From: linas@austin•ibm.com (Linas Vepstas)
To: Stephen Rothwell <sfr@canb•auug.org.au>
Cc: Linuxppc-dev@ozlabs•org
Subject: Re: [patch 0/7] [RFC] Xenon support
Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2007 17:50:45 -0600 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20070308235045.GG30703@austin.ibm.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20070308113545.5dcc2565.sfr@canb.auug.org.au>
On Thu, Mar 08, 2007 at 11:35:45AM +1100, Stephen Rothwell wrote:
>
> Sorry, but given the anonymity requirement above, I do not want to even
> read these patches. Tracking of the pedigree of code in Linux has become
> an issue and deevelopers want to be anonymous really pokes a big hole in
> that.
Please note that legal systems do have pretty robust notions about
"reasonable people" and "reasonable behaviour". Having gone through
the patches, I can affirm that these are utterly unremarkable, perfectly
ordinary patches, and there is no way that any "reasonable person" will
get "contaminated" reading this stuff. The code looks like any other
ethernet or ide or sata code; a few register definitions are different,
but that's about it.
Concepts like "pedigree" and "contamination" and "certificate of
originality" and etc. apply when the code in question starts doing
things that are unique, novel, "not obvious to practitioners
versed in the state of the art". When some code implements something
unusual, then there can be legitimate concerns about infringing on
some patent, etc.
At most, one might argue that there are some "trade secrets" in that
code. However, "trade secrets" are not protected by law: once they're
public, the're not secret any more, and the holder of the secret is
plain out-of-luck, and has no legal recourse.
Oh, did I mention I'm not a lawyer, never studied law, etc. etc.?
The above is all my personal opinion, not that or my employer etc.
--linas
prev parent reply other threads:[~2007-03-08 23:50 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 23+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2007-03-07 18:01 [patch 0/7] [RFC] Xenon support Felix Domke
2007-03-07 18:01 ` [patch 1/7] xenon: add PCI Vendor ID: Microsoft Felix Domke
2007-03-07 18:01 ` [patch 2/7] xenon: add platform support Felix Domke
2007-03-07 23:06 ` Arnd Bergmann
2007-03-07 18:01 ` [patch 3/7] xenon: udbg support (ugly) Felix Domke
2007-03-07 21:00 ` Geert Uytterhoeven
2007-03-07 18:01 ` [patch 4/7] xenon: add southbridge ethernet support Felix Domke
2007-03-07 23:27 ` Arnd Bergmann
2007-03-07 18:01 ` [patch 5/7] xenon: add SATA support Felix Domke
2007-03-07 21:02 ` Sergei Shtylyov
2007-03-07 21:07 ` Felix Domke
2007-03-07 21:14 ` Sergei Shtylyov
2007-03-07 18:01 ` [patch 6/7] xenon: add SMC support Felix Domke
2007-03-07 21:54 ` Arnd Bergmann
2007-03-08 23:29 ` Linas Vepstas
2007-03-07 18:01 ` [patch 7/7] xenon: add framebuffer support (ugly) Felix Domke
2007-03-07 21:06 ` [patch 0/7] [RFC] Xenon support Josh Boyer
2007-03-07 21:14 ` Felix Domke
2007-03-08 9:48 ` Benjamin Herrenschmidt
2007-03-08 0:35 ` Stephen Rothwell
2007-03-08 0:52 ` Felix Domke
2007-03-08 11:02 ` Christoph Hellwig
2007-03-08 23:50 ` Linas Vepstas [this message]
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