what I think. I am thinking very carefully
> about this and I am not taking this easy.

I've met Victor several times including having discussions over open
source philosophy patents and the like. I think he is a good guy. The
patent grant says it can be used for GPL software. As a free software
author I have no problems at all with Victor's patent. If I want to do
proprietary software well shucks, I'm going to have to play by the
proprietary rules. I don't see that anti free software. It might be anti
how convenient I can mix the two and flog it for lots of money, but
thats not free software anyway.

> Victor denies the RTAI people any clear answers about the license.

He told them that if they were not sure they should ask a lawyer. That
sounds to me rather correct advice. What kind of answer do you expect.
There are really only two that might be expected in such a situation,
they I suspect go

	"We think you need a license if you use proprietary software 
	 with this" and "Ask a lawyer"

Given the first answer RTAI from their whining on this list would take
the second answer anyway.

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Roman Zippel]

Hi,

On 29 May 2002, Alan Cox wrote:

> I've met Victor several times including having discussions over open
> source philosophy patents and the like. I think he is a good guy.

I can't judge about this, my judgement comes from how he treats the RTAI
developer.

> The
> patent grant says it can be used for GPL software. As a free software
> author I have no problems at all with Victor's patent.

GPL is not the only free software license.

> It might be anti
> how convenient I can mix the two and flog it for lots of money, but
> thats not free software anyway.

It's about "free speech" not "free beer".

> > Victor denies the RTAI people any clear answers about the license.
> 
> He told them that if they were not sure they should ask a lawyer. That
> sounds to me rather correct advice. What kind of answer do you expect.
> There are really only two that might be expected in such a situation,
> they I suspect go
> 
> 	"We think you need a license if you use proprietary software 
> 	 with this" and "Ask a lawyer"

1. We are talking about a free software project here!
2. They asked a lawyer, here is the result:
   http://lwn.net/2002/0131/a/rtai-24.1.8.php3
So according to this legal advice, normal application running under
RTLinux/RTAI are not infringing the patent and therefore need no license.
Victor now seems to see things different: "it would still not be permitted
to link binary modules into the derived program without our
permission.  RTAI "user space"  to me, does not escape this issue."
Such statements are what creates the uncertainty and Victor does nothing
to resolve this issue.
That RTAI can be used in a commercial or even closed source environment
doesn't matter here. I'm not happy about the binary module situation
either, but you have to take that to Linus. Whatever is allowed in user
space is clearly defined by the kernel license.
The RTAI developer have the right to use their work however they wish,
should there be a copyright problem, it should be correctly labeled as
such and definitely doesn't need a patent license.

bye, Roman

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Alan Cox]

On Wed, 2002-05-29 at 14:43, Roman Zippel wrote:
> > patent grant says it can be used for GPL software. As a free software
> > author I have no problems at all with Victor's patent.
> 
> GPL is not the only free software license.

Take that up with Richard Stallman, he defined what the GPL linking
rules were, nobody else.


> 1. We are talking about a free software project here!
> 2. They asked a lawyer, here is the result:
>    http://lwn.net/2002/0131/a/rtai-24.1.8.php3

So why is he still moaning. He's got a legal opinion that he can use
binary apps on RTAI without paying the license. What else does he want ?

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Roman Zippel]

Hi,

Alan Cox wrote:

> > 1. We are talking about a free software project here!
> > 2. They asked a lawyer, here is the result:
> >    http://lwn.net/2002/0131/a/rtai-24.1.8.php3
> 
> So why is he still moaning. He's got a legal opinion that he can use
> binary apps on RTAI without paying the license. What else does he want ?

That Victor acknowledges that this is correct legal advice and he will
accept that?
Instead we see statements like this: "it would still not be permitted to
link binary modules into the derived program without our permission. 
RTAI "user space"  to me, does not escape this issue."
How will he do this? To our knowledge applications don't infringe the
patent and he can't change the kernel license. What does he know that we
don't know?

