Hopefully the list will be interested in this story on Slashdot: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/26/0535202&mode=thread&tid=155& tid=99
I'll reproduce the leader from the article here: "BIND author and all-around Internet personality Paul Vixie and Mirror Image Internet have recently received US patent 6,581,090, specifically '..technology that efficiently stores and retrieves content requests and balances Web traffic between origin servers to improve performance and speed' - sounds an awful lot like what Akamai do. There's a press release from last week that gives some lovely 'details', including this little gem from CEO Alexander M. Vik: 'We anticipate that these patents and our technology solutions will encourage large groups of corporations to become customers of Mirror Image services. We also recognize that this technology is a critical component of other content delivery services and we'll be attempting to work cooperatively with our competitors and their customers to address this issue.' Can you say 'patent infringement suit'?" Some comments on SlashDot note that an OpenBSD/ipf/ipnat/squid combination may fall under this banner. Sam Pointer UNIX, Security & Network Administration HPD Software Limited Tel: + 44 (0) 20 8780 6800 Fax: + 44 (0) 20 8780 6801 This email and any attachments are strictly confidential and are intended solely for the addressee. If you are not the intended recipient you must not disclose, forward, copy or take any action in reliance on this message or its attachments. If you have received this email in error please notify the sender as soon as possible and delete it from your computer systems. Any views or opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of HPD Software Limited or its affiliates. At present the integrity of email across the internet cannot be guaranteed and messages sent via this medium are potentially at risk. All liability is excluded to the extent permitted by law for any claims arising as a re- sult of the use of this medium to transmit information by or to HPD Software Limited or its affiliates.