VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
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Back in May, the proposed "no long file names" patch got a hostile reception on the linux-kernel mailing list. This patch, presumably aimed at working around Microsoft's VFAT patents, made the kernel unable to create long file names on VFAT filesystems. It was seen by many as a reduction in functionality without any sort of well-explained justification, and it was not merged. Now there is a new patch which takes a different approach on both the technical and political fronts. Its fate remains to be seen, but it demonstrates a method for dealing with patents which is worthy of wider consideration.
The VFAT format is undeniably a hack. It allows the FAT filesystem to be extended beyond its traditional 8.3 upper-case file name limit by creating additional file entries - which look invalid to older filesystem implementations - containing a longer name. Depending on the length of the name, several of these additional entries may need to be placed in the directory ahead of an entry holding a traditional short file name. The first patch simply disabled the ability to create these long name entries; since the relevant patents all make claims about the creation of long file names, a system which does not create them cannot infringe. A Linux kernel with this patch in place (and enabled at configuration time) would be able to read filesystems with long names, but it would be unable to add any more long names to it.
The new patch takes an entirely different approach based on a close reading of the patent. In truth, it's not the creation of long file names which is covered; instead, the patent claims the technique of creating both long and short names. So the current patch takes away that ability; it can create a long name or a short one, but never both for the same file. The result is almost complete interoperability with other systems using long names; the one exception is archaic systems which only have short name capability. Such systems are relatively rare, though.
There is an interesting trick required to make all this work. The FAT format requires that the short-name directory entry be present, so Linux cannot simply leave it out. Instead, that entry is created with a name which is clearly invalid. The "short name" starts with a space and a NUL byte, continues with some random characters, and finishes with an extension containing a slash. The end result cannot be listed as part of the directory, cannot be used to open the file, and may not even be unique within the directory. It is, thus, not a name for the file.
Assuming that reasoning holds up in court, this patch creates a kernel which cannot be said to infringe upon the VFAT patents. Given that the patch has clearly seen some legal review (see the associated FAQ), and given that it comes from a source (IBM) with extensive experience and expertise in patent law, its chances are probably best described as "better than average."
There are still those who will question this whole approach, though. Changing the kernel in a way which reduces interoperability looks like an acknowledgment of the validity of the patents; wouldn't it be better, some ask, to put those resources into fighting the patents instead? For those who do not wish to play this game at all, putting hackish-looking workarounds into the kernel seems like the wrong way to go.
The problem is that invalidating a patent is a long, expensive, and uncertain undertaking. "Long" means years, "expensive" means potentially millions of dollars, and "uncertain" means exactly that. The US patent system (which is of the most relevance in situations like this) is unwilling to invalidate patents in general; even when it does, the patent is merely put back into the review process from which it can arise, zombie-like, to terrorize again. In the mean time, companies subject to attacks under that patent are suffering under extreme legal costs and potential injunctions which keep them from selling their products. For most companies, that's a death sentence. It is unsurprising that most companies lacking a massive patent portfolio of their own quickly settle when subjected to patent attacks.
[PULL QUOTE: If we choose not to make use of patent workarounds, we will clearly increase our chances of losing the larger fight. END QUOTE] Workarounds are a worthwhile alternative to settling and long battles of attrition. A proper workaround effectively invalidates a patent without all of the associated costs. This is especially true if the workaround so clearly avoids the target patent that any attacks can be disposed of quickly via summary judgment. In any long fight, one must choose battles carefully; workarounds can allow us to avoid numerous costly battles and focus our energies on truly disruptive patents. If we choose not to make use of patent workarounds, we will clearly increase our chances of losing the larger fight.
The FAQ makes an important point related to workarounds that the community should hear: publicly questioning the effectiveness of a workaround can have fatal results. The goal of a good workaround is to avoid a patent infringement trial altogether. If a patent holder can point to email from prominent community members suggesting that a given workaround might, in fact, not avoid the patent, said holder may create enough doubt in a judge's mind to defeat a summary judgment motion and force a case to go to trial. Most defendants cannot afford that, and will thus be forced to capitulate. The right way to express concerns of this nature is via private communication.
We have been hearing warnings about software patents for many years, but,
for most of those years, the threat seemed distant. During that time, it
is said, numerous companies have been quietly shaken down for patent
money. The TomTom suit brought that process out into the open, making it
clear that powerful companies are willing and able to press patent
infringement claims against companies using Linux. The sad fact is that we
cannot opt out of playing this game, so we're simply going to have to get
good at it. This patch is part of the process of figuring out how this
game - so much of which is played via secret maneuvers - can be handled in
an open community. It also represents a serious attempt by a large player
in the patent game to help the community avoid a couple of threatening
patents. Perhaps it's not the patch we want to merge in the end,
but it (and its goals) deserve serious consideration.
