Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
FYI, IBM has applied for a patent on ARC (AFAICS the patent application is still pending, although the USPTO site is a little hard to grok): http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1Sect2=HITOFFd=PG01p=1u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htmlr=1f=Gl=50s1=%2220040098541%22.PGNR.OS=DN/20040098541RS=DN/20040098541 How will this affect the release of 8.0? Wasn't this implemented in the early stages of the 7.5 cycle, long before may 20? ... John ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
John Hansen [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: How will this affect the release of 8.0? I don't think it needs to delay the release; the patent is only pending. But we need to look into the problem. regards, tom lane ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
On Mon, 2005-01-17 at 01:15 -0500, Tom Lane wrote: Neil Conway [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: FYI, IBM has applied for a patent on ARC (AFAICS the patent application is still pending, although the USPTO site is a little hard to grok): http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1Sect2=HITOFFd=PG01p=1u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htmlr=1f=Gl=50s1=%2220040098541%22.PGNR.OS=DN/20040098541RS=DN/20040098541 On Mon, 2005-01-17 at 01:15 -0500, Tom Lane wrote: I fear we'll have to change or remove that code. At very least, ARC should not be further mentioned in any press release or beta history files until we resolve where we are. There'll be less need for a retraction if the buffer strategy is not publicised. The code separation of bufmgr.c and freelist.c means that changes can be done later without too much of a problem. Any required changes can be made under the covers without external recall-notices or such. Well, considering the BufMgrLock problems, it was likely that some changes would need to be be made to that algorithm anyway. ARC may be optimal in lab tests, but I'm beginning to think that it's not optimal in multi-processing environments. It also takes no direct account of the workload it is being asked to support, so ISTM that we should be able to use workload hints, along the lines of StrategyHintVacuum, to get a more responsive algorithm suited specifically to PostgreSQL - which would be harder to claim rights on. -- Best Regards, Simon Riggs ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command (send unregister YourEmailAddressHere to [EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: [HACKERS] [PATCHES] Latest Turkish translation updates
Wow, Turkish seem to be the first translation to report 100% translation completion for 8.0 release. Congratulations for great work! And thanks to Peter for being patient with us all this time. We can't reproduce it with msgfmt -v. How do you get those errors? The scripts that produce these tables do not use the standard gettext tools; they use hand-crafted Perl scripts. In some cases, these catch more errors. In all cases that I have analyzed further, this was because %m was not identified as a format specifier by msgfmt. Could you share these scripts with us? Many update submissions we made were beacause of these %m errors. Also would it be easier to you Peter if we give you login to our CVS poject (on sf.net) so that you just run cvs up every time you package a new update and not bother with emails. Thank you all folks for your efforts. I will open a bottle of chamgne tonight to celebrate 8.0. Peter Eisentraut http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/ Best regards, Nicolai Tufar ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faqs/FAQ.html
Re: [HACKERS] pgdump
Neil Conway wrote: I would be OK with just ignoring this case, but on reflection I would prefer removing the -t schema.table syntax. Removing the feature resolves the quoting issue and also simplifies pg_dump's behavior. We lose the ability to dump table t1 in schema s1 and table t2 in schema s2 in a single command, but (a) you can specify -t t1 -t t2 -n s1 -n s2, although this might also dump t1.s2 and/or t2.s1 (b) you can just run pg_dump twice, specifying the appropriate -t and -n options each time So the behavior would be that suggested earlier by David Skoll: pg_dump -t t1 -- Dump table t1 in any schema pg_dump -n s1 -- Dump all of schema s1 pg_dump -t t1 -n s1-- Dump t1 in s1 pg_dump -t t1 -t t2 -n s1 -- Dump s1.t1 and s1.t2 pg_dump -t t1 -t t2 -n s1 -n s2-- Dump s1.t1, s1.t2, s2.t1 and s2.t2 We'd only raise an error if we found no matching tables/schemas, as was hashed out in July. I really prefer the -t schema.table syntax over the scenario listed above. If you look at the syntax for psql \ commands, and SQL commands, the structure tablename, optionally schema-qualified is seen time and time again. By allowing the same structure in arguments to pg_dump, you're helping add to an overall feeling of consistency in the postgres toolbox. My feeling is that, to an occasional or novice user of pg_dump, the proposed combination of -n and -t will seem daunting and idiosyncratic, especially for complex cases. The fact that with -n -t there are some cases that are actually impossible to perform in a single dump is quite a powerful disadvantage IMO. Yes, you *can* just run pg_dump multiple times, but I think anyone using pg_dump would rather quote out a wilcard than issue virtually the same command with one changed argument over and over again. Or writing a script to loop through the desired schema/table combinations and dumping each one at a time. Is command line quoting really that much of a hassle? And if so, what are the major hurdles? ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
Re: [HACKERS] [PATCHES] Latest Turkish translation updates
On Mon, Jan 17, 2005 at 01:40:40PM +0200, Nicolai Tufar wrote: Wow, Turkish seem to be the first translation to report 100% translation completion for 8.0 release. Congratulations for great work! And thanks to Peter for being patient with us all this time. There were several on 100% until some more messages were marked for translation. Doing that days before release was not a good idea IMO. Also would it be easier to you Peter if we give you login to our CVS poject (on sf.net) so that you just run cvs up every time you package a new update and not bother with emails. Maybe we should have a pgfoundry project where all translations were kept, and from which the main CVS could be updated semi-automatically. Then we wouldn't have Peter checking out and committing all the time. -- Alvaro Herrera ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Et put se mouve (Galileo Galilei) ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 7: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
Re: [HACKERS] [PATCHES] Latest Turkish translation updates
Alvaro Herrera wrote: There were several on 100% until some more messages were marked for translation. Doing that days before release was not a good idea IMO. Yeah, I though so too, but if you think about it, it doesn't harm anyone except your statistics. :) Maybe we should have a pgfoundry project where all translations were kept, and from which the main CVS could be updated semi-automatically. Then we wouldn't have Peter checking out and committing all the time. That sounds like a fine idea. My only concern would be the not-maintained-here syndrome, which occurs every time some CVS tree contains a file that is actually maintained by an external group, thus blocking the maintainers of the former CVS tree from applying necessary fixes at times. Nevertheless, I think this is a winner. Let's consider it when we start the 8.1 cycle. -- Peter Eisentraut http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/ ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] [PATCHES] Latest Turkish translation updates
Alvaro Herrera wrote: Maybe we should have a pgfoundry project where all translations were kept, and from which the main CVS could be updated semi-automatically. Then we wouldn't have Peter checking out and committing all the time. Peter Eisentraut wrote: That sounds like a fine idea. My only concern would be the not-maintained-here syndrome, which occurs every time some CVS tree contains a file that is actually maintained by an external group, thus blocking the maintainers of the former CVS tree from applying necessary fixes at times. Nevertheless, I think this is a winner. Let's consider it when we start the 8.1 cycle. It is definitely a winner. And I don't think anyonwone from core group will object since Peter will be the only one who updates main CVS tree. Just appoint a maintainer or two with cvs commit priveleges for each language. It will ease your routine workload greatly. Best regards, Nicolai ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 7: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
[HACKERS] 4 hour countdown
At ~16:00 ADT this afternoon, I will branch, tag and package up 8.0.0 ... if anyone has any 'show stoppers', let us know within the next 4 hours :) Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664 ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[HACKERS] %2$, %1$ gettext placeholder replacement is not working under Win32
Sorry for such a late submission. I just downloaded the latest postgresql-8.0.0-rc5-3.zip installer for windows and it appears that Windows' printf() does not support placeholder replacement as described in http://developer.postgresql.org/docs/postgres/nls.html#AEN57284 I searched list archives but found no explanation for this. Original string is %s at or near \%s\ and we replaced it in Turkish for \%2$s\ yerinde %1$s. It works perfectly fine on Linux but fails miserably under Windows with something like: HATA: $s yerinde $sat character 1 while on Linux the same version works fine: HATA: sdfassfsdfasd yerinde söz dizim hatasý at character 1 What is it? I suppose that Windows' printf() does not support changing the order of placeholder characters with %2$ %1$. Did some one else deal with it? Is it because of compilation flags? In any case PostgreSQL version in current pginstaller is broken. Best regards, Nicolai ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [HACKERS] %2$, %1$ gettext placeholder replacement is not working under Win32
unix/win32 libc doesnt support $n variables.. On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 21:03:56 +0200, Nicolai Tufar [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sorry for such a late submission. I just downloaded the latest postgresql-8.0.0-rc5-3.zip installer for windows and it appears that Windows' printf() does not support placeholder replacement as described in http://developer.postgresql.org/docs/postgres/nls.html#AEN57284 I searched list archives but found no explanation for this. Original string is %s at or near \%s\ and we replaced it in Turkish for \%2$s\ yerinde %1$s. It works perfectly fine on Linux but fails miserably under Windows with something like: HATA: $s yerinde $sat character 1 while on Linux the same version works fine: HATA: sdfassfsdfasd yerinde söz dizim hatasý at character 1 What is it? I suppose that Windows' printf() does not support changing the order of placeholder characters with %2$ %1$. Did some one else deal with it? Is it because of compilation flags? In any case PostgreSQL version in current pginstaller is broken. Best regards, Nicolai ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- /* Jumping Flowers */ ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
