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Torvalds Says Linux IP Is Sound
An anonymous reader submits: "In an interview with CRN, Linus Torvalds says he's confident there won't be any IP problems discovered in Linux. In fact, Torvalds, says he was extra careful with issues like the IBM Read Copy Update code."
Obviously you don't understand Linus's role in all this. Linus' customers ARE developers. Joe sixpack doesn't go download the latest kernel and install, he goes and picks up RedHat/Debian/Gentoo/Slackware/etc... from CompUSA. RedHat/Debian/Gentoo/Slackware/etc... are Linus's customers, they are the ones that deal with him
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
Patents can be used in GPL code, AFAIK, as long as the owner of said patent allows it. Of course, it is always good to be cautious here because if IBM decided to yank the license for their patent, a lot of people are affected, so they have to get strict licensing terms that prevents that from happeneing.
Because the GPL specifically discusses patent licensing. In section 7, it states that if you can't get a royalty free license to the relevant patents then the GPL can't be applied.
Which is meant to imply that (in this case) if IBM is willing to license the relevant patents to GPL licencees without royalty then it can hold those patents (and charge others for the use of them for non-GPL'd applications) and GPL code based on those patents. Which IBM is doing.
Regards,
Ross
Wrong. Linus works on the Linux kernel. The people that package various distributions worry about the customers they attempt to serve. Most folks that enjoy using Linux would laugh with Linus on this one.
Like it says... the patents are licensed. Read the GPL, it is not incompatible with patents. It just says they have to be licensed so that they won't be a problem for people using the code.
So IBM wrote a license for their RCU patents which says (briefly) that anyone can use it in GPL'ed code.
And there you go - no conflict.
Of course IBM can still sue people who use the RCU stuff in NON-GPL'ed code, unless those people get a separate license to do so.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
[IBM] can hold those patents (and charge others for the use of them for non-GPL'd applications) and GPL code based on those patents.
Yes, exactly correct. This is why Linux has RCU and BSD doesn't. IBM is willing to license the patents for free for GPL code, but they still want to charge license fees for use in proprietary code.
Releasing something under BSD is effectively placing it in the public domain.
By the way, you sometimes see people claiming that "if there weren't any copyrights there would be no need for GPL" or some such. Not so. GPL uses copyright law to prevent people from taking free projects proprietary; BSD lets you do anything you want, including taking a free project, hacking it up slightly, and releasing it as a proprietary product.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Oh brother, not this again.
Trade secrets, copyrights, and patents, are three different things, covered by three different sets of legislation and case law, and typically suggest three different approaches for relevant IP management. Most of Linus' comments in the article are about copyright. The LKML entry you reproduce is about patents. Patent issues have nothing to do with the dispute over RCU.
Linus actually said "we" and not "I". And by "we" he, of course, meant Andrea Arcangeli.
Here is the link where Andrea says he had IBM send Linus a copy of the RCU patent paper work.