Let me quote from Victor's FAQ:
"If you want to mix GPL and non-GPL software under unmodified Open
RTLinux, you may be able to do so as well, but we suggest caution. The
intent of our license and the GPL itself is to permit reciprocal sharing
of software technology. If you have software that you prefer not to make
available to others, then you may be able to take advantage of the
"unmodified Open RTLinux" provisions of our license or you may need to
use RTLinux/Pro."
In other word: if you want to be safe, use the license or buy our
product. Other options are not mentioned. What has the user to be
cautioned of, when he mixes the GPL with the LGPL? In my understanding
these are subtle, but clear threats against unauthorized use of the
patent.
It's nice that he wants to help the GPL, but we should refuse such help.
I would do quite a lot to promote the GPL, but I would never force
people to use the GPL. It's very important that people do this out of
their free will and Victor doesn't offer much choice here. A patent is a
very dangerous tool, it gives you an exclusive right, which must not be
abused.

bye, Roman

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Pavel Machek]

Hi!

> > Victor denies the RTAI people any clear answers about the license.
> 
> He told them that if they were not sure they should ask a lawyer. That
> sounds to me rather correct advice. What kind of answer do you expect.
> There are really only two that might be expected in such a situation,
> they I suspect go
> 
> 	"We think you need a license if you use proprietary software 
> 	 with this" and "Ask a lawyer"

I dont see whyhe could not answer "LGPL is ojkay according to us, and we 
promise not to sue you."

-- 
Philips Velo 1: 1"x4"x8", 300gram, 60, 12MB, 40bogomips, linux, mutt,
details at http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/velo/index.html.

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Mark Mielke]

On Fri, May 31, 2002 at 11:57:42AM +0000, Pavel Machek wrote:
> > > Victor denies the RTAI people any clear answers about the license.
> > 	"We think you need a license if you use proprietary software 
> > 	 with this" and "Ask a lawyer"
> I dont see whyhe could not answer "LGPL is ojkay according to us, and we 
> promise not to sue you."

Realize of course, that unless it is a signed piece of paper with
specifically listed terms, the 'it is ok and we promise not to sue you'
is not legally binding, and is therefore meaningless.

The piece of paper usually takes the form of a license.

See where this goes? :-) Round and round...

mark

-- 
mark@mielke.cc/markm@ncf.ca/markm@nortelnetworks.com __________________________
.  .  _  ._  . .   .__    .  . ._. .__ .   . . .__  | Neighbourhood Coder
|\/| |_| |_| |/    |_     |\/|  |  |_  |   |/  |_   | 
|  | | | | \ | \   |__ .  |  | .|. |__ |__ | \ |__  | Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

  One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all
                       and in the darkness bind them...

                           http://mark.mielke.cc/

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[yodaiken]

On Fri, May 31, 2002 at 11:57:42AM +0000, Pavel Machek wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> > > Victor denies the RTAI people any clear answers about the license.
> > 
> > He told them that if they were not sure they should ask a lawyer. That
> > sounds to me rather correct advice. What kind of answer do you expect.
> > There are really only two that might be expected in such a situation,
> > they I suspect go
> > 
> > 	"We think you need a license if you use proprietary software 
> > 	 with this" and "Ask a lawyer"
> 
> I dont see whyhe could not answer "LGPL is ojkay according to us, and we 
> promise not to sue you."

We released code under GPL. We do not and did not
give permision to LGPL that code or derived works without further license
from us.  






-- 
---------------------------------------------------------
Victor Yodaiken 
Finite State Machine Labs: The RTLinux Company.
 www.fsmlabs.com  www.rtlinux.com

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Karim Yaghmour]

Thanks Victor for taking the time to go through some of the issues.

yodaiken@fsmlabs.com wrote:
> 1. MYTH: "The acceptance of Linux in embedded is being harmed by uncertainty over
>     intellectual property"
> 
>         This is not correct from what I can see. Our customers include
>         several Fortune 500 companies, and an incredible range of smaller
>         companies around the world. The use of the free GPL RTLinux is hard
>         to quantify, but we from all indications it is enormous. There are
>         multiple mirrors, and we still had to limit download bandwidth on our
>         site to 1G/day.
> 
>         Our resellers and OEM partners include some of the most serious
>         players in the embedded Linux business:  LynuxWorks, RedSonic, and
>         Red Hat.