Re: [HACKERS] %2$, %1$ gettext placeholder replacement is not working under Win32
On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 16:17:33 -0300, Fx [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: unix/win32 libc doesnt support $n variables.. What can we do then? ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faqs/FAQ.html
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
On Mon, Jan 17, 2005 at 03:14:31AM -0500, Tom Lane wrote: I don't think it needs to delay the release; the patent is only pending. But we need to look into the problem. What will you do if the patent is granted, 8.0 is out there with the offending code, and you get a cease-and-desist letter from IBM demanding the removal of all offending code from the Net? The code would have to be yanked from CVS c., in that case, no? (IANAL, but I think I may consult with one.) A -- Andrew Sullivan | [EMAIL PROTECTED] The fact that technology doesn't work is no bar to success in the marketplace. --Philip Greenspun ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives? http://archives.postgresql.org
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
Andrew Sullivan wrote: On Mon, Jan 17, 2005 at 03:14:31AM -0500, Tom Lane wrote: I don't think it needs to delay the release; the patent is only pending. But we need to look into the problem. What will you do if the patent is granted, 8.0 is out there with the offending code, and you get a cease-and-desist letter from IBM demanding the removal of all offending code from the Net? The code would have to be yanked from CVS c., in that case, no? (IANAL, but I think I may consult with one.) We can modify the code slightly to hopefully avoid the patent. With the US granting patents on even obvious ideas, I would think that most large software projects, including commercial ones, already have tons of patent violations in their code. Does anyone think otherwise? However, I will grant that ARC is not an obvious idea. -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001 + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road + Christ can be your backup.| Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073 ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-hackers-win32] %2$, %1$ gettext placeholder replacement is not working under Win32
Nicolai Tufar [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Sorry for such a late submission. I just downloaded the latest postgresql-8.0.0-rc5-3.zip installer for windows and it appears that Windows' printf() does not support placeholder replacement as described in http://developer.postgresql.org/docs/postgres/nls.html#AEN57284 Original string is %s at or near \%s\ and we replaced it in Turkish for \%2$s\ yerinde %1$s. Hmm. Looking around, it seems that %n$ support is required by the Single Unix Spec: http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/007908799/xsh/fprintf.html but it is *not* required by C99 as far as I can tell. I don't see any mention of support for it in my HPUX fprintf man page, either. So this construct may not be as portable as we could wish. There appear to be about 150 affected messages, in these files: src/backend/po/pt_BR.po src/backend/po/de.po src/backend/po/es.po src/backend/po/zh_CN.po src/backend/po/tr.po src/bin/pg_dump/po/zh_CN.po src/bin/pg_dump/po/tr.po src/bin/psql/po/zh_CN.po src/bin/psql/po/zh_TW.po src/bin/psql/po/tr.po src/bin/scripts/po/zh_CN.po I don't think we'll hold up release to fix this, but the affected translators may want to think about whether they can avoid the problem or not. regards, tom lane ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives? http://archives.postgresql.org
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
We can modify the code slightly to hopefully avoid the patent. With the US granting patents on even obvious ideas, I would think that most large software projects, including commercial ones, already have tons of patent violations in their code. Does anyone think otherwise? However, I will grant that ARC is not an obvious idea. Speaking from a commercial perspective, if the community has known patent violating code within its source tree, the community needs to remove and or modify as to not violate that patent before any continued release. The last thing I am sure that: RedHat Pervasive SRA Fufitsu PgSQL, Inc. and of course Command Prompt want is a call from IBM saying... hey we aren't going to go after the community but you need to pay up. The patent risk is just entirely too great and it can greatly hurt the community as a whole. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake -- Command Prompt, Inc., home of Mammoth PostgreSQL - S/ODBC and S/JDBC Postgresql support, programming shared hosting and dedicated hosting. +1-503-667-4564 - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.commandprompt.com PostgreSQL Replicator -- production quality replication for PostgreSQL begin:vcard fn:Joshua Drake n:Drake;Joshua org:Command Prompt, Inc. adr:;;PO Box 215 ;Cascade Locks;OR;97014;US email;internet:[EMAIL PROTECTED] title:Consultant tel;work:503-667-4564 tel;fax:503-210-0334 x-mozilla-html:FALSE url:http://www.commandprompt.com version:2.1 end:vcard ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
On Mon, Jan 17, 2005 at 02:37:44PM -0500, Bruce Momjian wrote: We can modify the code slightly to hopefully avoid the patent. With the I guess what I'm very much worried about is that there is potentially-infringing code there, we know about it, and we may press ahead and release with it anyway. IBM would justifiably jump on us for that as a result. What I simply don't know is what they can require be done as a remedy. If merely modifying the code is good enough, fine. But given how widely the code base will be disseminated, I'm worried they might demand that we somehow track it down and get rid of it. That would be a significant distraction, I think. US granting patents on even obvious ideas, I would think that most large software projects, including commercial ones, already have tons of patent violations in their code. Does anyone think otherwise? First, that's hardly a justification, and second, they're not all subject to inspection. Plus, this is a case where we _know_ about the potential violation, and have had it pointed out to us, before the code has been declared released. However, I will grant that ARC is not an obvious idea. Precisely, or we wouldn't be pleased with the implementation. A -- Andrew Sullivan | [EMAIL PROTECTED] I remember when computers were frustrating because they *did* exactly what you told them to. That actually seems sort of quaint now. --J.D. Baldwin ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
[HACKERS] Contrib make inconsistency
Hello, I have noticed that several projects within the contrib do not have a make rule of Install. I don't think this is a show stopper of course, but it is probably something that should be adjusted for consistency perspective. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake -- Command Prompt, Inc., home of Mammoth PostgreSQL - S/ODBC and S/JDBC Postgresql support, programming shared hosting and dedicated hosting. +1-503-667-4564 - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.commandprompt.com PostgreSQL Replicator -- production quality replication for PostgreSQL begin:vcard fn:Joshua Drake n:Drake;Joshua org:Command Prompt, Inc. adr:;;PO Box 215 ;Cascade Locks;OR;97014;US email;internet:[EMAIL PROTECTED] title:Consultant tel;work:503-667-4564 tel;fax:503-210-0334 x-mozilla-html:FALSE url:http://www.commandprompt.com version:2.1 end:vcard ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-hackers-win32] %2$, %1$ gettext placeholder replacement is not working under Win32
I wrote: I don't think we'll hold up release to fix this, but the affected translators may want to think about whether they can avoid the problem or not. Also, it looks like src/port/snprintf.c is not %n$ capable either. I'm not sure which platforms that affects. A possible route to a solution is to upgrade snprintf.c and then use it on platforms that don't have this support. This only fixes those cases where we go through snprintf, which is probably not all of the affected messages, but it might be enough. It's not happening for 8.0.0 though. regards, tom lane ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
Bruce Momjian pgman@candle.pha.pa.us writes: Andrew Sullivan wrote: What will you do if the patent is granted, 8.0 is out there with the offending code, and you get a cease-and-desist letter from IBM demanding the removal of all offending code from the Net? We can modify the code slightly to hopefully avoid the patent. With the US granting patents on even obvious ideas, I would think that most large software projects, including commercial ones, already have tons of patent violations in their code. Does anyone think otherwise? I think there is zero probability of being sued by IBM in the near future. They would instantly destroy the credibility and good relationships they've worked so hard to build up with the entire open source community. However, I don't want to be beholden to IBM indefinitely --- in five years their corporate strategy might change. I think that a reasonable response to this is to plan to get rid of ARC, or at least modify the code enough to avoid the patent, in time for 8.1. (It's entirely likely that that will happen before the patent issues, anyway.) regards, tom lane ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
Tom Lane wrote: Bruce Momjian pgman@candle.pha.pa.us writes: Andrew Sullivan wrote: What will you do if the patent is granted, 8.0 is out there with the offending code, and you get a cease-and-desist letter from IBM demanding the removal of all offending code from the Net? We can modify the code slightly to hopefully avoid the patent. With the US granting patents on even obvious ideas, I would think that most large software projects, including commercial ones, already have tons of patent violations in their code. Does anyone think otherwise? I think there is zero probability of being sued by IBM in the near future. They would instantly destroy the credibility and good relationships they've worked so hard to build up with the entire open source community. However, I don't want to be beholden to IBM indefinitely --- in five years their corporate strategy might change. I think that a reasonable response to this is to plan to get rid of ARC, or at least modify the code enough to avoid the patent, in time for 8.1. (It's entirely likely that that will happen before the patent issues, anyway.) We may already have modified the code enough to avoid the patent. -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001 + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road + Christ can be your backup.| Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073 ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faqs/FAQ.html
