Re: ARC patent

Dave Held said:
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Marian POPESCU [mailto:softexpert@libertysurf.fr]
>> Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 8:06 AM
>> To: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
>> Subject: Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
>>
>> >>>Neil Conway <neilc@samurai.com> writes:
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>>>FYI, IBM has applied for a patent on ARC (AFAICS the
>> >>>>patent application is still pending, although the USPTO
>> >>>>site is a little hard to grok):
>> >>>
>> >>>Ugh.  We could hope that the patent wouldn't be granted,
>> >>>but I think it unlikely, unless Jan is aware of prior art
>> >>>(like a publication predating the filing date).  I fear we'll have
>> >>>to change or remove that code.
>
> Why not just ask IBM for a free license first?  After all, they put
> 1,000+ patents in the public domain or something, didn't they?  I
> realize that they might use this technology in DB2, and don't want to
> encourage competitors.  But IBM seems a lot more friendly to OSS than
> most companies, and it doesn't seem like it would hurt to ask. At the
> worst they say "no" and you just proceed as you would have
> originally.
>


Please read the record of the very recent discussion on this before
rehashing it. I'm sure you can find it on Google.

cheers

andrew