That is your own assesment, which is of course somewhat biased since I
don't see you coming out and telling us: "True, the market has a problem
with my patent." This standpoint is the only one expected. But given
that you are not the only vendor out there, others have testified on this
list that indeed Linux has a hard time penetrating in the embedded/rt
market precisely because of your patent.

I will leave it to the average LKML reader to decide whether the problems
I discribe are "myth" of "fact" in light of all the testimony presented on
this list.

Also, you omit to explain why the 11,000 developers sampled by the VDC
point "real-time limitations" as their #1 show-stopper for using Linux.

>         And most of embedded Linux use does not require hard real-time.

You're trying to play the "niche" trick here, pointing out that your patent
is OK because it's a niche market. As I pointed out very early in this thread,
embedded/rt is far from being a niche.

>         This issue is perhaps based on problems seen by
>         the people who are yelling so loud - although I do not doubt that
>         all the yelling does put off some potential adopters.

So are you suggesting that we all line up behind you and shut up?

>         There are also some issues particular to RTAI technology and
>         support that we believe will put off adopters: an API in flux,
>         no solid commercial support, stability issues and so on.

This is a non-issue. A couple of vendors already provide commercial
support for RTAI. But read what an article in Embedded Systems Programming
had to say about this issue in May 2001:
<quote>
In my opinion, RTAI provides a more practical API while RTLinux is more
elegant. On the other hand, RTAI is more elegant in how it integrates
into the Linux kernel. The RTAI team makes a constant effort to add
features that people ask for, and thus its API has grown to become
reasonably extensive. For example, RTAI includes clock calibration,
dynamic memory management for realtime tasks, LXRT to bring soft/hard
real-time capabilities into user space, remote procedure calls, and
mailboxes.

The RTLinux team aims to keep their real-time Linux extensions as
predictable as possible, adding only features that won't hurt designs
and compatibility in the future. In short, the RTLinux API is more
consistent, but many practitioners prefer to use RTAI.
</quote>

Seems to me that RTAI is the prefered choice.

>         RTLinux is doing very well and there is no uncertainty about
>         it. If other variants are not doing well, there are other reasons.

Well, it's clear that we won't agree on this statement.

> 2. MYTH "The patent license is a terrible burden and terribly vague".
>         The real dispute here has very little to do with the
>         patent itself, and a great deal to do with GPL "linking".
>         Linux itself permits binary modules and is generally pretty
>         relaxed about what you can do to the kernel. But for companies
>         like FSMLabs, Namesys, Trolltech, MySQL, and for many other
>         GPL developers - controlling the right to add non-GPL components
>         to our code is a business fundamental. Behind all the rhetoric
>         of "I'm only in this for the greater glory of free-software" from
>         our die-hard opponents, you find the demand to be allowed to make
>         derivative works that incorporate non-GPL code - without payment of
>         any fee.

FSMLabs cannot be compared in any way to any other open source company:
I can rewrite Qt and distribute it under the license I like
I can rewrite MySQL and distribute it under the license I like
I can't rewrite RTLinux and distribute it under the license I like

As for your dismissal of the "motivation behind the act", it does not
dismiss any of our arguments, but only reinforces them.

>         Robert Schwebel has made the issue quite clear on occasion, by
>         arguing that in the embedded controller world, the valuable IP
>         often is _required_ to be tightly integrated into the base real-time
>         system. I think he is partly right, but this is precisely the
>         advantage we have as owners of the core RTLinux copyright.

Your ownership over the entire core RTLinux still remains an open question.

>         The patent license is absolutely clear: GPL software can
>         use the patented method without payment of any fee. So
>         any dispute is on when one can use non-GPL software as a
>         component - and in many respects the
>         the real-question is whether the Linux binary module exception
>         can be imposed on everyone else.
>         In the dispute with our
>         RTAI friends, most admit that RTAI derives from the RTLinux
>         code base.

So does RTLinux derive from work on RTAI. The arguments nullify each
other here.

> Given this, the absence of a patent would not
>         solve the problem that Schwebel sees: it would still not be
>         permitted to link binary modules into the derived program without
>         our permission.  RTAI "user space"  to me, does not escape this
>         issue.

Wait. Are you saying here that the GPL in a module extends to "user space"?

