See also: last week's Letters page.

Letters to the editor

From: "Neuer, David" <dneuer@eflatbed.com>
To: "'letters@lwn.net'" <letters@lwn.net>
Subject: RTLinux patent
Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 09:59:52 -0500

I am opposed to software patents. However, if one has to patent software,
this is the type of licensing I'd like to see more of. The idea of saying,
"OK. I can play by the IP rules. And according to those rules and my terms,
to use my IP you either have to a) fundamentally eschew traditional notions
of IP protection by making anything you do with my IP a possible stepping
stone to your own competitors' economic success -- by licensing your work
under the GPL; or b) pay me huge -- possibly prohibitive -- sums of money"
pleases me due to the irony of using IP law to defeat the purpose of the
same twisted IP laws. It's only unfortunate that there are so many
alternatives to RTLinux in the real-time space that this type of licensing
situation won't help to precipitate the demise of software patents. I'd love
to have seen this happen in a market segment so dominated by big,
proprietary software companies that the sound of their lobbying efforts to
do away with software patents became deafening.

Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 16:36:36 +0100 (CET)
From: Jean-Marc Saffroy <saffroy@ri.silicomp.fr>
To: <letters@lwn.net>
Subject: RTLinux patent: probable prior art

The concepts covered by the RTLinux patent seem so broad that there is
probably prior art that could invalidate it.

A colleague of mine, who was already working here when our lab was still
the OSF Research Institute, has reminded me of the MkLinux and MK-PA
projects: both are general purpose operating systems (Linux and HP-UX)
running on top of a real-time scheduler (the OSF implementation of the
Mach microkernel).

You can find more detailed information on these (old) projects here:
  http://www.ri.silicomp.com/technologies/os.html#info

I don't know if this is enough to invalidate the patent, but at least this
is the proof that the ideas in the RTLinux patent are certainly not new.


Regards,

-- 
Jean-Marc Saffroy - Research Engineer - Silicomp Research Institute
mailto:saffroy@ri.silicomp.fr

Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 10:48:29 -0500
From: Pierre Baillargeon <pb@artquest.net>
To: letters@lwn.net
Subject: RTLinux licencing


In the article about RTLinux patent, Mr. Victor Yodaiken argues about
the reasons behinds the licensing of his patent. If we are to judge his
position from what has been reported, we are bound to find his reasoning
incomplete. To quote his argumentation, according to the article:

"Those who want to use the RTLinux method and do not want to license
their code under the GPL are, according to Mr. Yodaiken, doing
proprietary work. Such people should be both willing and able to pay for
the previous proprietary work (such at the RTLinux patent) that they
make use of. He sees people who wish to use RTLinux in proprietary
products without paying as would-be free riders, and sees no
justification for any complaints that they might make."

And further:

"Mr. Yodaiken expresses respect for those who are opposed to software
patents (while disagreeing with them), but has little patience for those
who wish to make money off other peoples' work."

It would seem that Mr. Yodaiken fails to apply his own logic to himself. 
According to this logic, isn't Mr. Yodaiken taking a free ride and
making money off the people who developed Linux? After all, if a company
develops a proprietary solution using RTLinux, then RTLinux is making
money from proprietary work using Linux, a free system. According to the
logic, RTLinux would thus have to pay off the Linux developers.

Also, can someone simply distribute their proprietary work under a dual
license to get off the hook and make money while not paying any
licensing? If that is so, then RTAI has nothing to fear.

Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 09:12:40 +0100
From: Lothar Werzinger <werzinger.lothar@krones.de>
To: letters@lwn.net
Subject: RTLinux Patent issue

As you stated the patent is mainly about two core issues:

> Running a general-purpose operating system (i.e. Linux) as a
> low-priority process under a real-time system. The general purpose
> system is not allowed to block the real-time system from executing
> whenever it needs to. 

> Placing an emulation layer between hardware interrupts and the
> general-purpose system. Linux thinks it is working with interrupts as
> always, but RTLinux is pulling the strings behind the scenes. 

I wonder if that would affect Companies like Venturecom
(http://www.vci.com/) that provide a similar RT layer beneath Windows NT
(RTX). It would be interesting if they may have a prior arts attack
against the RTLinux patent.

