For NetApp's side:
http://blogs.netapp.com/dave/2007/09/netapp-sues-sun.html
For a pretty good view of both sides:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2179693,00.asp
Its a dissappointment when patents take something great and ruin it for everyone. Patents on techniques make about as much sense as patents on techniques to solve math/scientific problems.
"Oops, you're going to have to pay Company X a license fee before you can use Fourier Transform"
Yeah, patents on things like algorithms are stupid. Hopefully, somebody will come to his/her senses and they'll abolish patents on ideas like they were supposed to be.
What sucks is, if I write a piece of software from scratch, odds are that I'm going to infringe on a bunch of different patents that I've never even heard of, for concepts that are fairly obvious. As a result, writing software is a total minefield.
I can understand where patents apply. The only place it should apply is quite simply plagerism. ZFS doesn't plagerize WAFL. However, a patent currently applies to the broader concept. Like anybody can tell a story, anybody can code...how the story is told makes the difference, much like the quality of the code, whoever does it better deserves the sales, not the damn inventor! A patent is unamerican as it attempts to stifle competition.
P.S. If UNIX were under a patent, then any Unix-like system would be violating it since it copies the concept of Unix (i.e. the look, the API, ... everything).
Quote from: iago on September 16, 2007, 01:27:16 PM
Yeah, patents on things like algorithms are stupid. Hopefully, somebody will come to his/her senses and they'll abolish patents on ideas like they were supposed to be.
What sucks is, if I write a piece of software from scratch, odds are that I'm going to infringe on a bunch of different patents that I've never even heard of, for concepts that are fairly obvious. As a result, writing software is a total minefield.
Yeah, I totally agree.
If only there were virtual robots who would sacrifice themselves for me in the minefield. Wait, hold on... hey, Joe... Hehe, just kidding. :)
Didn't SCO try to sue Linux et al for patent violations and fail?
Quote from: iago on September 16, 2007, 02:40:45 PM
Didn't SCO try to sue Linux et al for patent violations and fail?
Miserably (http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/14/1948257&from=rss).
Quote from: Hitmen on September 16, 2007, 02:55:37 PM
Quote from: iago on September 16, 2007, 02:40:45 PM
Didn't SCO try to sue Linux et al for patent violations and fail?
Miserably (http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/14/1948257&from=rss).
High-five.