>         All that said: we're not against making allowances for small support
>         companies: ask.

Thanks for the offer, I am sure some will find it useful, but the larger
issues remain.

> 3. Although most RTAI developers agree that RTAI started from the RTLinux
>    code base, this issue keeps being obscured.  In the Linux tradition:
>   the code is definitive. If you look at
>     ftp://ftp.llp.fu-berlin.de/LINUX-LAB/RTAPPS/paolo/
>   you can see most of the history of RTAI, from "myrtlinux 0.6" which
>   is openly billed as a variant of RTLinux 0.4  - note the peculiar copyright
>   statement.
> 
> There is certainly a lot
> more there than modified RTLinux, but whatever the virtues or lack
> thereof of this extra material, the absence of any of the RTLinux developer
> copyright notices in RTAI is noteworthy.

So is the inverse.

> 4. The point of the argument.
> It is is obviously not worth arguing with people like David Schleef
> who can baldly assert that RTAI predated RTLinux and did not fork from it.
> 
> Karim Yahgmour writes that he has
> asked the same questions over and over and not received a response.
> The tactic of asking questions that are really insinuations is
> to me an indication of the ethics of the questioner.

If my questions are "far off" or if my insinuations are misleading, then
it should be rather easy to dismiss every single of them. As for my
ethics, I leave this for people who actually know me to judge. That being
said, this is not the first time you use personnal attacks against me. First,
you dismissed my opinions because you thought I had made no open source
contributions, then you said that my opinion were "for sale" because I
had done some work for Lineo (remarkably my opinions have not changed
although Lineo entered in agreement with you), then you said I was a
nutcase, and the list goes on and on. But then again, you're the one
who said the following during one of earlier discussion:
"All of us who have actually developed commercially significant GPL software
have to spend too much time explaining to customers that Slashdot crazies
and other freelance zealots have no standing and nothing to do with us."

To which I replied:
"It strikes me as odd that you may find it to marginalize "Slashdot crazies"
and "other freelance zealots" when you owe them, at the very least, your
current bread and butter. This is rather ungrateful and condescending at
best.

Others who have come to make money out of GPL software have taken the
time to explain to their clients what this mosaic of characters is all
about and why it is so important to Open Source and Free Software."

My point of view regarding your personnal attacks against every single
person who disagrees with you run somewhere along those lines.

> "Questions" of the
> form "did you steal XYZ code?" asked in the absence of any evidence are
> not  questions, they are a dishonest way of damaging a reputation.
> 
> Q:Why is there no copyrighted material in RTLinux from Paolo Mantegazza?
> A: Because none of his code was incorporated.
> Q: Did we take Wolfgang Denk's MPC860 patches?
> A: No. Why would we? Cort and I shipped working code for MPC860/Linux
>    as our first consulting project, long before FSMLabs existed.
> Q: Are other people allowed to contribute code to RTLinux?
> A: Learn how to use FTP.  The answer is yes.

Fine, then reread my other question regarding those contributions. Has
no one ever contributed any code to RTLinux? If no one has then RTLinux
is certainly not an open source project. If someone has, then why do
the headers contain only the name of FSMLabs? Why are those 20 persons
named in the credits file credited for anyway? Why do people who have
worked for you readily recognize that code has been exchanged between
both RTLinux and RTAI?

> Q: Various questions implying shabby treatment of Michael Barabanov.
> A: Karym has been "asking" such "questions" for years. In all that time
>    he has refused to take my suggestion that he ask Michael whether Michael
>    appreciates this effort.

Hmm... If I disagree with something you're doing, I usually tell you
without you asking. If Michael dislikes what I'm doing, he's got my
email address.

I ask questions about Michael because it really seems incongruent that
this project which was implemented by one of the students you were
supervising is now entirely in your hands and that you are the single
author on the patent although, as you said in your own article, he took
it from concept to implementation all by himself while adding concepts
you hadn't thought of.

BTW, my first name is actually "Karim", with an "i", the "karym" thing
used to be my login. "Karim" is actually the french translation of
my (clearly) arabic name which means "generous". It's often spelled as
"Kareem" in english because that's how it sounds like in the original.

> and so on. It's both annoying and tedious.

