Re: Patent issues and 8.1

On Tue, 25 Jan 2005, Bruce Momjian wrote:

> Marc G. Fournier wrote:
>>>> One problem in working around the GIF format patent is that you had to
>>>> create a file that was readable by many of the existing GIF readers.
>>>> With PostgreSQL, only we read our own data files so we can more easily
>>>> make adjustments to avoid patents.
>>>
>>> I did not see any reaction to my ideas above.  Is this a good plan?
>>
>> No, as an 8.0.x is mean to be for minor changes/fixes/improvements ...
>> 'addressing a patnt conflict', at least in ARC's case, is a major change,
>> which is why we are looking at a short dev cycle for 8.1 ...
>
> So if we have to address it we call it 8.0.7 or something.  My point is
> that we don't need to address it until we actually find out the patent
> is being enforced against someone, and that possibility is quite unlikely.

Ah, so you are advocating waiting *until* the problem exists, even *after* 
we know a) there may be a problem and b) we know that we can fix it ... ?

----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy@hub.org           Yahoo!: yscrappy              ICQ: 7615664