Re: large page patch (fwd) (fwd) [LWN.net]

From:		Linus Torvalds <torvalds@transmeta.com>
To:		Daniel Phillips <phillips@arcor.de>
Subject:		Re: large page patch (fwd) (fwd)
Date:		Sun, 11 Aug 2002 15:55:08 -0700 (PDT)
Cc:		Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>, <frankeh@watson.ibm.com>, <davidm@hpl.hp.com>, David Mosberger <davidm@napali.hpl.hp.com>, "David S. Miller" <davem@redhat.com>, <gh@us.ibm.com>, <Martin.Bligh@us.ibm.com>, <wli@holomorpy.com>, <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>

On Mon, 12 Aug 2002, Daniel Phillips wrote:
> 
> It goes on in this vein.  I suggest all vm hackers have a close look at
> this.  Yes, it's stupid, but we can't just ignore it.

Actually, we can, and I will.

I do not look up any patents on _principle_, because (a) it's a horrible 
waste of time and (b) I don't want to know. 

The fact is, technical people are better off not looking at patents. If
you don't know what they cover and where they are, you won't be knowingly
infringing on them. If somebody sues you, you change the algorithm or you 
just hire a hit-man to whack the stupid git.

			Linus

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Re: large page patch (fwd) (fwd)

Posted Aug 23, 2002 21:45 UTC (Fri) by paolom (guest, #3402) [Link]

You are right Linus. I wonder how many patented algorithms are used in proprietary OSes where source code is not visible. May be SGI can reverse engineer W2K and sue MS for that too.

Paolo