Fine, if it's so annoying and so basic, why don't you answer those
questions and get rid of them once and for all?

Note that you didn't answer the most important questions of all #1 and #2.

> As for the requests for legal advice: Yahgmour has been playing Internet
> lawyer and encouraging people to sue us for a long time.

I don't remember "encouraging people to sue" you. If I did, it would be
a mistake. What I did do, however, is point out that there is serious
potential for this given the presence of foreign copyrighted material
belonging to outside contributor, as can be seen my looking in the
credits file and as recognized by your own people.

As for the patent issue, then yes, I have been intensively researching
every aspect about how this patent can be dismissed and presenting those
to the public. At this point, I think it is more than obvious that it
can be dimissed. Anyone wanting to pick this up can now do so without my
help. I still do have a couple of other facts which can help in this
regard, but I won't post these here.

BTW: "Yahgmour" isn't my last name, it's "Yaghmour", which means
rain in turkish. That "Yahgmour" doesn't mean anything.

> The presence he
> makes to simply be asking for information is as believable as the rest of his
> pitch.

Very early on, I pointed out that this sort of argumentation is called "sophism".
Dimissing me != dismissing my arguments.

Notice that I haven't dismissed you. I have argumented every point you
brought forth and you have not answered a singled email by me.

For all your personnal attacks against me Victor, you have yet to
dismiss my main claim.

Karim

===================================================
                 Karim Yaghmour
               karim@opersys.com
      Embedded and Real-Time Linux Expert
===================================================

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Mark Mielke]

On Tue, May 28, 2002 at 11:19:37AM -0400, Karim Yaghmour wrote:
> Thanks Victor for taking the time to go through some of the issues.

> yodaiken@fsmlabs.com wrote:
> > 1. MYTH: "The acceptance of Linux in embedded is being harmed by
> >     uncertainty over intellectual property"
> That is your own assesment, which is of course somewhat biased since I
> don't see you coming out and telling us: "True, the market has a problem
> with my patent." This standpoint is the only one expected. But given
> that you are not the only vendor out there, others have testified on this
> list that indeed Linux has a hard time penetrating in the embedded/rt
> market precisely because of your patent.

Sounds like people who can't get customers calling foul to the one
that can.

> I will leave it to the average LKML reader to decide whether the problems
> I discribe are "myth" of "fact" in light of all the testimony presented on
> this list.

I would label it "seriously exaggerated fact to obtain market share".

> Also, you omit to explain why the 11,000 developers sampled by the VDC
> point "real-time limitations" as their #1 show-stopper for using Linux.

"Real-time limitations" *are* the #1 show-stopper for using Linux. This
isn't an argument for or against your point.

> > And most of embedded Linux use does not require hard real-time.
> You're trying to play the "niche" trick here, pointing out that your
> patent is OK because it's a niche market. As I pointed out very
> early in this thread, embedded/rt is far from being a niche.

Actually, it looked like he was just presenting a fact. Most people that
say they need RT, don't, and the few that do, do not tend to mind patents.

> > 2. MYTH "The patent license is a terrible burden and terribly vague".
> FSMLabs cannot be compared in any way to any other open source company:
> I can rewrite Qt and distribute it under the license I like
> I can rewrite MySQL and distribute it under the license I like
> I can't rewrite RTLinux and distribute it under the license I like
> As for your dismissal of the "motivation behind the act", it does not
> dismiss any of our arguments, but only reinforces them.

Most companies with serious RT requirements do not wish to re-write
and distribute 'as they like'. In fact, the only reason they have to
do this now, is because the tools are not mature enough.

The problem here is obviously open-source companies that prefer to
avoid paying for software, because they do not sell software, and
companies that sell software, and do not mind paying for software to
sell software.

The fact is, patents are legal. Live with it, or convince a few
senators that they should remove 'patent infringement' from the set of
actions that can be tried in a court of law.

You are not getting anywhere here.

mark

-- 
mark@mielke.cc/markm@ncf.ca/markm@nortelnetworks.com __________________________
.  .  _  ._  . .   .__    .  . ._. .__ .   . . .__  | Neighbourhood Coder
|\/| |_| |_| |/    |_     |\/|  |  |_  |   |/  |_   | 
|  | | | | \ | \   |__ .  |  | .|. |__ |__ | \ |__  | Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

  One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all
                       and in the darkness bind them...