Lothar Werzinger
-- 
Lothar Werzinger Dipl.-Ing.Univ.  
Dept. R&D (Abt. EW)            Phone: +49-(0)9401/70-3499
KRONES AG                      Fax:   +49-(0)9401/70-3679
Böhmerwaldstraße 5             WWW:   http://www.krones.de   
D-93068 Neutraubling, Germany  eMail: mailto:werzinger.lothar@krones.de

Date: Thu, 15 Feb 2001 16:10:17 +0100
From: Fred Mobach <fred@mobach.nl>
To: Linux Weekly News <lwn@lwn.net>
Subject: The RTLinux patent

Hello,

In the February 15, 2001 issue Mr. Yodaiken's position is been said to
be :

> His position is that he has made an innovation that he has a right to
> exploit. Nonetheless, he wishes to make it freely available to anybody
> who is working with code licensed under the GPL. He sees this as a
> fulfillment of his obligation to the free software community"

Perhaps it is time for Mr. Yodaiken to study the Free Software
Foundation's opinion regarding Free Software licenses, which can be
found at http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/license-list.html. I don't know
why some think that Richard Stallman is radical, he does acknowledge
here at least 13 other licenses as Free Software licenses. 

My stance at software patents is clear, see my sig. I deny anyone the
right to impose limits on my freedom to write programs for my computers
and the computers of my clients, friends or whomever else.

Regards,

Fred
-- 
Fred Mobach - fred@mobach.nl - postmaster@mobach.nl
Systemhouse Mobach bv - The Netherlands - since 1976
/"\  --software patents will burn in hell--
\ /   --and software patent holders also--
 X  ASCII RIBBON CAMPAIGN
/ \ AGAINST HTML MAIL

Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 23:54:01 -0800
To: letters@lwn.net
Subject: BIND vulnerablility
From: Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com>

Dear Ms. Coolbaugh and Mr. Corbet:

I applaud your effort to cover the field of alternatives to the problematic
BIND v. 8 DNS server, including the unusual and ambitious djbdns package.
The latter's classification as "almost free" was... almost persuasive.

In the name of completeness, here are some additional candidates, to add to
your lineup of djbdns, CustomDNS, Dents, and ENS:

Hubert Tonneau's Pliant DNS Server (http://pliant.cx/pliant/protocol/dns/)
is implmented in his Pliant programming language, a cross between the logical
and procedural language types.  It has apparently reached a design-complete
stage, as a "partial DNS server implementation, according to RFC 1035".
It is offered under the GNU GPL.

Roland Schemer and Rob Riepel's lbnamed
(http://www.stanford.edu/~riepel/lbnamed/) is a DNS server implemented in
Perl, capable of serving from SQL (and other) database back-ends, with the
additional capability of managing a load-balancing system (e.g., for Web
farms).  It is BSD-licensed.

Eddieware's lbdns (http://eddie.sourceforge.net/lbdns.html) is a very
similar package, with full-featured DNS and support for and monitoring of
load-balanced systems.  It is offered under the Erlang Public License
(very similar to the MPL).

-- 
Cheers,              "It ain't so much the things we don't know that get us
Rick Moen            in trouble.  It's the things we know that ain't so."
rick@linuxmafia.com             -- Artemus Ward (1834-67), U.S. journalist

From: "Scott Morizot" <tmorizot@sd.is.irs.gov>
To: letters@lwn.net
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 15:49:05 -0600
Subject: djbdns

Hello,

I read the letters from the djbdns supporters.  As usual,
they're a very vocal bunch.  I don't really care that much
about the DNS software any individual uses, but there is one
point that is the key one for most people out there.

djbdns doesn't support the full suite of DNS related standards.
For instance, it doesn't support the IETF DNSSEC standard
and the author of the software has repeatedly stated he
has no intention of supporting it.  He prefers his own
approach.  Similarly, he's stated he has no intention of
supporting the IETF IXFR standard.  Again, he prefers
his own approach.  And, last time I checked, djbdns didn't
support the IETF Notify standard.  Those are just three examples,
but enough to illustrate the point.

If you want to implement software that takes a different approach
to issues than the standards outlined by the IETF, that's fine.
I don't have a problem with that, and I doubt it bothers very many
people anywhere.  Maybe some people don't need those features or are
perfectly happy with the non-standard approach.  The majority of us, 
however, prefer to stick to products that adhere as closely as possible 
to the IETF standards.  Right now that's BIND.

Of course, the author of djbdns is perfectly free to submit his
approach to the IETF for consideration as a standard in any area where
he deviates.  That's legitimate as well.  Of course, if an approach
is adopted as a standard, BIND will implement it as well.  But the
competition would be nice.

However, particularly for something as critical as DNS, the majority of
us will quietly stick with the product that strives to adhere to all of
the IETF standards, not just the ones the authors like.  All the 
protestations of its supporters aside, that's the issue that will keep
djbdns a (comparatively) fringe player in the DNS arena.

I don't think any of us would object to more real competition in DNS 
software.  Heck, I don't think the ISC would object to more real 
competition.  But most of us have been burned enough to want
to steer clear of people and products playing a standards game.

Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 10:28:16 +0100
From: Sergio Callegari <callegar@libero.it>
To: letters@lwn.net
Subject: SIAE law

Your feature about the new Italian law 248/2000 is excellent, and it is
very important to debate these new regulations, to make them known in
countries other than Italy and to help confronting how intellectual
property (IP) is protected in different countries.

I would like to point out some other issues of the new law:

1) The new law suggests that it can have legal consequences to separate
a medium from its SIAE stamp. However, the stamp is usually placed on CD
plastic cases rather than on CDROMs themselves (I suspect that a stamp
placed on a CD could make it useless). Unfortunately, this makes the
CDROM medium extremely risky. Consider how often it happens to replace a
broken CDROM case with a new one, or to place CDROMS in CDROM holders
where only the disks fit and the cases do not.

2) SIAE means "Italian Society of Authors and Publishers" and is meant
to protect IP.  Originally, the money paid for each stamp was not a
"tax", but simply a means of sustaining the Society. However, if you are
an author, you cannot decide to have your rights protected by any other
(cheaper) institute but SIAE.

3) SIAE is an institution that touches many aspects of the Italian
people life.  For instance, if you decide to have a party, say to
celebrate your graduation, you have to pay SIAE for it, even if the
admission is free.  No wonder then that free software is now affected.

4) An extensive interpretation of the "for profit" clause of the law is
often proposed, suggesting that one has profit even when he justs saves
money. This means that even if you are not a professional and you have
free software for personal use, you need to have it stamped. In fact, if
you use a free office suite, you save the mony necessary for buying a
commercial one.

5) Not only the free software movement is affected by the new law.
Teaching might be too.  Some publishers have suggested that "class
notes" distributed in schools and universities courses should be
stamped, because they save students the money necessary to buy textbooks
or --- if the schools are private own --- they participate to the school
business.

Note that many aspects in the new law are still unclear, and some of our
concerns might result excessive.  Probably we will have to wait until
clarification/actuation norms are emanated by the Government or until
the law is actually enforced in some Court.

In the meantime, I would be very pleased if in the future you could
continue presenting features about how IP is protected in the various
countries.


    Sergio Callegari

Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 22:51:08 -0800
From: Pascal F. Martin <pascal_f_martin@yahoo.com>
To: letters@lwn.net
Subject: Italian law 248/2000

Dear editor.

In a daily update section, you make reference to an Italian law (248/2000),
which may harm the independent software authors and free software users.

It seems that law requires to stamp all medium containing software, one
stamp for each software. this is totally impractible, and therefore it
could be used in very interesting ways.

For example, I really doubt all computers owned by Microsoft in Italy bear
one legally mandatory stamp for each of the softwares stored on their hard
disk. May I suggest anonymous informants to tell the SIAE about this
serious breach of the law ?

I am looking forward for Microsoft executives put in jail for six months
for the sole reason that they hold "illegal" copies of their own software !

------------------------------------------------------------------
Pascal F. Martin.

Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2001 21:05:21 +0100
From: Toon Moene <toon@moene.indiv.nluug.nl>
To: letters@lwn.net
Subject: Re: An "Un-American" essay

Tracy R Reed <treed@ultraviolet.org> wrote:

> Microsoft is speaking to lawmakers to have open source software 
> outlawed.

> Their immediate goal in Washington is to poison our leaders on the idea 
> of open source software and prevent it from ever becoming officially 
> accepted and supported software in government offices.

If you think so ("to poison our leaders") you read it differently than I
do:

	"Linux is developed in a so-called
	open-source environment in which the
	software code generally isn't owned by any
	one company. That, as well as programs
	such as music-sharing software from
	Napster Inc., means the world's largest
	software maker has to do a better job of
	talking to policymakers, he said."

This is a straight "guilt by association" argument; do not think
"poison" - think "outlaw".  If your leaders accept such a mode of
discourse - well, you get the government you deserve :-)

Far more scary is the following:

	"I worry if the government encourages open source,
	and I don't think we've done enough education of
	policy makers to understand the threat."

Uhhh, "education" - like: "Let me tell you this, buddy, and let us make
no mistake about it!".

>From a safe distance ...

-- 
Toon Moene - mailto:toon@moene.indiv.nluug.nl - phoneto: +31 346 214290
Saturnushof 14, 3738 XG  Maartensdijk, The Netherlands
Maintainer, GNU Fortran 77: http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/g77_news.html
Join GNU Fortran 95: http://g95.sourceforge.net/ (under construction)

Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2001 20:04:29 -0500
From: Thomas Hood <jdthood@ubishops.ca>
To: letters@lwn.net
Subject: Reaction to Tracy Reed's letter

Dear lwn.net,

I am sure you will get many letters on this subject,
but I want to make sure that you get at least one.

Because you not only published Tracy R Reed's letter about
Jim Allchin's remarks but also endorsed it by saying that
it 'gets the real point', I feel I must respond to one aspect
of the letter.