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
However, I don't want to be beholden to IBM indefinitely --- in five years their corporate strategy might change. I think that a reasonable response to this is to plan to get rid of ARC, or at least modify the code enough to avoid the patent, in time for 8.1. (It's entirely likely that that will happen before the patent issues, anyway.) regards, tom lane IBM makes 20% of their money from licensing patents. That alone makes this whole conversation scare the hell out of me. We should be as proactive as possible with this and remove the code (or modify as required). Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster -- Command Prompt, Inc., home of Mammoth PostgreSQL - S/ODBC and S/JDBC Postgresql support, programming shared hosting and dedicated hosting. +1-503-667-4564 - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.commandprompt.com PostgreSQL Replicator -- production quality replication for PostgreSQL begin:vcard fn:Joshua Drake n:Drake;Joshua org:Command Prompt, Inc. adr:;;PO Box 215 ;Cascade Locks;OR;97014;US email;internet:[EMAIL PROTECTED] title:Consultant tel;work:503-667-4564 tel;fax:503-210-0334 x-mozilla-html:FALSE url:http://www.commandprompt.com version:2.1 end:vcard ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
On 1/17/2005 1:15 AM, Tom Lane wrote: Neil Conway [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: FYI, IBM has applied for a patent on ARC (AFAICS the patent application is still pending, although the USPTO site is a little hard to grok): http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1Sect2=HITOFFd=PG01p=1u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htmlr=1f=Gl=50s1=%2220040098541%22.PGNR.OS=DN/20040098541RS=DN/20040098541 Ugh. We could hope that the patent wouldn't be granted, but I think it unlikely, unless Jan is aware of prior art (like a publication predating the filing date). I fear we'll have to change or remove that code. regards, tom lane Unfortunately no. The document that inspired me to adapt ARC for PostgreSQL is from the USENIX File Storage Technologies Conference (FAST), March 31, 2003, San Francisco, CA. I am seriously concerned about this and think we should not knowingly release code that is possibly infringing a patent. If we need a different cache algorithm again, we might want to yank out the ARC part right away now and work on another one for 8.1. Jan -- #==# # It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than for being right. # # Let's break this rule - forgive me. # #== [EMAIL PROTECTED] # ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
Andrew Sullivan [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I guess what I'm very much worried about is that there is potentially-infringing code there, we know about it, and we may press ahead and release with it anyway. IBM would justifiably jump on us for that as a result. With what? They have no patent, yet, and may never have one. If the patent were already issued then I'd be much more concerned. regards, tom lane ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
Tom Lane wrote: Andrew Sullivan [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I guess what I'm very much worried about is that there is potentially-infringing code there, we know about it, and we may press ahead and release with it anyway. IBM would justifiably jump on us for that as a result. With what? They have no patent, yet, and may never have one. If the patent were already issued then I'd be much more concerned. One big question is why we pulled so directly from ideas on an IBM web site? That is very atypical of us. Because we used it, I assumed the ideas were available for all to use without patent restriction. Obviously not. -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001 + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road + Christ can be your backup.| Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073 ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
Jan Wieck wrote: On 1/17/2005 1:15 AM, Tom Lane wrote: Neil Conway [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: FYI, IBM has applied for a patent on ARC (AFAICS the patent application is still pending, although the USPTO site is a little hard to grok): http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1Sect2=HITOFFd=PG01p=1u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htmlr=1f=Gl=50s1=%2220040098541%22.PGNR.OS=DN/20040098541RS=DN/20040098541 Ugh. We could hope that the patent wouldn't be granted, but I think it unlikely, unless Jan is aware of prior art (like a publication predating the filing date). I fear we'll have to change or remove that code. regards, tom lane Unfortunately no. The document that inspired me to adapt ARC for PostgreSQL is from the USENIX File Storage Technologies Conference (FAST), March 31, 2003, San Francisco, CA. Oh, OK. Good news! I am seriously concerned about this and think we should not knowingly release code that is possibly infringing a patent. If we need a different cache algorithm again, we might want to yank out the ARC part right away now and work on another one for 8.1. If you want to poke around for 2 hours, I bet you wil find more patent infringements. And not looking doesn't protect you from patent violations. What is the point of removing this one. Just because Neil did some legwork. Anyone could do some legwork and find some in any software, I bet. -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001 + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road + Christ can be your backup.| Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073 ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
If you want to poke around for 2 hours, I bet you wil find more patent infringements. And not looking doesn't protect you from patent violations. What is the point of removing this one. Just because Neil did some legwork. Anyone could do some legwork and find some in any software, I bet. Well from one perspective... Digging for patent infringement is expensive just look at the SCO suit. However, this is a public list. We have just admitted that we knowingly may infringe upon an IBM patent. That really is a different thing than, We have some really smart people that came up with something, like this other technology. The reality I would bet is that IBM could give a flying roosters butt whether or not PostgreSQL infringes on their patents. However they will care very much, if Fujitsu or SRA does and we (the community) may have insured that. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake -- Command Prompt, Inc., home of Mammoth PostgreSQL - S/ODBC and S/JDBC Postgresql support, programming shared hosting and dedicated hosting. +1-503-667-4564 - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.commandprompt.com PostgreSQL Replicator -- production quality replication for PostgreSQL begin:vcard fn:Joshua Drake n:Drake;Joshua org:Command Prompt, Inc. adr:;;PO Box 215 ;Cascade Locks;OR;97014;US email;internet:[EMAIL PROTECTED] title:Consultant tel;work:503-667-4564 tel;fax:503-210-0334 x-mozilla-html:FALSE url:http://www.commandprompt.com version:2.1 end:vcard ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command (send unregister YourEmailAddressHere to [EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
Tom Lane wrote: Bruce Momjian pgman@candle.pha.pa.us writes: Andrew Sullivan wrote: What will you do if the patent is granted, 8.0 is out there with the offending code, and you get a cease-and-desist letter from IBM demanding the removal of all offending code from the Net? We can modify the code slightly to hopefully avoid the patent. With the US granting patents on even obvious ideas, I would think that most large software projects, including commercial ones, already have tons of patent violations in their code. Does anyone think otherwise? I think there is zero probability of being sued by IBM in the near future. They would instantly destroy the credibility and good relationships they've worked so hard to build up with the entire open source community. However, I don't want to be beholden to IBM indefinitely --- in five years their corporate strategy might change. I think that a reasonable response to this is to plan to get rid of ARC, or at least modify the code enough to avoid the patent, in time for 8.1. (It's entirely likely that that will happen before the patent issues, anyway.) There's a very recent paper at http://carmen.cs.uiuc.edu/~zchen9/paper/TPDS-final.ps on an alternative to ARC which claims superior performance ... Maybe this will give us added impetus to make the 8.1 cycle short, as has been suggested previously. cheers andrew ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-hackers-win32] %2$, %1$ gettext placeholder
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Hi, On Mon, 17 Jan 2005, Tom Lane wrote: snip I don't think we'll hold up release to fix this, :-) It seems nothing seems to stop you from holding up this release anymore: Neither ARC problem nor this one :) Regards, - -- Devrim GUNDUZ devrim~gunduz.org, devrim~PostgreSQL.org, devrim.gunduz~linux.org.tr http://www.tdmsoft.com http://www.gunduz.org -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFB7B0Ktl86P3SPfQ4RAqCFAJ9YLdaUP8ALAetKHQcpPxHfrlcXcQCgpKmX gKsYQYdu8nh4rGQOo2DQl3c= =g6q/ -END PGP SIGNATURE- ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-hackers-win32] %2$, %1$ gettext placeholder replacement is not working under Win32
I don't think we'll hold up release to fix this, but the affected translators may want to think about whether they can avoid the problem or not. Also, it looks like src/port/snprintf.c is not %n$ capable either. I'm not sure which platforms that affects. A possible route to a solution is to upgrade snprintf.c and then use it on platforms that don't have this support. This only fixes those cases where we go through snprintf, which is probably not all of the affected messages, but it might be enough. It's not happening for 8.0.0 though. Might want to track down which platforms are affected by the file in port/, and then add win32 to it, and put it up somewhere on a list of known issues in 8.0? //Magnus ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] [pgsql-hackers-win32] %2$, %1$ gettext placeholder replacement is not working under Win32
On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 14:54:44 -0500, Tom Lane [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Also, it looks like src/port/snprintf.c is not %n$ capable either. I'm not sure which platforms that affects. A possible route to a solution is to upgrade snprintf.c and then use it on platforms that don't have this support. This only fixes those cases where we go through snprintf, which is probably not all of the affected messages, but it might be enough. It's not happening for 8.0.0 though. Bad news for the Turks. Turkish language syntax is lake Latin: the verb is always at the end. Because of that almost all messages that have two or more placeholders are broken under Windows. The solution you propose seem to be a trivial exercise: 1. write a replacement function, say, pg_snprintf() that would shuffle input arguments, replace %x$ with % and then call libc's snprintf(); 2. replace snprintf() in all source files with pg_snprintf(); 3. Update Makefiles to use our custom function on broken platforms or default to snprinf(). (Or maybe pg_snprintf() should be a #define); 4. Tell everyone to use pg_snprintf() instead of snprintf() from now on. I would like volunteer to implement this for 8.1 and would be honoured if I get a chance to contribute. regards, tom lane Best regards, Nicolai Tufar ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