                           http://mark.mielke.cc/

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Karim Yaghmour]

Mark Mielke wrote:
> > yodaiken@fsmlabs.com wrote:
> > > 1. MYTH: "The acceptance of Linux in embedded is being harmed by
> > >     uncertainty over intellectual property"
> > That is your own assesment, which is of course somewhat biased since I
> > don't see you coming out and telling us: "True, the market has a problem
> > with my patent." This standpoint is the only one expected. But given
> > that you are not the only vendor out there, others have testified on this
> > list that indeed Linux has a hard time penetrating in the embedded/rt
> > market precisely because of your patent.
> 
> Sounds like people who can't get customers calling foul to the one
> that can.

Well, again this runs the same way as Victor's other personnal attacks.
Dismissing arguments because of who points them out doesn't really
work.

> > I will leave it to the average LKML reader to decide whether the problems
> > I discribe are "myth" of "fact" in light of all the testimony presented on
> > this list.
> 
> I would label it "seriously exaggerated fact to obtain market share".

As you wish.

> > Also, you omit to explain why the 11,000 developers sampled by the VDC
> > point "real-time limitations" as their #1 show-stopper for using Linux.
> 
> "Real-time limitations" *are* the #1 show-stopper for using Linux. This
> isn't an argument for or against your point.

In light of every person I met in the last 2 years I started working against
this patent and in light of all the testimony seen here, it certainly is.
Read the start of this thread to get the full argument behind this.

> > > And most of embedded Linux use does not require hard real-time.
> > You're trying to play the "niche" trick here, pointing out that your
> > patent is OK because it's a niche market. As I pointed out very
> > early in this thread, embedded/rt is far from being a niche.
> 
> Actually, it looked like he was just presenting a fact. Most people that
> say they need RT, don't, and the few that do, do not tend to mind patents.

These claims have been contridicted a couple of times now by many people
outside myself.

> > > 2. MYTH "The patent license is a terrible burden and terribly vague".
> > FSMLabs cannot be compared in any way to any other open source company:
> > I can rewrite Qt and distribute it under the license I like
> > I can rewrite MySQL and distribute it under the license I like
> > I can't rewrite RTLinux and distribute it under the license I like
> > As for your dismissal of the "motivation behind the act", it does not
> > dismiss any of our arguments, but only reinforces them.
> 
> Most companies with serious RT requirements do not wish to re-write
> and distribute 'as they like'. In fact, the only reason they have to
> do this now, is because the tools are not mature enough.

That's not the point is it? The point is that Victor's patent and its
use to make money from GPL software is unique in the open source
software world. Hence, any time you talk about this issue, it has
to be taken outside the standard open source frame of discussion
because there is no other equivalent case.

> The problem here is obviously open-source companies that prefer to
> avoid paying for software, because they do not sell software, and
> companies that sell software, and do not mind paying for software to
> sell software.

Did you read all the emails stating that clients simply don't use
Linux because of this patent and because of Victor's lack of clarity
on the actual interpretation of how far reaching his patent is?

> The fact is, patents are legal. Live with it, or convince a few
> senators that they should remove 'patent infringement' from the set of
> actions that can be tried in a court of law.

I said it before that I am aware of the issues involved.

> You are not getting anywhere here.

Actually, it is this thread that is not getting anywhere and that
is getting us back to the exact point I summarized earlier in the
following post:
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=102252033827888&w=2

We should leave it at that.

Karim

===================================================
                 Karim Yaghmour
               karim@opersys.com
      Embedded and Real-Time Linux Expert
===================================================

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Michael Barabanov]

Karim Yaghmour (karim@opersys.com) wrote:
> > Q: Various questions implying shabby treatment of Michael Barabanov.
> > A: Karym has been "asking" such "questions" for years. In all that time
> >    he has refused to take my suggestion that he ask Michael whether Michael
> >    appreciates this effort.
> 
> Hmm... If I disagree with something you're doing, I usually tell you
> without you asking. If Michael dislikes what I'm doing, he's got my
> email address.