Reed says that "corporations are amoral".  In the sense that
Reed seems to mean this, it is nonsense.  Corporations are
creations of the state and thus of the people who comprise
the state.  Corporations derive their purpose from the purposes
of citizens.  Even if you agree with Locke that the pursuit
of private property is a natural right, you cannot say that
corporations are natural.  We created them---through our 
governments, in order to serve our ends.  As there is more to
the lives of citizens than making money, there is more to the
corporate purpose than making money.

Admittedly, corporations serve their purposes largely because
of the existence of the desire for profit.  Corporations do
seek to maximize profit.  But that should not be regarded as
their ultimate purpose, and it cannot in truth be regarded
as the only purpose that actual corporations have.  Corporations
do not "make decisions without regard to compassion or ethics
much like a computer."  (That's insulting to computers, BTW.)
The leaders of better corporations understand that their job is
not only to enrich their shareholders.  They understand that
they have responsibilities to the society that allows their
corporation to exist.  To say categorically that corporations
do nothing but grub money (or even more ludicrously to say that
they are legally obligated to do nothing but this) is thoroughly
cynical.  We should not believe it, because it is not true.

Unfortunately, Microsoft isn't one of the world's better
corporations.  :)

Thomas Hood
Instructor in Philosophy, Bishop's University
Author of tpctl, ThinkPad Configuration Tools for Linux
http://panopticon.csustan.edu/thood/tp600lnx.htm

From: "eeeg ilich" <eeeg_ilich@hotmail.com>
To: letters@lwn.net
Subject: linux advocacy how-to
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 15:43:00 -0000

Perhaps it is time for the folks at lwn to re-read the Linux advocacy 
how-to.  In response to Microsoft's Jim Allchin's comments regarding open 
source software you received a letter from Tracy R. Reed which you termed 
'gets the real point of Allchin's remarks.'  While the author has invited us 
'to trash' the essay, I'll try to refrain from that, but I will respond to 
several of the weaker arguments in hope that we can elevate the dialogue.

The opening comment, 'Microsoft is speaking to lawmakers to have open source 
software outlawed' cannot be substantiated and quite frankly lacks any 
foundation (well, at least given the links from his essay and lwn).  It 
takes great imagination to accept this statement as true, while it is much 
easier, and quite frankly, more correctly, treated as FUD.  Rather like the 
FUD Mr. Alchin produced.  This is the hyperbole one would expect the 
advocacy how-to advises against.  Mr. Reed would have served the community 
better had he simply stated what hitherto can only be verified: Microsoft's 
Mr. Allchin is attempting to stain the image of open source software in a 
rather childish, McArthyesque fashion.  Fighting FUD with FUD leads to 
sensless debates that I am growing tired of reading in news groups and 
message boards.  Of course the second paragraph does bring about an 
interesting, and probably quite accurate, view of Micrsoft's goals.  This 
would come across as more valid had we not had the overly dramatic opening 
line.

Continuing we are met with a little more hyperbole and a tagential 
discussion of the authors view on the roles of corporations in society. 
Statements like: "If the stockholders found out that a big
company gave someone a break and didn't do everything they could to
maximize shareholder value they would get their pants sued off."  Aside from 
being inaccurate one wonders why it is even in this essay.  Linux/open 
source is about better software.  It is not about social economic systems.  
We are not going to win *any* 'Corporate America' is the root of all evil 
arguments.  In fact when you go down that road  people start debating that 
topic and the message gets lost.  I could write paragraphs about how that 
statement is false.  Really, name one case where stockholders brought upon a 
corporation's board or executives legal action for poor performance (note: 
fraud is a different issue).  Finally, let's remember that Mr. Torvalds, Mr. 
Cox, K&R, Mr. Stroustrup all work for, gasp, corporations (the last three a 
very large one).

Unfortunately, the most critical point of Allchin's comments are scarecly 
addressed.  This being that open source threatens innovation.  Allchin 
argues that firms will fear investing in new technologies and research.  I 
gather this 'fear' stems from the fact that companies believe an open 
source/free software solution will replicate it.  What the Reed essay does 
not examine is the fact that these same charges have been levied against a 
huge monolothic software firm that buys up its competitors (read: the real 
innovators) and does with them what it pleases.  We need to emphasize the 
good things about Linux.  We need to point out the features that Linux had 
first and which Microsoft only later added.  And while Mr. Reed did show 
some evidence of the open source system benefitting society we need to 
concentrate on this area more.  Mr. Allchin's comments on innovation are so 
easily attackable.  Innovation is not going away any time soon.  Nor, is 
open source.  It has always been around in academia and because of that will 
never be illegal.

Okay, sorry about that.  Now it's time to trash me!