On Mon, Jan 17, 2005 at 02:58:33PM -0500, Tom Lane wrote: Andrew Sullivan [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: ahead and release with it anyway. IBM would justifiably jump on us for that as a result. With what? They have no patent, yet, and may never have one. If the patent were already issued then I'd be much more concerned. With a team of lawyers which we can't match. They may never have a patent, or they may get it next month. I'd feel more comfortable if I knew what sort of remedies they could demand (I have a call open to a lawyer I believe will give me a conservative answer about that). What I can say, for sure, is that no responsible corporate user will be able to use this code with the threat hanging over. The recent SCO stuff ought to be a lesson here: their claims appear to have been completely baseless, but companies still spent a pile of time and money on the issue. It'll be far worse in a case where the infringment is real and, yet worse, intentional. A -- Andrew Sullivan | [EMAIL PROTECTED] When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do sir? --attr. John Maynard Keynes ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 7: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
Andrew Dunstan [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: There's a very recent paper at http://carmen.cs.uiuc.edu/~zchen9/paper/TPDS-final.ps on an alternative to ARC which claims superior performance ... Personally, I'd prefer a very *old* paper ;-) Maybe this will give us added impetus to make the 8.1 cycle short, as has been suggested previously. Agreed. If we have a plan to replace the code in three-to-six months I think we are all right, especially seeing that this is only a pending patent and not enforceable yet. To those who say you can't release with a potential patent problem I would say that we already have. There are lots of people running 8.0 beta and RC releases --- if history is any guide, many of them will continue running those releases for a long time, rather than update to final. We can never erase all trace that we ever touched ARC (would you have us retroactively edit our CVS history?) and AFAIK we would not be required to do so anyway. The legal requirement would be to cure the breach going forward, ie, get it out of our future releases. That we can and should do, but there's no need for panic. regards, tom lane ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
On Jan 17, 2005, at 2:57 PM, Joshua D. Drake wrote: We should be as proactive as possible with this and remove the code (or modify as required). Perhaps a member of -CORE should contact IBM. The ball is out there now due to the discussion on this list that we know we might have infringing code. Might as well try to play good citizen and talk with them, perhaps they'll give us some sort of indemnity for 8.0 so we can get something perhaps better for 8.1. -- Jeff Trout [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.jefftrout.com/ http://www.stuarthamm.net/ ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
On Mon, Jan 17, 2005 at 02:48:46PM -0500, Tom Lane wrote: I think there is zero probability of being sued by IBM in the near future. They won't sue the project. They'll send corporate users a bill, instead, for a license. A -- Andrew Sullivan | [EMAIL PROTECTED] A certain description of men are for getting out of debt, yet are against all taxes for raising money to pay it off. --Alexander Hamilton ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
I think there is zero probability of being sued by IBM in the near future. They would instantly destroy the credibility and good relationships they've worked so hard to build up with the entire open source community. However, I don't want to be beholden to IBM indefinitely --- in five years their corporate strategy might change. I think that a reasonable response to this is to plan to get rid of ARC, or at least modify the code enough to avoid the patent, in time for 8.1. (It's entirely likely that that will happen before the patent issues, anyway.) If PostgreSQL 8.0 is released with ARC, and then PostgreSQL 8.1 is released without ARC, and then the patent is granted to IBM, would everyone be fine if they just all switched to 8.1 at that time? Or would we have some kind of retroactive problem? Would people that are still using 8.0 in production, but not distributing it, have difficulty? Regards, Jeff ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
If PostgreSQL 8.0 is released with ARC, and then PostgreSQL 8.1 is released without ARC, and then the patent is granted to IBM, would everyone be fine if they just all switched to 8.1 at that time? Or would we have some kind of retroactive problem? Would people that are still using 8.0 in production, but not distributing it, have difficulty? The biggest problem is going to be that if we release 8 with the patented stuff, then for a minimum of 3 years there will be liability for anyone running 8. We still have people running 7.1 and once you get something into production you typically don't just change it. Basically I think the fact that we are even considering leaving the knowingly infringing code in 8 is presenting a horrible face to the community. Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake Regards, Jeff ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Command Prompt, Inc., home of Mammoth PostgreSQL - S/ODBC and S/JDBC Postgresql support, programming shared hosting and dedicated hosting. +1-503-667-4564 - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.commandprompt.com PostgreSQL Replicator -- production quality replication for PostgreSQL begin:vcard fn:Joshua Drake n:Drake;Joshua org:Command Prompt, Inc. adr:;;PO Box 215 ;Cascade Locks;OR;97014;US email;internet:[EMAIL PROTECTED] title:Consultant tel;work:503-667-4564 tel;fax:503-210-0334 x-mozilla-html:FALSE url:http://www.commandprompt.com version:2.1 end:vcard ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
Andrew Sullivan wrote: With a team of lawyers which we can't match. They may never have a patent, or they may get it next month. I'd feel more comfortable if I knew what sort of remedies they could demand (I have a call open to a lawyer I believe will give me a conservative answer about that). What I can say, for sure, is that no responsible corporate user will be able to use this code with the threat hanging over. The recent SCO stuff ought to be a lesson here: their claims appear to have been completely baseless, but companies still spent a pile of time and money on the issue. It'll be far worse in a case where the infringment is real and, yet worse, intentional. You want scarey --- forget the IBM patent. Find an Oracle or Microsoft patent that is similar to something in our code. It will might not be exact, but our ARC isn't exact either. Basically any organization that wants to produce patent-free code would need one lawyer for every five programmers, and even then it isn't 100%. The method I have heard to find infringement sounds pretty imprecise. The remedy for patent infringment I think is usually to stop using the patented idea, rather than punitive damages, unlike copyright. -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001 + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road + Christ can be your backup.| Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073 ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives? http://archives.postgresql.org
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
FYI, IBM has applied for a patent on ARC (AFAICS the patent application is still pending, although the USPTO site is a little hard to grok): http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1Sect2=HITOFFd=PG01p=1u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htmlr=1f=Gl=50s1=%2220040098541%22.PGNR.OS=DN/20040098541RS=DN/20040098541 Ugh. We could hope that the patent wouldn't be granted, but I think it unlikely, unless Jan is aware of prior art (like a publication predating the filing date). I fear we'll have to change or remove that code. regards, tom lane Unfortunately no. The document that inspired me to adapt ARC for PostgreSQL is from the USENIX File Storage Technologies Conference (FAST), March 31, 2003, San Francisco, CA. I am seriously concerned about this and think we should not knowingly release code that is possibly infringing a patent. I thought IBM granted the right to use these methods in OSS software. PostgreSQL is OSS software, thus only such entities relicensing pg need to worry about the patent. Also the algo is probably sufficiently altered already to not be subject to the patent, no ? Andreas ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
Joshua D. Drake [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The biggest problem is going to be that if we release 8 with the patented stuff, then for a minimum of 3 years there will be liability for anyone running 8. Do you honestly think that this is the only patented algorithm anywhere in there? Now that we've been made aware that there is a pending (one more time: pending, not issued) patent on it, we will work on removing the affected code in an orderly fashion. I don't think there is need for panic. regards, tom lane ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
Zeugswetter Andreas DAZ SD wrote: FYI, IBM has applied for a patent on ARC (AFAICS the patent application is still pending, although the USPTO site is a little hard to grok): http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1Sect2=HITOFFd=PG01p=1u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htmlr=1f=Gl=50s1=%2220040098541%22.PGNR.OS=DN/20040098541RS=DN/20040098541 Ugh. We could hope that the patent wouldn't be granted, but I think it unlikely, unless Jan is aware of prior art (like a publication predating the filing date). I fear we'll have to change or remove that code. regards, tom lane Unfortunately no. The document that inspired me to adapt ARC for PostgreSQL is from the USENIX File Storage Technologies Conference (FAST), March 31, 2003, San Francisco, CA. I am seriously concerned about this and think we should not knowingly release code that is possibly infringing a patent. I thought IBM granted the right to use these methods in OSS software. PostgreSQL is OSS software, thus only such entities relicensing pg need to worry about the patent. ARC wasn't in the 500 patents released to open source. Also, I don't think the offer extends to companys like Pervasive and Command Prompt that ship commercial versions of PostgreSQL. Also the algo is probably sufficiently altered already to not be subject to the patent, no ? I hope so. -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001 + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road + Christ can be your backup.| Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073 ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives? http://archives.postgresql.org