(Log in to post comments)
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jun 29, 2009 19:29 UTC (Mon) by clugstj (subscriber, #4020) [Link]
Keeping secrets from each other is a very effective way of destroying the community!
This "patent avoidance" idea gets worse every time I see it talked about.
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jun 29, 2009 19:39 UTC (Mon) by k3ninho (subscriber, #50375) [Link]
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jun 30, 2009 2:29 UTC (Tue) by jlokier (guest, #52227) [Link]
"Does anyone seriously think any judge, upon being shown all the nudge-nudge wink-wink emails, believe that the people involved are not in some way knowledgeable and responsible for the Linux kernel VFAT implementation? Or perhaps acting as agents for those who are? Making it obvious that you know something, by telling everyone that you know but can't tell anyone about it, while posting detailed, carefully tweaked and tested code... And hoping a judge will believe you don't know anything?"
But then I remembered that the people posting code aren't posting a VFAT implementation. They're posting a non-VFAT implementation; they aren't responsible for the VFAT implementation. So they should be immune to triple damages judgements; they aren't posting infringing code.
But the veiled semi-secret descriptions don't make sense from either of those points of view. I'm still puzzled by it, and wonder what it gains anybody. It certainly costs something: loss of transparency in an important open source project.
I'm sure it's true that good lawyers have been consulted. The explanations seem to amount to "we've been told we must do X, and not only can't we tell you why, we can't properly tell you why we've been told not to tell you why. Somehow by not telling you things, it changes whether our code would be found to infringe a patent".
Which seems just... morally wrong and perverted. A lawsuit ought to be judged on relevant facts, not what people reveal and conceal about those facts.
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jun 30, 2009 2:55 UTC (Tue) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]
carefully examining the patent and tweaking your project so that it doesn't infringe is perfectly legitimate (and in fact, if the patent is well established in the industry, may be the only possible way for you to operate in the industry short of licensing the patent)
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jun 30, 2009 3:37 UTC (Tue) by jlokier (guest, #52227) [Link]
Quite, and that's exactly what the patches do. And everyone knows it. So why the "we can't tell you exactly what we're doing" part?
One could get the impression that even if it's legitimate to do, it's not legitimate to admit to doing it. Which seems thoroughly perverse.
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jun 30, 2009 7:27 UTC (Tue) by jzbiciak (guest, #5246) [Link]
I think there's an important detail being missed:
The FAQ makes an important point related to workarounds that the community should hear: publicly questioning the effectiveness of a workaround can have fatal results.
It's not that we can't describe exactly what we're doing. (The description of the VFAT patch seems pretty complete here, with all its rigarmarole to avoid automatically writing two filenames for the same file to the directory structure.)
What's problematic is the process of poking holes in the workaround in public. Even if the "hole" you poke is imagined, creating the impression that the implementers know that their workaround doesn't actually work around the patent gets you back into the appearance of "willful infringement" territory. At least, it becomes easier to make that argument in court, particularly if the court isn't as tech savvy as the implementers are.
Keeping the hole-poking discussions private is what's more important. Yes, it's a loss of transparency, and yes, we should hold this up as a shining banner of why software patents are bad.
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jun 30, 2009 20:57 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
aspect of task scheduling or memory management or something else core to
the OS? Must we stop discussing *that* on l-k as well?
This alone is quite capable of destroying open software development. They
don't need valid patents: this chilling effect on its own will do it.
(And now they've seen the effect of asserting a patent on something
relatively minor which they unquestionably did invent, like VFAT, who
knows what'll happen next?)
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jun 30, 2009 22:17 UTC (Tue) by jzbiciak (guest, #5246) [Link]
For example, if this VFAT patent was just buried in the piles of MS patents and nobody had brought it up, we wouldn't have this patch. It's not until MS starts flexing its muscles that we say "ok, what now?"
If some patent troll comes along claiming against our scheduler, there's no claim of willful infringement at that point, because we simply didn't know about it. Discussing the workaround gets tricky, and that's the part that sucks. Invalidating the patent with prior art also is interesting at that point.
In any case, in your imagined scenario, the mere fact of the patent's existence didn't stop us from coming up with our version of the scheduler to begin with. It just crimps our style in discussing how to handle the patent troll once he shows up and only if he shows up.
It sucks and I certainly don't like it. There may be some chilling effect, and if there is, evidence of it should be held up as shiny examples of why the status quo is bad for innovation.