1. I do dislike what you're doing, however I don't want to waste my
time arguing.
2. Just to let you know: I still work on RTLinux, and doing fine, thanks.

Michael.

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[James Bottomley]

Roman Zippel <zippel@linux-m68k.org> said:
> AFAIK the patent doesn't give you the right to forbid anyone from
> using the technology, you only have a right to demand a compensation.
> If I am correct with this, you are possibly violating the GPL here.
> The binary module exception is an additional right granted to you by
> Linus, which you can't simply deny to others. The user space issue is
> even more clear, because that is clearly defined.

Actually, a patent does do exactly this.  A patent gives you a "negative" 
right to exclude anyone from using your patented method or process.  If you 
choose never to licence your patent (as is your right to do so) you block 
everyone else from making use of it.

In general, about the only restrictions on patents and their licensing 
arrangements in the US are the antitrust laws.  See:

http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/guidelines/ipguide.htm

for a good guide from the horse's mouth.

This is an important debate but I think it's quality could be enhanced by 
increasing the level of well researched information and opinion.  A good 
starting point is `Benefits, Risks and Considerations in Using Open Licensed 
Software' written by a group of Intellectual Property lawyers and available 
freely on the internet:

http://www.whepatent.com/opensource.pdf

James Bottomley

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Roman Zippel]

Hi,

James Bottomley wrote:

> Actually, a patent does do exactly this.  A patent gives you a "negative"
> right to exclude anyone from using your patented method or process.  If you
> choose never to licence your patent (as is your right to do so) you block
> everyone else from making use of it.

Hmm, I didn't know that. I must have misunderstood something, I'm sorry
about that.

> In general, about the only restrictions on patents and their licensing
> arrangements in the US are the antitrust laws.  See:
> 
> http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/public/guidelines/ipguide.htm
> 
> for a good guide from the horse's mouth.

Uh, that's quite a lot of lawyer language, something like this is
already difficult to understand in the native language. Could you point
me to the relevant section, I misunderstood? I couldn't find it.

bye, Roman

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[James Bottomley]

zippel@linux-m68k.org said:
> Uh, that's quite a lot of lawyer language, something like this is
> already difficult to understand in the native language. Could you
> point me to the relevant section, I misunderstood? I couldn't find it.

There is no relevant section, I'm afraid.  My basic point is that the only 
limitation on how a patent holder licenses their patent in the US is likely to 
come from the US DoJ Antitrust division.  This document lays out the ground 
rules the US DoJ applies in coming to the conclusion that an antitrust probe 
is warranted.  If it helps, I don't think the FSMlabs open patent licence 
would fall foul of any of the DoJ guidelines for instituting an antitrust 
probe.

A summary of the document *from the point of view of a patent holder* only is 
available in the other document I referred to,

http://www.whepatent.com/opensource.pdf

Section V. A. Antitrust, which lays out the nine "no-no's" of patent 
licensing.  Note, the idea is if the patent owner obeys all of the nine 
"no-no's", they're generally safe from antitrust, but the converse is not 
necessarily true (you can violate them and still might not be subject to an 
antitrust probe).

Perhaps, if you want to become more generally familiar with patent law in the 
US, one of the other internet sites (w.g. http://www.patents.com) may be of 
help.  Remember, your average patent lawyer charges from $200-$500 an hour.  
If patent law and its application were easy, we wouldn't be paying those type 
of rates!

James

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Jeff V. Merkey]

I've been reading all this discussion, and I think the solution
is pretty simple.  Patents are fairly easy to invalidate if you
can show prior art.  Novell and these big software companies 
do it all the time.  When they implement something that infringes
someone's patent, they wait until litigation is filed, then seek to
invalidate specific claims in the patent.  There are administrative
procedures in place wih the USPTO that take this into account.  It's
expensive and you have to be willing to risk litigation.

Patents describe "methods".  If you alter the methods, however slightly,
it makes it tougher for the patent holder to win an infringement case.
Based upon the whirlwind of discussion on this topic, it would seem 
that there is significant deviation from the patent claims to 
circumvent the probability that such claims would succeed.  