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
Unfortunately no. The document that inspired me to adapt ARC for PostgreSQL is from the USENIX File Storage Technologies Conference (FAST), March 31, 2003, San Francisco, CA. Ahemm,... Isn't the patent lodged on may 20, 2004, AFTER you read the document from the above conference? ... John ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
You want scarey --- forget the IBM patent. Find an Oracle or Microsoft patent that is similar to something in our code. It will might not be exact, but our ARC isn't exact either. Basically any organization that wants to produce patent-free code would need one lawyer for every five programmers, and even then it isn't 100%. The method I have heard to find infringement sounds pretty imprecise. The remedy for patent infringment I think is usually to stop using the patented idea, rather than punitive damages, unlike copyright. Is that for all kinds of patent infringement, or only the didn't-know-better kind? Right now I don't think we can claim didn't-know-better. Also, does stop mean stop distributing the patented process, or stop using all installations? Regards, Jeff Davis ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
On Mon, Jan 17, 2005 at 05:04:36PM -0400, Marc G. Fournier wrote: I thought the patnt was only pending, not granted? That's right, and it's what gives Tom's arguments some weight. A -- Andrew Sullivan | [EMAIL PROTECTED] Information security isn't a technological problem. It's an economics problem. --Bruce Schneier ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faqs/FAQ.html
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
Jeff Davis wrote: You want scarey --- forget the IBM patent. Find an Oracle or Microsoft patent that is similar to something in our code. It will might not be exact, but our ARC isn't exact either. Basically any organization that wants to produce patent-free code would need one lawyer for every five programmers, and even then it isn't 100%. The method I have heard to find infringement sounds pretty imprecise. The remedy for patent infringment I think is usually to stop using the patented idea, rather than punitive damages, unlike copyright. Is that for all kinds of patent infringement, or only the didn't-know-better kind? Right now I don't think we can claim didn't-know-better. Didn't know better has no status for patents. Copyright stuff is pretty easy to avoid --- just don't copy stuff and you are OK, and most companies are good at enforcing that part. Also, does stop mean stop distributing the patented process, or stop using all installations? Not sure. The PostgreSQL development group doesn't have installations, do we? -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001 + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road + Christ can be your backup.| Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073 ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faqs/FAQ.html
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
Bruce Momjian pgman@candle.pha.pa.us writes: ARC wasn't in the 500 patents released to open source. ... because it isn't a patent, yet. regards, tom lane ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
On Mon, 17 Jan 2005, Andrew Sullivan wrote: On Mon, Jan 17, 2005 at 02:37:44PM -0500, Bruce Momjian wrote: We can modify the code slightly to hopefully avoid the patent. With the I guess what I'm very much worried about is that there is potentially-infringing code there, we know about it, and we may press ahead and release with it anyway. IBM would justifiably jump on us for that as a result. I thought the patnt was only pending, not granted? Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664 ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives? http://archives.postgresql.org
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
Tom Lane wrote: Bruce Momjian pgman@candle.pha.pa.us writes: ARC wasn't in the 500 patents released to open source. ... because it isn't a patent, yet. Yea, but IBM has thousands of patents. The odds that this particular patent would have been in the 500 if it was granted is unlikely, no? -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001 + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road + Christ can be your backup.| Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073 ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
On Tue, Jan 18, 2005 at 08:03:01AM +1100, John Hansen wrote: Ahemm,... Isn't the patent lodged on may 20, 2004, AFTER you read the document from the above conference? No, the patent application is filed on 14 November 2002, according to the URL that Neil posted. A -- Andrew Sullivan | [EMAIL PROTECTED] This work was visionary and imaginative, and goes to show that visionary and imaginative work need not end up well. --Dennis Ritchie ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
Bruce Momjian pgman@candle.pha.pa.us writes: Tom Lane wrote: Bruce Momjian pgman@candle.pha.pa.us writes: ARC wasn't in the 500 patents released to open source. ... because it isn't a patent, yet. Yea, but IBM has thousands of patents. The odds that this particular patent would have been in the 500 if it was granted is unlikely, no? That's hard to say. But the reason we know without looking that it's not in that list is that they can't have released a patent they don't have yet. regards, tom lane ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
John Hansen wrote: Unfortunately no. The document that inspired me to adapt ARC for PostgreSQL is from the USENIX File Storage Technologies Conference (FAST), March 31, 2003, San Francisco, CA. Ahemm,... Isn't the patent lodged on may 20, 2004, AFTER you read the document from the above conference? The patent claim was filed on *November 14, 2002 according to the docs. It might have been updated in May 2004, or some other action, but the filing date is the one that counts. You can certainly trust IBM not to let their guys preclude a patent they intend to file by doing prior publication. cheers andrew * ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
John Hansen [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Unfortunately no. The document that inspired me to adapt ARC for PostgreSQL is from the USENIX File Storage Technologies Conference (FAST), March 31, 2003, San Francisco, CA. Ahemm,... Isn't the patent lodged on may 20, 2004, AFTER you read the document from the above conference? No, the filing date was in 2002. I'm not sure what the May/04 date means; possibly the date of the last activity in that patent file? regards, tom lane ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
[HACKERS] Ladies Gentlemen, May I present ...
'k, 8.0.0 is branched and bundled ... I put it into /pub/source/v8.0.0, seperat from the beta stuff, and just did a force rsync to ftp.postgresql.org so that its available there as well ... We have ~36hours between now, and the PRs go out, to make sure that nothing is wrong, as well as to get the .torrents and Windows installer ready ... Please report any problems with the build ... Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664 ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
Greetings, I would like to contribute my $.02 to this issue. I speak as not a lawyer but as someone tho worked one and a half year in a patent bureau and even got a certificate from WIPO (http://academy.wipo.int/ those who interested may attend the course too, it is free). First, the whole point of USPTO's publishing patents which are pending is to get it publicly reviewed and collect objections before final decision. So, those of you who live in US file and objection based on USENIX File Storage Technologies Conference (FAST), March 31, 2003, San Francisco, CA mentioned by Jan Wieck. Filing and objection should be not be too expensive though you may need help of professional lawyer form a patent bureau co compose a solid objection. I will call my old friends from Patent Bureau tomorrow to get a professional advise on this matter. Second, a pending patent is not a granted patent, one is not infringing anything by distributing technology based in a pending patent. As soon as patent is granted AND Cease and Desist letter form IBM is received removing offending code, removing offending versions from download and and notifying customers to upgrade to a new version is sufficient. I am not sure about CVS, apparently it need to be cleared out too. A vaguely similar issue happened between Pixar, the developer of Renderman and Exluna the developer of BMRT, a free (but not open source) raytracing 3D renderer. Pixar sued Exluna for willful patent infringement. Exluna released a new version of BMRT - 2.6 without offending technology and ensured that version 2.5 is removed from all mirrors. For quite a lot of time -and even now- one of the most valuable things a 3D designer may own is a copy of BMRT version 2.5. Exluna was intended to defend themselves in court but soon ran out of money, settled with Pixar and was swallowed by nVidia. A sad story indeed. A story of how a big company squashes a small one using patents. Read more at: http://www.renderman.org/RMR/OtherLinks/blackSIGGRAPH.html The point here is that IBM may force PostgreSQL Global Development Group to remove offending version if patent is granted. But, lastly, as it was pointed out before it would be a very bad publicity for IBM and, in my opinion, very good publicity for PostgreSQL. IBM will admit that PostgreSQL is a worthy competitor. Thus, in my personal opinion IBM will never threat PostgreSQL. We can remove offending code but host patches to introduce the code in a country that does accept software patents. It would be even better for publicity. IBM can NEVER sue customers for using infringing code before first informing them of infringement and giving reasonable time to upgrade to uninfringing version. So, in short my advise is: 1. File an objection with USPTO. And maybe an informative letter to IBM legal department mentioning USENIX paper. 2. If patent is granted, contact IBM and request an unlimited, perpetual license to use the technology 3. If IBM refuses, remove the offending code, clean up CVS and shout from the rooftops about the hypocrisy of IBM. Hope it helps make up your mind, Best regards, Nicolai Tufar P.S. But if filing date really is 2002 and there is no prior art me may skip step 1. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
[HACKERS] Software patents are one of the great evils.
http://swpat.ffii.org/players/knuth/index.en.html http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-5342291.html IMO-YMMV Perhaps an advocacy group would be better. Tragically, nothing will ever come of excellent discussions such as those by Knuth. So really, Im just venting.
