Messages in this thread |  | | Date | Thu, 22 Nov 2001 22:34:43 -0700 | From | "Jeff V. Merkey" <> | Subject | [PATCH] NetWare File System/M2FS/NWFS posted 2.4.15-pre9 |
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A kernel patch has been posted at
ftp.timpanogas.org:/nwfs/nwfs-2.4.15-pre9-1.bz2 and ftp.utah-nac.org:/nwfs/nwfs-2.4.15-pre9-1.bz2
This patch integrates the NetWare File System (NWFS) and the enablement hooks for the Clustered NetWare File System (M2FS) into the Native Linux Kernel. The cluster server and user space components are not included in this patch and will be posted at a later date, hopefully around the Salt Lake City Olympics. The interface currently supported for the M2FS clustered file system is Dolphin's Scalable Coherent Interface (SCI). We have measured cache-to-cache transfers over SCI with the 66Mhz adapters at 210 MB/S between file system nodes. We have support for Ethernet, etc. but it is not as robust or high-performance as SCI. SCI allows direct memory-to-memory mapping of cache pages between nodes. The M2FS design is **NOT** NUMA or ccNUMA, we are simply using the NUMA/ccNUMA capability of the Dolphin technology to provide push/pull capability via messages between node caches.
We have no plans to support Myrinet or other NUMA adapters at this time. We leave this work to others who may be interested in integrating their support into M2FS. M2FS has been a very long time in coming. Please be patient. We are testing at present, and are very close to having a hardened code base for posting.
LEGAL ANALYSIS of NWFS INCLUSION INTO LINUX -------------------------------------------
A legal brief will be sent Friday afternoon on this topic to the addressees who are the decision makers of Linux which includes copies of relevant agreements between TRG and Novell regarding Intellectual property. We apologize for our tardiness, however, our attorneys have been working dilegently on several other cases, and are working as fast as they can to pull the necessary documentation together. The Novell/TRG lawsuit comprises over 900,000 pages of materials, so for obvious reasons, it takes a while to go through all this stuff.
The summary of our analysis is not, however, privileged, and can be divulged in this forum so all Linux members can discuss and review the information. We respectfully ask for folks to stop pinging Andre Hedrick on these issues. Andre has been very helpful, however, he has been acting as a coordinator, but he is not an "insider" on what is going on with TRG, and has directed that we forward materials to a specfic list of decision makers. We appreciate Andre's assistance to date on this topic. Andre has contacted us with many of these requests, and most of them should probably be coming directly to me from this point forward. It is very generous and kind of Andre to attempt to field some of these requests, however, they are probably taking a lot of his time, and we have no desire to impinge on his very busy schedule. Andre is very much a person who has a strong drive to "belong" and be helpful to others, very admirable and honorable traits.
ANALYSIS --------
Novell filed a cause of action against TRG and Jeff Merkey, Darren Major, and Larry Angus in April of 1997. This litigation was settled in July of 1998. A settlement agreement was executed which included the imposition of a permanent injunction that prohibits TRG, and the people named above from "possessing, using, or distributing NetWare or Wolf Mountain Source code defendants had access to while employed at Novell." Obviously, we should not be doing anything with code that belongs to Novell, so we agreed to this injunction. We do not, nor ever had such code after we left Novell. The presiding Judge stated in his ruling of February 1998 that "No Novell source code had been used in any TRG projects, nor was there the appearance that any had been used orthat TRG had access to such code."
This settlement agreement also states, "Defendants are released from their obligations to maintain Novell information in confidence, and are free to reenter any prohibited areas after experation of the preliminary non-compete injunction (18 months)." This language effectively released us from our prior trade secret agreements. It mirrored the ruling of the court. This ruling was posted in February of 1998 in case 9704-339. In this ruling, the court ruled that Novell was only allowed to claim an 18 month window of exclusitivity of their "trade secrets." Following the settlement agreement, Novell could not even claim this, since they waived their rights to claim trade secrets under the terms of this agreement.
At the time this agreement was signed, I had filed suit against Novell for sexual harassment relative to my departure from Novell. The suit claimed I had been sexually harrassed by Dr. Eric Schmidt (Ugh!!!) and another executive at Novell. Part of the reason I left Novell was due to these incidents. I am not going into the details of these incidents, suffice to say they were "vile" from my viewpoint. In exchange for dropping this lawsuit and agreeing never to disclose publically the specific "blow by blow" actions of the executives involed, Novell agreed to release us from our trade secret agreements. This factual information is documented in these agreements.
The settlement agreement contains a listing of actions Novell was required to take in the event they believed we were "using source code we obtained while employed at Novell." This agreement called for audits to be conducted over a period of three years. Novell conducted one of these audits in August of 1998 pursuant to the agreement. They failed thereafter to perform any additional audits as required by this agreement, and in doing so, waived their rights to object to any released code. NWFS on Linux was announced in the Winter of 1998 and posted in early 1999. Novell general counsel David Bradford sent several emails in 1999 to me complaining about the release of NWFS on Linux. I informed him to perform an audit and prove we were using NetWare code if he believed this, and bring an OFC (Order for Cause). On order for cause is a criminal contempt order brought to enforce a settlement agreement, judgement, or order of a court. There are prescribed time limits of 24 months (2 years) under Utah Law.