The bottom line is you can get sued anyway.  Patent cases are pretty
tough to defend, but the only test will be to implement it, then 
wait for the patent holder to bring claims in US District Court and 
attack the basic claims in the patent on the basis of prior art.  

This RTLinux patent appears, at least on the surface, to be another
software "trash patent".  Microsoft has thousands of such patents,
and it's questionable they will ever be able to win enforcement on 
many of them.  Ditto this case.

Jeff

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Peter Wächtler]

Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
> 
> I've been reading all this discussion, and I think the solution
> is pretty simple.  Patents are fairly easy to invalidate if you
> can show prior art.  Novell and these big software companies 
> do it all the time.  When they implement something that infringes
> someone's patent, they wait until litigation is filed, then seek to
> invalidate specific claims in the patent.  There are administrative
> procedures in place wih the USPTO that take this into account.  It's
> expensive and you have to be willing to risk litigation.
> 

Yes, exactly. Look at http://www.bountyquest.com

A patent gives the owner of the patent the right to _deny_ anybody
to use this "invention" (17 years when granted).

History has proved that inventions where done independantly in
different countries at almost the same time.

With software patents the chance that two programmers code something
up almost exactly the same way grows _rapidly_.

I don't like the fact, that somebody can deny me the use of my
own ideas. The whole idea of helping innovations with patents
is outdated.

RE: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Rose, Billy]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alan Cox [mailto:alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk]
> Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2002 8:25 AM
> To: Roman Zippel
> Cc: yodaiken@fsmlabs.com; linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
> Subject: Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

...
> The
> patent grant says it can be used for GPL software. As a free software
> author I have no problems at all with Victor's patent. If I want to do
> proprietary software well shucks, I'm going to have to play by the
> proprietary rules. I don't see that anti free software. It 
> might be anti
> how convenient I can mix the two and flog it for lots of money, but
> thats not free software anyway.
...

Enough said. Business is business, bottom line. Coding in open source
is artwork. These guys building this kernel are artists. Those guys
selling stuff are business people. So, you want to use my artwork for
money? Fine, then pay me to let someone have the privilege. Want to
help me paint parts of the memory handling? Fine, here's a paint brush
all your own... totally free.

~Billy Rose~

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Daniel Phillips]

On Wednesday 29 May 2002 14:36, Rose, Billy wrote:
> > The
> > patent grant says it can be used for GPL software. As a free software
> > author I have no problems at all with Victor's patent. If I want to do
> > proprietary software well shucks, I'm going to have to play by the
> > proprietary rules. I don't see that anti free software. It 
> > might be anti
> > how convenient I can mix the two and flog it for lots of money, but
> > thats not free software anyway.
> ...
> 
> Enough said. Business is business, bottom line. Coding in open source
> is artwork. These guys building this kernel are artists. Those guys
> selling stuff are business people. So, you want to use my artwork for
> money? Fine, then pay me to let someone have the privilege. Want to
> help me paint parts of the memory handling? Fine, here's a paint brush
> all your own... totally free.

These are fine-sounding words, but this is not the intent of, for
example, the GPL, which intentionally accomodates the needs of commerce.
If it didn't - i.e., no provision for closed apps on the GPL operating
system - you can be sure that Linux would not have grown as it has.

What we're really discussing is whether we're willing to allow patent
restrictions to inhibit the growth of Linux in new areas that go beyond
its traditional IT role, and further, whether we're willing to accept
such restrictions from people or companies that depend on Linux for
their sustenance, and who have benefitted from the lack of such
restrictions as they wish to impose on others.

-- 
Daniel

Re: A reply on the RTLinux discussion.

[Mark Mielke]

On Wed, May 29, 2002 at 09:46:46PM +0200, Daniel Phillips wrote:
> What we're really discussing is whether we're willing to allow patent
> restrictions to inhibit the growth of Linux in new areas that go beyond
> its traditional IT role, and further, whether we're willing to accept
> such restrictions from people or companies that depend on Linux for
> their sustenance, and who have benefitted from the lack of such
> restrictions as they wish to impose on others.

Unless Linux is released under a stricter license, I don't know how much
effect 'whether we're willing to accept such restrictions' will have.

People can theorize that software patents make no sense, but that opinion
alone does not invalidate them.

mark

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