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
The previous snipped wording was very insightful, thank you. IBM can NEVER sue customers for using infringing code before first informing them of infringement and giving reasonable time to upgrade to uninfringing version. I can see it now: We won't sue you (customer) but you have to upgrade to DB2 ;) Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake So, in short my advise is: 1. File an objection with USPTO. And maybe an informative letter to IBM legal department mentioning USENIX paper. 2. If patent is granted, contact IBM and request an unlimited, perpetual license to use the technology 3. If IBM refuses, remove the offending code, clean up CVS and shout from the rooftops about the hypocrisy of IBM. Hope it helps make up your mind, Best regards, Nicolai Tufar P.S. But if filing date really is 2002 and there is no prior art me may skip step 1. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match -- Command Prompt, Inc., home of Mammoth PostgreSQL - S/ODBC and S/JDBC Postgresql support, programming shared hosting and dedicated hosting. +1-503-667-4564 - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.commandprompt.com PostgreSQL Replicator -- production quality replication for PostgreSQL begin:vcard fn:Joshua Drake n:Drake;Joshua org:Command Prompt, Inc. adr:;;PO Box 215 ;Cascade Locks;OR;97014;US email;internet:[EMAIL PROTECTED] title:Consultant tel;work:503-667-4564 tel;fax:503-210-0334 x-mozilla-html:FALSE url:http://www.commandprompt.com version:2.1 end:vcard ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
Tom Lane [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: John Hansen [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Unfortunately no. The document that inspired me to adapt ARC for PostgreSQL is from the USENIX File Storage Technologies Conference (FAST), March 31, 2003, San Francisco, CA. Ahemm,... Isn't the patent lodged on may 20, 2004, AFTER you read the document from the above conference? No, the filing date was in 2002. I'm not sure what the May/04 date means; possibly the date of the last activity in that patent file? Was the USENIX paper published from IBM? Was it the first publication of the ARC algorithm? They have to file for the patent within 1 year of the first publication. If it was published prior to Nov 2001 then perhaps an objection could be filed on that issue. Also, as far as I know the we didn't know better is in fact precisely an issue with patents. If we didn't know about the ARC patent then IBM's only remedy once the patent is issued would be to insist users stop using it. Only if users refused (say because 8.1 still hadn't been released) could IBM then start asking for damages. It's clear Postgres developers know of the potential infringement so when and if that patent is issued Postgres users will have to upgrade immediately to avoid remedies that could include liability. Whereas for the myriad of potential infringements on vaguely worded patents there's no risk beyond having to cease the infringement. Any idea what kind of timescale the patent application is on? Will it be another year or two before it's issued or is it possible it'll be issued prior to 8.1 being released? Though I suppose it would always be possible to release an 8.0.x with ARC removed for users like Fujitsu or SRA concerned with liability. -- greg ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
On Mon, 17 Jan 2005 14:02:14 -0800, Joshua D. Drake [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: IBM can NEVER sue customers for using infringing code before first informing them of infringement and giving reasonable time to upgrade to uninfringing version. I can see it now: We won't sue you (customer) but you have to upgrade to DB2 ;) More like downgrading, actually ;) Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command (send unregister YourEmailAddressHere to [EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
IBM can NEVER sue customers for using infringing code before first informing them of infringement and giving reasonable time to upgrade to uninfringing version. That's not true. If you *knowingly* violated a patent IBM can sue you for the damages caused. If you weren't aware of the patent then IBM can only ask you to cease the infringement and can only then sue for damages caused after that point in time. Though in the given situation I don't see how IBM could argue any damages. It's not like they have any licensing business for ARC nor would anyone be willing to pay for a license to ARC. There are plenty of other algorithms that are perfectly passable. Of course, IANAL and all that. But I'm sure legal advice from this mailing list is worth every penny you've paid for it :) Joshua D. Drake [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I can see it now: We won't sue you (customer) but you have to upgrade to DB2 ;) Heh. -- greg ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command (send unregister YourEmailAddressHere to [EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
Tom Lane wrote: John Hansen [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Unfortunately no. The document that inspired me to adapt ARC for PostgreSQL is from the USENIX File Storage Technologies Conference (FAST), March 31, 2003, San Francisco, CA. Ahemm,... Isn't the patent lodged on may 20, 2004, AFTER you read the document from the above conference? No, the filing date was in 2002. I'm not sure what the May/04 date means; possibly the date of the last activity in that patent file? Sounds to me like US conferences need to get a disclaimer signed by any speakers - best of my knowledge...covered by no patents/claims/ It's like having a bowl of sweets labelled help yourself and putting the price sticker inside the wrapper. -- Richard Huxton Archonet Ltd ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
Nicolai Tufar [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I would like to contribute my $.02 to this issue. I speak as not a lawyer but as someone tho worked one and a half year in a patent bureau and even got a certificate from WIPO (http://academy.wipo.int/ those who interested may attend the course too, it is free). [ much good stuff snipped ] Many thanks for the informed commentary. I'd like to make another point, which is that it's quite unclear what the patent will end up covering. Claim 1 essentially claims using two lists to manage a cache. That's not going to withstand scrutiny as an independent claim --- heck, we've got prior art for that in our own code (see catcache.c, which has done something of the sort since Berkeley days). Somewhere between claim 1 and claim 61 there is a sufficiently specific concept to be patentable, but we won't know what that is until the final patent is issued. There's no moral turpitude in wanting to see what the issued patent looks like before deciding whether we violate it or what to do about it. That's not to say that we shouldn't be proactive in doing something as soon as we conveniently can. It's to say that we don't have to panic into not releasing 8.0. regards, tom lane ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
Nov 2002 is the date of filing the patent application, while May 2004 is the publish date. For regular patent application, the USPTO will treat that application with secrecy for the first 18 months of the examining process. About 18 months after the application, the USPTO will publish the patent application. For most companies with deep pocket, they never publish new papers/ideas without filing a regular or provisional patent application first. -Original Message- From: Andrew Dunstan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, January 17, 2005 3:14 PM To: John Hansen Cc: Zeugswetter Andreas DAZ SD; Jan Wieck; Tom Lane; Neil Conway; pgsql-hackers Subject: Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent John Hansen wrote: Unfortunately no. The document that inspired me to adapt ARC for PostgreSQL is from the USENIX File Storage Technologies Conference (FAST), March 31, 2003, San Francisco, CA. Ahemm,... Isn't the patent lodged on may 20, 2004, AFTER you read the document from the above conference? The patent claim was filed on *November 14, 2002 according to the docs. It might have been updated in May 2004, or some other action, but the filing date is the one that counts. You can certainly trust IBM not to let their guys preclude a patent they intend to file by doing prior publication. cheers andrew * ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
On Mon, 2005-01-17 at 12:15 -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote: We have just admitted that we knowingly may infringe upon an IBM patent. That really is a different thing than, We have some really smart people that came up with something, like this other technology. The code is clear that it implements the Adaptive Replacement Cache, which is an algorithm proposed by IBM; the code probably references some IBM papers on the topic -- and if not, discussions of ARC on -hackers certainly do. I don't see how there could be any reasonable grounds for arguing that, prior to this thread, we just came up with something really, really similar. -Neil ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command (send unregister YourEmailAddressHere to [EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
Nicolai Tufar wrote: Second, a pending patent is not a granted patent, one is not infringing anything by distributing technology based in a pending patent. Given the patents the USPTO has been granting in recent times, if a patent is pending, it's almost certainly going to be granted. Especially if it comes from an entity such as IBM (the USPTO wouldn't want to upset its biggest paying customers, would it?), and especially if it's on something that isn't completely trivial. For that reason, I think it's quite reasonable to treat any pending patent from IBM as if it were a granted patent. The only way I could see the patent not being granted is if some large corporate entity like Microsoft filed an objection. That's possible, I suppose, but not something I would want to count on. But objections raised by small entities such as individuals will almost certainly be dropped on the floor, because such entities don't matter to the USPTO (or the rest of the government, for that matter), unless they are flush with cash. IBM can NEVER sue customers for using infringing code before first informing them of infringement and giving reasonable time to upgrade to uninfringing version. This is the United States. People (and especially large corporations) can sue anybody for anything anytime they wish. And they do. Reason doesn't enter into it. Only money. See the SCO debacle for proof, and note that they're not suing in any other countries. If I sound bitter and cynical, well, there's lots of good reason for it. You need only look around, at least if you're in the U.S. -- Kevin Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command (send unregister YourEmailAddressHere to [EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
On Mon, 2005-01-17 at 12:30 -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote: The biggest problem is going to be that if we release 8 with the patented stuff, then for a minimum of 3 years there will be liability for anyone running 8. We still have people running 7.1 and once you get something into production you typically don't just change it. Keep in mind that it would be conceivable to ship an 8.0.x release which replaces ARC with another algorithm. That would be a somewhat non-trivial change, but there's no reason we need to wait for a major release (i.e. 8.1 or 8.2) to replace ARC. Basically I think the fact that we are even considering leaving the knowingly infringing code in 8 is presenting a horrible face to the community. I agree with Tom -- this shouldn't be an impediment to releasing 8.0, but it definitely warrants attention in the future. -Neil ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faqs/FAQ.html