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jun 30, 2009 23:01 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
the scheduler forevermore. How are we going to discuss LFN issues of any
sort in VFAT in the open from now on? As far as I can tell, we pretty much
can't.
(A more significant reason why nobody reads patents is because they're
written in such an appallingly unreadable turgid style that by the time
you've figured out what they're talking about, you could have come up with
the idea yourself in 99.9999...% of cases. This in itself is an indictment
of patent quality... a patent library that nobody consults is entirely
worthless --- except as a weapon to use against the public. But you knew
that.)
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jul 8, 2009 11:17 UTC (Wed) by fergal (guest, #602) [Link]
I don't see how it wouldn't crimp our style discussing anything to do with the scheduler forevermore. How are we going to discuss LFN issues of any sort in VFAT in the open from now on? As far as I can tell, we pretty much can't.
You can discuss almost everything. Just don't publicly say "hey I don't think this does work around the patent because ...". If you think you've found a flaw in the legal reasoning, send a private email. You probably also shouldn't send a patch for purely legal reasons and discuss them in public.
That leaves everyone who is likely to do any work on LFN reasonably free to do it and discuss it in public.
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jul 8, 2009 18:16 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
this patch: $PERSON will send you a private email explaining the design"
(and then he apparently doesn't, at least not yet) which means that if
this patch goes in we have opaque design decisions in the kernel for the
sake of a single (large) country's appalling legal regime. Great stuff.
I wonder what can't-discuss-it code will be going in for the Chinese
government next? They're hot on Linux and China has a much bigger
population than the US.
effect on discussion
Posted Jul 1, 2009 13:26 UTC (Wed) by pjm (guest, #2080) [Link]
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jun 30, 2009 5:09 UTC (Tue) by spiv (guest, #9031) [Link]
Actually, the FAQ referring to the legal advice doesn't say that; it says that if someone said on LKML that they thought the patch might not avoid the patent then it makes it more likely that the case would go to a full trial. It doesn't say that it is likely to affect the end result of a full trial. But it does make the point that a full trial is going to be much much more expensive (and time consuming), so it's in the interests of a potential defendant to avoid it.
In short, the purpose of the patch is to reduce risk of litigation even starting, and a hypothetical public statement on LKML that it might not avoid the patent has the potential to at least partially undo that.
(IANAL etc.)
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jun 30, 2009 13:30 UTC (Tue) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]
THE LAW IS NOT CODE.
The Law is not code. It simply does not operate on the same level of exactness that source code operates.
There are all sorts of side rules, all sorts of implying and interpretation, and all sorts of crap like that. This patent IS A PROBLEM for some Linux users and developers. The FAT is a very real, very expensive thing to deal with. Ignoring it and minimizing it is simply doing absoletely nobody any favors.
It's very difficult for programmers to understand that Law doesn't make sense. It doesn't have to make sense, it'll never make sense. It's something that is intentionally vague in order to be able to deal with the complexities of human interactions in society.
So it's entirely up to a Judge to decide on a case by case basis.
So it's entirely and 100% makes sense that doing things like having Linux kernel developers questioning the patent workaround is the same of the Linux kernel developers saying that they think that they are violating the patents.
Get it?
By questioning the patent-workaround to much your admitting that your KNOWINGLY violating the patent. At least it will seem that way, which is _good_enough_. It's opening up a huge hole in any sort of legal standing you may have.
It's not very complicated here.
I am not a lawyer. I haven't looked at the code, I haven't looked at the patents in question. etc etc.
The law is/is not code
Posted Jun 30, 2009 14:37 UTC (Tue) by davecb (subscriber, #1574) [Link]
for all X, if X is blue, do not do X
Arguing about whether X is in fact blue, having publiclly said we're doing X, is evidence that there is doubt about whether X is blue.
In doubtful cases, a company can ask a court to rule on whether X is blue, and if so, whether we've roken the rule.
--dave
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jun 30, 2009 15:03 UTC (Tue) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]
Maybe. Or maybe not. I would say that the only thing you admit is that you know that the patent exists. Maybe the questioner doesn't understand the implementation, or the patent, or both. Maybe the patent is bogus, maybe the actual code does not infringe (aren't patents open to interpretation?), maybe...
> I am not a lawyer. I haven't looked at the code, I haven't looked at the patents in question. etc etc.
Me neither.
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jun 30, 2009 16:59 UTC (Tue) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]
That's the only way that a judge is going to interpret that.
It's just logical. How is somebody going to 'poke holes' in a patent-workaround when they don't even know the patent itself?
