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SubjectRe: Article: IBM wants to "clean up the license" of Linux
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In message <3682cf95.1309356@mail.cloud9.net>, John Alvord writes:

> Of course this has never been perfect. My favorite example is Mr Otis,
> who invented a scheme for automatically stopping a runaway elevator
> with a system of weights and flywheels. Elevators were a dicey affair
> 130 years ago. With his scheme, patented, they became *almost*
> perfectly safe. He wanted a lot for the licenses. All the big
> manufacturers waited out the 17 years and then adopted the idea.

Actually, there are probably many cases like this. The powerful
can afford to wait more than the average joe.

> I suspect gcc will have a much improved register allocation scheme in
> 2003 for the same reason.

If someone were to go ahead and write the code now, I'd use it.

Has anyone ever asked for permission to use that patent?

--
Shannon - shendrix@widomaker.com - www.widomaker.com - Will Hack 4 F00D
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"When you say 'I wrote a program that crashed Windows', people just
stare at you blankly and say 'Hey, I got those with the system,
*for free*'." -- Linus Torvalds

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