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
On Mon, 2005-01-17 at 14:02 -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote: IBM can NEVER sue customers for using infringing code before first informing them of infringement and giving reasonable time to upgrade to uninfringing version. I can see it now: We won't sue you (customer) but you have to upgrade to DB2 ;) This is panic and is wrong-headed. They haven't even sent a letter yet... If we believe in this project, then ultimately, we should be aware that the future *is* litigation, just like with Linux. Successful people/projects/companies will at some point have to play hardball. That's nothing to run scared of, unless you feel you have or will do some harm to another. Tom's view seems correct. IBM have *applied* for a patent; the community is now aware of this and must plan accordingly. I see no reason to contact IBM; they have no basis to complain as yet. If they had wished to protect their patent they could have done so earlier - the dev process here is open and visible, so there is a reasonable onus on them to perform some form of minimum attentiveness on us if they see us as competition. I have no reason to believe they do and our current understanding is that IBM supports Open Source and therefore this project. We support AIX, Linux on PowerPC, Linux on S/390, jdbc on WAS to name but a few things IBM would be very happy with. The patent has not yet been granted and seems to have been pending for at least 18 months. We therefore have reason to believe there is some chance it may not be granted, related prior art on buffer management stretching back more than 30 years. By taking reasonable actions now we will buy ourselves reasonable time should it ever be granted. It seems clear that anybody on 8.0.0ARC after the patent had been granted could potentially be liable to pay damages. At best, the community would need to do a product recall to ensure patents were not infringed. So, it also seems clear that 8.0.x should eventually have a straight upgrade path to a replacement, assuming the patent is granted. We should therefore plan to: 1. improve/replace ARC for 8.1 2. backport any replacement directly onto 8.0STABLE as soon as any patent is granted Point 1 was going to happen anyway, so there is really less to worry about. ARC is a better idea; it is likely there are even better ones. ARC says nothing of how to clean the LRUs of dirty pages, nor does it specify how to scale the algorithm to multiple CPUs. The code already supports such a migration from 8.0.0 to 8.0.x If any community members are planning selling products derived from PostgreSQL 8.0.0 then it might be in your interest to put some money in the pot for a legal fund and also to fund dev of a new buffer management strategy. If those community members wish to delay release of their own derived products then that's up to them. -- Best Regards, Simon Riggs ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faqs/FAQ.html
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
Simon Riggs wrote: On Mon, 2005-01-17 at 14:02 -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote: IBM can NEVER sue customers for using infringing code before first informing them of infringement and giving reasonable time to upgrade to uninfringing version. I can see it now: We won't sue you (customer) but you have to upgrade to DB2 ;) This is panic and is wrong-headed. They haven't even sent a letter yet... Simon please note that it was a joke :) Thus the ;). Sincerely, Joshua D. Drake -- Command Prompt, Inc., home of Mammoth PostgreSQL - S/ODBC and S/JDBC Postgresql support, programming shared hosting and dedicated hosting. +1-503-667-4564 - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.commandprompt.com PostgreSQL Replicator -- production quality replication for PostgreSQL begin:vcard fn:Joshua Drake n:Drake;Joshua org:Command Prompt, Inc. adr:;;PO Box 215 ;Cascade Locks;OR;97014;US email;internet:[EMAIL PROTECTED] title:Consultant tel;work:503-667-4564 tel;fax:503-210-0334 x-mozilla-html:FALSE url:http://www.commandprompt.com version:2.1 end:vcard ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend
[HACKERS] US Patents vs Non-US software ...
Just curious here, but are patents global? PostgreSQL is not US software, but it is run within the US ... so, would this patent, if it goes through, only affect those using PostgreSQL in the US, or do patents somehow transcend international borders? Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664 ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 7: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
On Mon, 17 Jan 2005, Joshua D. Drake wrote: If you want to poke around for 2 hours, I bet you wil find more patent infringements. And not looking doesn't protect you from patent violations. What is the point of removing this one. Just because Neil did some legwork. Anyone could do some legwork and find some in any software, I bet. Well from one perspective... Digging for patent infringement is expensive just look at the SCO suit. However, this is a public list. We have just admitted that we knowingly may infringe upon an IBM patent. That really is a different thing than, We have some really smart people that came up with something, like this other technology. The reality I would bet is that IBM could give a flying roosters butt whether or not PostgreSQL infringes on their patents. However they will care very much, if Fujitsu or SRA does and we (the community) may have insured that. As one famous chicken put it 'the sky is falling, the sky is falling' ... or, in our case a patent is pending, a patent is pending' ... there is no patent, there might never be a patent ... instead of panic'ng over something that may nevr happen, why not just keep an eye on the patent process itself and see wher it goes. It might takes months yet to go anywhere ... lots of time for us to come up with an alternate ... Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664 ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend
Re: [HACKERS] US Patents vs Non-US software ...
It varies from country to country. Here are some relevant links. http://swpat.ffii.org/ http://www.researchoninnovation.org/online.htm http://www.abul.org/brevets/articles/tsuba_refs.php3?langnew=en -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Marc G. Fournier Sent: Monday, January 17, 2005 3:32 PM To: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org Subject: [HACKERS] US Patents vs Non-US software ... Just curious here, but are patents global? PostgreSQL is not US software, but it is run within the US ... so, would this patent, if it goes through, only affect those using PostgreSQL in the US, or do patents somehow transcend international borders? Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664 ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 7: don't forget to increase your free space map settings ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faqs/FAQ.html
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
We won't sue you (customer) but you have to upgrade to DB2 ;) ^^ For the smiley impaired, I think it pretty clear that Mr. Drake was joking. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faqs/FAQ.html
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
Neil Conway [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Keep in mind that it would be conceivable to ship an 8.0.x release which replaces ARC with another algorithm. That would be a somewhat non-trivial change, but there's no reason we need to wait for a major release (i.e. 8.1 or 8.2) to replace ARC. It's not that we couldn't fold a non-ARC algorithm into the 8.0.x release series, it's that it'd be a fairly fundamental change in some critical code. Critical from both the reliability and performance standpoints. I would be comfortable with developing a replacement algorithm as part of the 8.1 development cycle, and then considering a back-patch after 8.1 is out and has shown that it's not completely broken. But to replace it with less testing than that would be irresponsible, at least by the standards we have customarily used for minor releases. This is assuming that we conclude we need a whole new algorithm to dodge the patent. Another line of attack should be to see whether we can make minor tweaks to avoid it. I'm pessimistic about that, but it deserves some amount of investigation before we go down the wholesale replacement path. We already had been considering a short development cycle for 8.1, and I think that this issue will set that decision in stone. What I'm currently thinking about is a couple of months development and the same for beta, which would allow a release in June or so. I have already suggested to core that we should insist on 8.1 not requiring an initdb, so as to ensure that people will migrate up to it easily from 8.0. Aside from the ARC issue, we have already one significant Windows porting issue (%$n in message strings) and I'm sure we will find more once 8.0 is out and getting some real use. I would expect us to focus on fixing issues of that caliber and probably being pretty stingy on new features. (Of course, if we do take this approach, it's questionable whether we'd need to bother with a back-patch.) regards, tom lane ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
Simon Riggs wrote: So, it also seems clear that 8.0.x should eventually have a straight upgrade path to a replacement, assuming the patent is granted. We should therefore plan to: 1. improve/replace ARC for 8.1 2. backport any replacement directly onto 8.0STABLE as soon as any patent is granted One of the reasons for Postgres' well deserved reputation for stability and reliability is that stable branches are ... stable. Backporting a large item like cache replacement mechanism doesn't seem to fit that too well. I wouldn't want to do that except as a complete last resort. cheers andrew ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
On Tue, 2005-01-18 at 10:15 +1100, Neil Conway wrote: On Mon, 2005-01-17 at 12:30 -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote: The biggest problem is going to be that if we release 8 with the patented stuff, then for a minimum of 3 years there will be liability for anyone running 8. We still have people running 7.1 and once you get something into production you typically don't just change it. Keep in mind that it would be conceivable to ship an 8.0.x release which replaces ARC with another algorithm. That would be a somewhat non-trivial change, but there's no reason we need to wait for a major release (i.e. 8.1 or 8.2) to replace ARC. Agreed. Basically I think the fact that we are even considering leaving the knowingly infringing code in 8 is presenting a horrible face to the community. I agree with Tom -- this shouldn't be an impediment to releasing 8.0, but it definitely warrants attention in the future. Agreed. -- Best Regards, Simon Riggs ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
On Monday 17 January 2005 15:15, Joshua D. Drake wrote:
If you want to poke around for 2 hours, I bet you wil find more patent
infringements. And not looking doesn't protect you from patent
violations. What is the point of removing this one. Just because Neil
did some legwork. Anyone could do some legwork and find some in any
software, I bet.
snip
We have just admitted that we knowingly may infringe upon
an IBM patent. That really is a different thing than,
We have some really smart people that came up with something,
like this other technology.
