Posts by Swashbuckler 6 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Oct 2007
"We're quite sure that a company such as Sun Microsystems and maybe even Red Hat would take umbrage at Greene's suggestions that innovation cannot happen under the open source model."
If Sun did, they'd be wrong. Most of their code was developed as a proprietary company.
Red Hat would be wrong too. As most of Linux was not developed by Red Hat.
"So, you're saying that even if they took the technology/concept from another environment (say mainframes or databases for the sake of discussion) then they still deserve a patent because they were the first to think of using it in a file system?"
If it's non-obvious, then yes - that's the law.
"Honestly, that concept to me is about at sane as Charles Manson."
Well, we haven't established YOUR sanity yet, now have we.
"The more I think about the actual concept it seems VERY similar if no the same as a basic concept taught in my high school's programming courses."
It may BE similar, that doesn't mean it's not patentable under current U.S. law.
"Besides, when was the technology first patented and then brought to market? 10-15 years?"
You're daft (you watch Faux News much? They use that same tactic).
NetApp filed for the earliest patent that Sun claims has "spurious claims" on May 31, '95. The WayBack Machine shows data from the NetApp web site talking about WAFL and stuff related to that patent in Dec, '97 (http://web.archive.org/web/19980201130313/http://www.netapp.com/technology/level3/3002.html#I36).
"Swashbuckler: note that it only allows Congress to do that, it doesn't require it."
Technically true, but get real - the FFs put it in the *** Constitution *** as a SUGGESTION?
And suggestion or not, it is still a right in the U.S.
"Copy-on-Write doesn't seem innovative to me."
Many things don't seem innovative AFTER THE FACT.
I once came up with a technique for doing something. Made the little company I worked for at the time a lot of money. It was very simple. I could have explained to anyone "skilled in the art" the basics of how to do it in literally one minute. Said person would have slapped their forehead and said "DOH! Of course!" BUT... no one had done it before and even after we had done it, people to had to reverse engineer it to figure it out how it was done.
Going from the end of the maze to the beginning is usually much easier than going from the beginning to the end...
"There is *no* right to own an idea."
In the U.S., where both of these companies are headquartered, there IS indeed such a right. Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution states that Congress shall have the power "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."
http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.articlei.html#section8
"But if Net App loses this case, then it's 'so long and thanks for all the fish'"
That's a lot of baloney. If NetApp loses then things remain the same - they keep on selling their equipment and Sun keeps on selling theirs.
"If Sun loses ZFS, then it can easily dip into its cash and get back to work on its other clever ideas."
"For Sun it's all win-win."
You're daft. If Sun loses then it will have to license the patents from NetApp, assuming NetApp would be willing to do that. If not, then Sun has lots of file system work to do. Creating a file system driver is not something that can be done overnight. It usually takes years to get a reliable file system driver. Just look at how long it's taking Apple to get a reliable read/write ZFS driver on OS X --- and they're starting with one!
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