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VFAT patent avoidance and patent workaroundsVFAT patent avoidance and patent workaroundsPosted Jun 30, 2009 5:09 UTC (Tue) by spiv (subscriber, #9031)In reply to: VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds by jlokier Parent article: VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
"Somehow by not telling you things, it changes whether our code would be found to infringe a patent"
Actually, the FAQ referring to the legal advice doesn't say that; it says that if someone said on LKML that they thought the patch might not avoid the patent then it makes it more likely that the case would go to a full trial. It doesn't say that it is likely to affect the end result of a full trial. But it does make the point that a full trial is going to be much much more expensive (and time consuming), so it's in the interests of a potential defendant to avoid it.
In short, the purpose of the patch is to reduce risk of litigation even starting, and a hypothetical public statement on LKML that it might not avoid the patent has the potential to at least partially undo that.
(IANAL etc.)
(Log in to post comments)
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds Posted Jun 30, 2009 13:30 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
The #1 thing to remember is:
THE LAW IS NOT CODE.
The Law is not code. It simply does not operate on the same level of exactness that source code operates.
There are all sorts of side rules, all sorts of implying and interpretation, and all sorts of crap like that. This patent IS A PROBLEM for some Linux users and developers. The FAT is a very real, very expensive thing to deal with. Ignoring it and minimizing it is simply doing absoletely nobody any favors.
It's very difficult for programmers to understand that Law doesn't make sense. It doesn't have to make sense, it'll never make sense. It's something that is intentionally vague in order to be able to deal with the complexities of human interactions in society.
So it's entirely up to a Judge to decide on a case by case basis.
So it's entirely and 100% makes sense that doing things like having Linux kernel developers questioning the patent workaround is the same of the Linux kernel developers saying that they think that they are violating the patents.
Get it?
By questioning the patent-workaround to much your admitting that your KNOWINGLY violating the patent. At least it will seem that way, which is _good_enough_. It's opening up a huge hole in any sort of legal standing you may have.
It's not very complicated here.
I am not a lawyer. I haven't looked at the code, I haven't looked at the patents in question. etc etc.
The law is/is not code Posted Jun 30, 2009 14:37 UTC (Tue) by davecb (subscriber, #1574) [Link]
The law is not code, it just uses some few of the same terms in ambiguous ways, such as "code". It's the black art of coding for autonomous processes (humans) using only global variables and universal statements like
for all X, if X is blue, do not do X
Arguing about whether X is in fact blue, having publiclly said we're doing X, is evidence that there is doubt about whether X is blue.
In doubtful cases, a company can ask a court to rule on whether X is blue, and if so, whether we've roken the rule.
--dave
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds Posted Jun 30, 2009 15:03 UTC (Tue) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]
> By questioning the patent-workaround to much your admitting that your KNOWINGLY violating the patent.
Maybe. Or maybe not. I would say that the only thing you admit is that you know that the patent exists. Maybe the questioner doesn't understand the implementation, or the patent, or both. Maybe the patent is bogus, maybe the actual code does not infringe (aren't patents open to interpretation?), maybe...
> I am not a lawyer. I haven't looked at the code, I haven't looked at the patents in question. etc etc.
Me neither.
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds Posted Jun 30, 2009 16:59 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
No. If your arguing that a patch doesn't work around a patent then essentially your admiting that you've read the implimentation and that you know your currently violating it.
That's the only way that a judge is going to interpret that.
It's just logical. How is somebody going to 'poke holes' in a patent-workaround when they don't even know the patent itself?
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds Posted Jun 30, 2009 19:09 UTC (Tue) by jordanb (subscriber, #45668) [Link]
When did being knowledgeable or informed become a prerequisite for having an opinion on the internet?
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds Posted Jun 30, 2009 21:03 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
I'd say the law is *exactly* like what code would be like if it was
written over many centuries, by people who never understood more than a fraction of the codebase, and with a goal of consistency above all despite that.
(In many sufficiently long-lived legal systems, the very oldest laws don't
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds Posted Jun 30, 2009 21:29 UTC (Tue) by jordanb (subscriber, #45668) [Link]
> I'd say the law is *exactly* like what code would be like if it was
> written over many centuries, by people who never understood more than a > fraction of the codebase, and with a goal of consistency above all despite > that.
I think that's an excessively reductionist view of human society and the way it interacts with its laws.
Code is a set of instructions performed by a machine. This is true even of 'big ball of mud' type systems. Any attempt to reduce the operation of human society to that of a machine will get into the more extensional (and pointless) aspects of the philosophy of AI.
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds Posted Jun 30, 2009 21:54 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
I was actually being cynical about code quality, rather than reductionist
about the law. I suspect that code *will* get as hopelessly inconsistent as legal systems do, if you let them accrete for as long: i.e., the driving factor here is time.
(That's why I mentioned old laws getting ignored: that's one major
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds Posted Jul 1, 2009 5:22 UTC (Wed) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link]
> That's why I mentioned old laws getting ignored: that's one major difference, because old code doesn't get ignored
Heh, I just read it as part of the analogy, with the old laws like the old modules that end up sitting in a corner mumbling quietly to themselves without actually being hooked into anything that matters anymore.
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds Posted Jul 1, 2009 22:05 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
That works, too.
Anyway, my apologies for introducing an analogy unrelated to cars, but as
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds Posted Jul 1, 2009 22:47 UTC (Wed) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link]
As part of the rising interest in "green" computing, I propose that henceforth we make analogies involving biking, walking, and light rail whenever possible.
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds Posted Jul 3, 2009 19:03 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] Code is a set of instructions performed by a machine. That's a bad way of thinking about code. It's an accurate description of machine code, but since the work of Grace Hopper, good code is a description of the solution to a computational problem. It's written in a language simple enough that a computer can understand the solution and implement it. So calling code instructions to a computer is like calling a manuscript instructions to a publisher. So the way I would compare law to code is that law is what code would be like if we had much more advanced computer technology (and I do think we'll get there eventually). Imagine code that technically says to iterate forever, but the computer understands you didn't really want an infinite loop and stops after a reasonable number of iterations. Law can do that.
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