Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 01 Jun 2005 11:33:39 -0400 | From | john cooper <> | Subject | Re: RT patch acceptance |
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Andrea Arcangeli wrote: > The reason I raise this topic is that the fact spin_lock_irq wasn't > disabling irqs like it does in the non-RT configuration, sounded like > the technique described in the patent and it's one technique I always > considered not-usable. I possibly wrongly remembered that redefining the > disable-interrupt operation not to disable irqs, was the crucial point > of the patent. But as I've said I'm not a lawyer and so I may have > misunderstood completely the technique that the rtlinux patent is > covering (the way patents are written is not very readable to me).
FWIW the decoupling of interrupt mask levels from spinlocks is a technique which predates the patent under discussion by a decade or so. And yes IANAL as well but it seems the patent would/should not have been awarded if it conflicted/overlapped with preexisting usage. I'd hazard this is a non-issue.
-john
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