Messages in this thread | | | Subject | Re: Article: IBM wants to "clean up the license" of Linux | Date | Wed, 23 Dec 1998 21:50:34 -0500 | From | C S Hendrix <> |
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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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