Novell did not take any of these actions. NWFS was a total rewrite from the ground up, and Novell after analyzing the code posted publically, discovered this was in fact so. TRG has a complete archive of NWFS development maintained by our in-house law firm. Novell also was aware that TRG moved several attorneys in with us and created an "in-house" law firm prior to the release of NWFS for the very purpose of documenting our code development in the event Novell attempted more of their dishonest posturing with the Court. In Utah, a sitting Judge is required to take an attorneys word at face value. They have in-house lawyers, and so do we.
In order for Novell to comply with this agreement, they had to raise an objection within the 18 months defined by the Court's ruling, and possibly within the 24 month rule as well. They did not do this with regard to NWFS, and as such have waived their rights to bring any cause of action against TRG regarding this code. Novell could bring an action, but only against TRG. Novell has no power to bring an action against transmeta, red hat, suse, etc. for any code taken from TRG and incorporated. Novell can only bring such an action against TRG since we are the subject of these orders.
Now the question as to why Novell is continuing to make statements to partners needs to be examined. This agreement also contains a provision that prohibits Novell's employees from making **ANY** public statements or statements to partners about TRG or any issues about TRG's business or any matters related to the TRG/Novell lawsuit. Within 30 days of the settlement agreement being signed, Novell's employees promptly were out bashing us in public and making statements we were thieves, and had stolen source code. To date we have documented over 300 such incidents, and have sent a mountain of correspondence to Novell cataloging these events. The agreement allows TRG to collect $100,000 in cash for each and every one of these violations. When NWFS was posted, Novell knew we had documented dozens of such breaches by their employees, and feared sanctions and punitive damages if they attempted a direct route of attack. They have since done everything they can to "ignore" us or present the appearance they are "ignoring us" to others. Their current mode of attack to to threaten vendors with letters and emails, stating, "if you do business with them, and they have any of our code, we will harrass you and you will be subject to an OFC with them." These are for the most part empty threats. Novell can only sue us, not others, and suing "Linux" is a rather large target. They are going out of business at present, and have much bigger fish to fry at the present time.
Unfortunately, most large companies simply want to avoid such entaglements, and it is simply easier and simpler to avoid doing business with TRG, and this has been the affect. Novell has succeeded in chasing away all of TRGs investors, partners, and customers with this approach, since large companies do no like having lawyers serving them with email production requests and other forms of "harrassment." What is diffcult to communicate to these folks is that Novell has no basis for these statements, and are terrified of the prospect of litigation with us. I managed to cost them $17,000,000.00 dollars in attorneys fees, and I succeeded in getting David Bradford, Denice Gibson, Eric Schmidt, Joe Marengi, Vic Langford, and a long list of other executives fired from the company over time due to the problems this conflict has and is continuing to cause Novell. I did not ask for this lawsuit, but they should know better than to declare war on an American Indian. We are always ready and willing to smoke the peace pipe. Novell has shown no inclination to do so. :-)
We will provide JPEG version of these materials to the folks who need to review them. Based on our analysis, Novell is on shaky ground if they attempt to bring a cause of action with regard to NWFS inclusion into Linux. This is not the case with MANOS, NDS, or other projects. Novell has patents, and we believe they will attack if an open source NDS is posted or replacement OS. Such a release would kill them overnight. NWFS actually helps them, since it promotes their file system technology on other platforms. As such these other projects (NDS,MANOS) have been shelved, and I plan to leave them shelved.
We do hereby indemnify all persons listed in the CREDITS file in Linux against any and all claims by Novell. This statement means that if Novell tries to sue anyone, we become liable for all costs and Novell's case gets dismissed as a matter of law. We also do hereby indemnify all Linux companies, partners, customers, contributors, etc or any other person who uses NWFS on Linux. We are also filing for dissolution of the permaanent injunction Monday, November 26 2001, since it has run it's term, and Novell's four year window for keeping it has expired. Novell at this point has to show we A) have copies of thier code and B) we are using it, and C) curcumstances are the same as five years ago in order to retain this injunction. As it stands, any action they bring can be dismissed as a matter of law on the grounds they A) have breached the agreement B) they have failed to perform audits as required by the agreement C) the 18 month windows on trade secret claims has expired D) the 24 month limit on bring an OFC for violation of the injunction has expired E) NWFS contains no source code we had access to while employed at Novell and was developed independent of Novell.
We recommend inclusion of NWFS beginning with Linux 2.5 when the page cache issues can be resolved. We are also dissolving the permanent injunction, which will close Novell's ability to bring any OFC against TRG relative to the 1997 litigation. We have also indemnified Linux and it's members under 27 CFR which effectively shields the Linux community and its customers from any claims brought by Novell (they revert to us).
We see no genuine issue of fact or matter of law that prevents adoption by anyone of NWFS on Linux for the reasons stated.
Respectfully Submitted,
Jeff Merkey TRG/Utah NAC
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