Well, if I am reading that right, IBM doesn't actually have a patent on the
technology yet, so we aren't releasing code that infringes on a patent as it
remains to be seen whether or not the technology will be deemed patentable or
if it is considered a natural evolution of other technology.
That said a little bit of googling doesn't look promising for finding prior
art, though that doesn't mean a case against can't be argued.
The reality I would bet is that IBM could give a flying roosters
butt whether or not PostgreSQL infringes on their patents. However
they will care very much, if Fujitsu or SRA does and we (the
community) may have insured that.
Well, I don't know if they will care very much, but it seems likely thier
lawyers would contact people with ceast and desist letters which, imho would
probably force the community to abondon any version of software with the arc
implementation. Of course the genesis of all this was IBM opening these
patents for use by open source projects, so if a scheme could be worked out
leaving both an arc implementation and an lru implementation in place, with
the understanding that the arc implementation would have issues for
commercial distribution, it might be possible to keep both. I also think
that, as long as the software is being sold with an open source license (ie.
where companies are basically reselling the community version of postgresql,
or selling with another osi approved license) they should be in the clear.
If folks are really concerned, there are a few things that should/could be
done:
1) go back and see if there is a /. article about this (is it even possible
there isn't?) and see if anyone else brought up these concerns. If not, post
some of these questions and see what kind of response you get.
2) There is a group (I think linked from larry lessigs website) that searches
for prior art for software patents. You might bring this case to them and see
if they have any interest in looking into it.
3) See if you can find any other software packages (preferably commercial)
that implement arc tech and see if they have looked into the issue.
4) Have someone from the community contact IBM with some of these questions (a
good candidate would be someone associated with the foundation) and see what
thier take is. I wouldn't expect much from this but you never know.
--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL
---(end of broadcast)---
TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your
joining column's datatypes do not match
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
On Mon, 2005-01-17 at 15:30 -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote: Simon Riggs wrote: On Mon, 2005-01-17 at 14:02 -0800, Joshua D. Drake wrote: IBM can NEVER sue customers for using infringing code before first informing them of infringement and giving reasonable time to upgrade to uninfringing version. I can see it now: We won't sue you (customer) but you have to upgrade to DB2 ;) This is panic and is wrong-headed. They haven't even sent a letter yet... Simon please note that it was a joke :) Thus the ;). Sue me. :-) But read the rest of my posting first. -- Best Regards, Simon Riggs ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives? http://archives.postgresql.org
Re: [HACKERS] ARC patent
On Mon, 2005-01-17 at 18:51 -0500, Andrew Dunstan wrote: Simon Riggs wrote: So, it also seems clear that 8.0.x should eventually have a straight upgrade path to a replacement, assuming the patent is granted. We should therefore plan to: 1. improve/replace ARC for 8.1 2. backport any replacement directly onto 8.0STABLE as soon as any patent is granted One of the reasons for Postgres' well deserved reputation for stability and reliability is that stable branches are ... stable. Backporting a large item like cache replacement mechanism doesn't seem to fit that too well. I wouldn't want to do that except as a complete last resort. I agree... but I see no alternative to my point (2) though; I would welcome additional options. -- Best Regards, Simon Riggs ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 1: subscribe and unsubscribe commands go to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [HACKERS] US Patents vs Non-US software ...
On Mon, Jan 17, 2005 at 07:31:48PM -0400, Marc G. Fournier wrote: Just curious here, but are patents global? PostgreSQL is not US software, but it is run within the US ... so, would this patent, if it goes through, only affect those using PostgreSQL in the US, or do patents somehow transcend international borders? No, they are limited to the territory they are registered in. Not sure how that applies to somebody who just uses Postgres in the US; of course, IANAL. -- Alvaro Herrera ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) www.google.com: interfaz de línea de comando para la web. ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command (send unregister YourEmailAddressHere to [EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: [HACKERS] US Patents vs Non-US software ...
--- Alvaro Herrera [EMAIL PROTECTED] escribió: On Mon, Jan 17, 2005 at 07:31:48PM -0400, Marc G. Fournier wrote: Just curious here, but are patents global? PostgreSQL is not US software, but it is run within the US ... so, would this patent, if it goes through, only affect those using PostgreSQL in the US, or do patents somehow transcend international borders? No, they are limited to the territory they are registered in. It depends. Every country is independant so their laws are independants but if they sign a covenant in that way or if there are any commercial covenants to force with, countries like US can do their will. But i think like Tom's. There is nothing to worry about there are no penalty for violate a non-existing patent. And when (if) the patent become a reality i'm sure the core (you geniuses of programming) have been eliminated that algorithm. regards, Jaime Casanova _ Do You Yahoo!? Información de Estados Unidos y América Latina, en Yahoo! Noticias. Visítanos en http://noticias.espanol.yahoo.com ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faqs/FAQ.html
[HACKERS] Is CVS HEAD open for 8.1 commits?
Is CVS HEAD open for 8.1 commits? -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001 + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road + Christ can be your backup.| Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073 ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
Re: [HACKERS] Is CVS HEAD open for 8.1 commits?
Bruce Momjian wrote: Is CVS HEAD open for 8.1 commits? I have confirmed with Marc that it is open. I am making the 8.1 stamps now. -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001 + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road + Christ can be your backup.| Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073 ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faqs/FAQ.html
Re: [HACKERS] Is CVS HEAD open for 8.1 commits?
Bruce Momjian pgman@candle.pha.pa.us writes: Tom Lane wrote: I'm not convinced Marc got the branching/tagging right; let's wait till the dust settles. I IM'ed him and he said to go ahead. Maybe he said that, but I see no evidence that he's tagged 8.0.0 correctly. If you touch the repository you'll make it materially harder to fix this. So HOLD OFF, please. regards, tom lane ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command (send unregister YourEmailAddressHere to [EMAIL PROTECTED])
Re: [HACKERS] Is CVS HEAD open for 8.1 commits?
Tom Lane wrote: Bruce Momjian pgman@candle.pha.pa.us writes: Is CVS HEAD open for 8.1 commits? I'm not convinced Marc got the branching/tagging right; let's wait till the dust settles. I IM'ed him and he said to go ahead. Are you in such a hurry? Most of what's in the 8.1 queue hasn't been reviewed yet anyway. Neil Conway wanted to get started and I did the file stamps too so those are ready. -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001 + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road + Christ can be your backup.| Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073 ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
Re: [HACKERS] Is CVS HEAD open for 8.1 commits?
Bruce Momjian pgman@candle.pha.pa.us writes: Is CVS HEAD open for 8.1 commits? I'm not convinced Marc got the branching/tagging right; let's wait till the dust settles. Are you in such a hurry? Most of what's in the 8.1 queue hasn't been reviewed yet anyway. regards, tom lane ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives? http://archives.postgresql.org
Re: [HACKERS] Is CVS HEAD open for 8.1 commits?
Tom Lane wrote: Bruce Momjian pgman@candle.pha.pa.us writes: Tom Lane wrote: I'm not convinced Marc got the branching/tagging right; let's wait till the dust settles. I IM'ed him and he said to go ahead. Maybe he said that, but I see no evidence that he's tagged 8.0.0 correctly. If you touch the repository you'll make it materially harder to fix this. So HOLD OFF, please. Too late, sorry. Marc says the 8.0.0 is a tag and a branch. -- Bruce Momjian| http://candle.pha.pa.us pgman@candle.pha.pa.us | (610) 359-1001 + If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road + Christ can be your backup.| Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073 ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match
[HACKERS] Branch created ...
Just as an FYI, since I didn't mention it in my previous ... the branch that was created today was REL8_0_STABLE ... Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664 ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly
Re: [HACKERS] US Patents vs Non-US software ...
Greetings, Patents do not transcend international border. They need to be applied for in each country separately. To ease the process of applying for patents in many countries at once Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) was formed. When you file a patent application with WIPO head office under PCT you specify a list countries of designation from list of countries members of PCT. Filing like this takes significantly less in paperwork and application fees than filing application in each country separately. Many countries do not grant software patents so it is not likely that IBM applied through PCT since a refusal in one country may cause to patent to be refused in all countries. Hope it helps, Nicolai Tufar ---(end of broadcast)--- TIP 7: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
