All of the Reiser4 code as it exists today will always be available under GPL
no matter who buys the copyright. The only reason I can see to buy Namesys
is either to offer or use a re-licensed copy of the code or to take advantage
of the knowledge of the current Namesys employees. There might be some value
in existing contracts with DARPA or whoever but I am not sure.
The re-license thing could be very difficult if there are many people who
decide on if it will be re-licensed. This is why Hans has always retained
exclusive copyright to all the code. I would question if re-licensing would
be feasible with any structure that could be called community ownership.
In the short term I believe the current employees of Namesys (how many are
there now?) are the most valuable asset. It takes time to become acclimated
to such a complex piece of code. Having to rehire a new set of people would
easily set the work back by a few months to a year.
On the other hand, I also believe that exclusive rights to the code could be
very valuable to companies like Apple or even everybodies favorite,
Microsoft.
Even with knowledge of the mechanisms Reiser4 uses, I expect it could cost
another company over a million dollars more to completely re-implement a
similar file system compared to having uninhibited use of the existing code.
I could see a company like Apple using a file system like Reiser4 to improve
the performance of the existing file system and more importantly to enable
acceptable performance for a namespace the unifies the file system and XML
(chosen because of its widespread use) allowing for the elimination of
the "save file" paradigm. Basically, applications could store data in an in
memory XML DOM (as I expect Open Office does today) which would be seamlessly
written to disk after each transaction on that DOM. (Reiser4 can do this
much better than any other FS because of efficient storage of small items and
the reiser syscall if ever finished). Such a system could claim, "Never
loose data, Ever." (This is what databases have been doing for decades.)
Actually you could probably loose a few seconds of data as I expect flushing
to disk after each character typed wouldn't be acceptable. Though even this
problem could be eliminated with an small NVRAM, Flash and HD hybrid.
Wrap the NVRAM and flash in hard casing, mix in a good real time internet
backup scheme (plugins and efficient extensible metadata would help here),
and it would become possible to insure against data loss at a reasonable
cost. Something like, "with this laptop and OS, if you loose any data, even
if you drop it off a 20 story building 1 second after typing that last word,
we will cut you a check for $100,000. Some limitations apply." I think many
would pay an extra few hundred dollars for something like that.
Of course, getting to that place would require alot of further work but
Reiser4 would be a good start.
I would rather see this under GPL in Linux but this verbage was to elaborate
on one reason that the existing code would be worth a substantial chunk of
change. This could also be a reason why it would be in the interest of
existing Linux companies to ensure development continues.
Bottom line, Han's best hope at making any significant amount on this sale
would rest in a company seeing the value in Reiser4 wishing to re-license the
code.
On Monday 25 December 2006 4:22 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> I'm an offer to buy some or little part of the legal properties of
> Namesys, still compromised with open source community.
>
> How much it costs at all?
>
> I work with reiser4 in my own enterprise private distribution and want
> this project lasting for a long time.
>
> André Zaiats.
> Codix - São Paulo - Brazil
>
> > Hello,
> > from reading all this stuff it seems to look like a competitors
> > intrigue. But we don't have any evidences upon this neither do
> > we have a sentence, yet...
> >
> > Can we build up a ReiserFS-community based fund to buy or save
> > Namesys over time to help continue the current development? Just
> > an idea.
> >
> > From my point of view the there are three general alternatives:
> > * let/help someone really interested to buy Namesys
> > * increase Hans' financial input directly to help him&&ReiserFS
> > * ReiserFS3&4 get bought by someone and become commercial or
> >will vanish at once
> >
> > As I followed ReiserFS since 1997(?+-) but really don't know
> > enough about the current case I'm not sure with my priorities in
> > the list above.
> >
> > Best wishes to all contributors,
> > my best wishes for your Xmas!
> >
> > Manuel
> >
> > Joe Feise wrote on '06-12-25 20:55:
> >> http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72342-0.html