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jun 30, 2009 19:09 UTC (Tue) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link]
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jun 30, 2009 21:03 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
written over many centuries, by people who never understood more than a
fraction of the codebase, and with a goal of consistency above all despite
that.
(In many sufficiently long-lived legal systems, the very oldest laws don't
even get repealed: they just drop out of use because almost nobody can
even understand the language they're written in, and they're not important
enough for the legislature to waste any time on as nobody ever actually
uses said moribund laws for anything. Some of the oldest
still-technically-valid UK laws are written in Anglo-Norman, but unless
they've been renewed more recently, they're probably forgotten except as
curiosities. Most laws that are actually enforced are either terribly
significant so they don't get forgotten or a couple of centuries or less
old. This probably helps keep the set of active laws from imploding from
sheer size...)
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jun 30, 2009 21:29 UTC (Tue) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link]
> written over many centuries, by people who never understood more than a
> fraction of the codebase, and with a goal of consistency above all despite
> that.
I think that's an excessively reductionist view of human society and the way it interacts with its laws.
Code is a set of instructions performed by a machine. This is true even of 'big ball of mud' type systems. Any attempt to reduce the operation of human society to that of a machine will get into the more extensional (and pointless) aspects of the philosophy of AI.
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jun 30, 2009 21:54 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
about the law. I suspect that code *will* get as hopelessly inconsistent
as legal systems do, if you let them accrete for as long: i.e., the
driving factor here is time.
(That's why I mentioned old laws getting ignored: that's one major
difference, because old code doesn't get ignored. Machines have no common
sense. Most judges do, and even some legislators...)
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jul 1, 2009 5:22 UTC (Wed) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
Heh, I just read it as part of the analogy, with the old laws like the old modules that end up sitting in a corner mumbling quietly to themselves without actually being hooked into anything that matters anymore.
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jul 1, 2009 22:05 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Anyway, my apologies for introducing an analogy unrelated to cars, but as
I don't drive I have to make my own fun.
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jul 1, 2009 22:47 UTC (Wed) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jul 3, 2009 19:03 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link]
Code is a set of instructions performed by a machine.
That's a bad way of thinking about code. It's an accurate description of machine code, but since the work of Grace Hopper, good code is a description of the solution to a computational problem. It's written in a language simple enough that a computer can understand the solution and implement it. So calling code instructions to a computer is like calling a manuscript instructions to a publisher.
So the way I would compare law to code is that law is what code would be like if we had much more advanced computer technology (and I do think we'll get there eventually). Imagine code that technically says to iterate forever, but the computer understands you didn't really want an infinite loop and stops after a reasonable number of iterations. Law can do that.
effect of discussion on legal procedings
Posted Jul 1, 2009 13:46 UTC (Wed) by pjm (guest, #2080) [Link]
Someone else in these LWN comments also suggested (without citing any evidence) that such discussions can change whether or not one is found to have knowingly ("willfully") infringed the patent.
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jun 29, 2009 23:17 UTC (Mon) by ianw (guest, #20143) [Link]
I can just imagine being that judge - I'm sure plenty of readers here have been in the same position as tutors or lecturers looking at obviously duplicated code and having two students cry that their assignments are clearly different because -- look! there's a NULL appended to the start of that filename or some other lame excuse. Thank god they don't bring lawyers with them.
Imagine the good that all the money spent on this could have done directed somewhere useful...
"obviously duplicated" is irrelevant
Posted Jun 30, 2009 2:35 UTC (Tue) by JesseW (subscriber, #41816) [Link]
"obviously duplicated" is irrelevant
Posted Jun 30, 2009 18:28 UTC (Tue) by ianw (guest, #20143) [Link]
I completely blame Microsoft, however. By forcing the TomTom issue they showed intent. If the best they can come up with is to sue over a file format vaguely more complicated than what we expect undergraduate students to implement to pass a basic operating systems course, then they are justifiably doomed.
"obviously duplicated" is irrelevant
Posted Jun 30, 2009 21:06 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
that ugly he'd get a C, max.
(Of course, nobody wanted it to be so ugly. VFAT is the way it is because
of back-compatibility with a bunch of now-dead systems...)
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jun 30, 2009 4:31 UTC (Tue) by jamesh (guest, #1159) [Link]
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jun 30, 2009 2:36 UTC (Tue) by showell (guest, #2929) [Link]
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jul 1, 2009 5:24 UTC (Wed) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jun 30, 2009 8:12 UTC (Tue) by bokr (subscriber, #58369) [Link]
Perhaps it could be fruitful to recall the origin of the authority for Congress to create patent and copyright law. It's only a few lines in the Constitution:
Article. I. Section. 8. The Congress shall have Power
[... many "To ..." items elided] ...
To Promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by
securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the
exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries; ...
That's all. Clearly (to me), this was not intended to allow Congress to create laws that license neo-luddites to abuse said laws to impede the "Progress of Science and useful Arts" for any reason -- perhaps least of all as a means of hobbling competition with their own outdated and/or inferior technology. Nor, it seems clear to me, was this provision of the Constitution meant to permit or nurture the existence of patent-trolls, who if anything impede rather than "Promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts," and who are generally neither Authors or Inventors. Exclusive Right can not be interpreted as a right to enforced dis-use and be consistent with Promotion of Progress! I am against software patents, but a practical way to "Promote the Progress of Science and the useful Arts" might be to provide legal immunity against patent infringement claims for non-profits and academic and research entities, as well as entrepreneurial businesses grossing less than say a million dollars. After some product containing a patented entity is making real money in the market, then the first to achieve this could have special rights to a cap on royalties, and others would have to negotiate with the patent owner or stay under the million gross limit. This would provide incentives Promoting Progress through competition. And FLOSS could promote progress as it does now, through cooperation.
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jun 30, 2009 16:25 UTC (Tue) by mjthayer (guest, #39183) [Link]
US constitution vs patents
Posted Jul 1, 2009 13:07 UTC (Wed) by pjm (guest, #2080) [Link]
(Sorry I have no references. No doubt I'm not exactly reproducing the arguments on either side.)
US constitution vs patents
Posted Jul 3, 2009 3:19 UTC (Fri) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
I believe you're thinking of Eldred v. Ashcroft. The US Congress certainly *does* need authorization from the Constitution to pass laws; that's one of the basic principles of US law. (The Constitution basically says "here's a list of things Congress can pass laws about, here's a list of things that no-one can pass laws about (regulating speech, etc.), everything not mentioned here the states can do whatever they want with.")IIRC, the Supreme Court wriggled out of the Constitution's language about copyright being "to promote the progress of science and useful arts" by saying that it was complicated to say exactly whether progress was hurt or helped by copyright extension, and so they would leave that up to the legislature, who has more resources to figure out tricky questions of this sort. Kind of lame.
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jun 30, 2009 17:09 UTC (Tue) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]
It's up to the supreme court and they ruled some years ago in a manner that is interpreted as allowing software patents.
Currently in order to get something declared unconsitutional you'd have to get into a patent case and then fight your way up to the supreme court and get them to agree with you.
If you want to go that route I hope that you have:
1. About 5 years or so.
2. Best lawyers in the country
3. Several million dollars burning a hole in your pocket.
Because that's about what it would take to even have a ghost of a chance to win a case like that.
And everybody and their mom will be fighting you. For two reasons:
* There is still doubt that pure software patents are 100% legal.
* There are a lot of very good lawyers that make very good money on software patent BS.
So if you....
Win: You put a large number of very wealthy and experienced legal people out of work.
Lose: You essentially destroy any chance of fighting software patents until you get Congress to pass a law making software patents illegal.
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jul 2, 2009 5:47 UTC (Thu) by grahammm (guest, #773) [Link]
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jun 30, 2009 17:32 UTC (Tue) by clugstj (subscriber, #4020) [Link]
My point is that this kind of patch (we can't tell you why we wrote it, just trust us), should be rejected on those grounds alone. Secrecy is deadly to the openness upon which Free/Open Source Software is based.
I also think the lawyers are covering their own backsides and laying a minefield for everyone else with wording that draws attention to the possible patent issues that they added in the configuration flag that enables the current behaviour (read/write both short and long filenames).
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jul 1, 2009 5:27 UTC (Wed) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jul 2, 2009 4:39 UTC (Thu) by faramir (subscriber, #2327) [Link]
Why people are upset about a similar situation involving patents, I just don't understand.
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jun 30, 2009 21:19 UTC (Tue) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]
(I am one of the best VFAT experts in the world)
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jun 30, 2009 23:56 UTC (Tue) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link]
(I am one of the best VFAT experts in the world)
"""
My sincerest condolences.
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jul 1, 2009 0:27 UTC (Wed) by gdt (subscriber, #6284) [Link]
Yes, your point on the futility of the legal wisdom of questioning the effectiveness of the patch is well made. But making a point isn't really what comments on LWN are about. Rather comments are a service to the reader, to point out errors in the article or alternative points of view. Should Microsoft decide to sue a party over the VFAT patents I'm sure the pain in the butt that is discovery and deposition will gain us readers a measure of revenge for your rather poor joke.
On a related note, I've no idea why Jon permits comments on these patent patch articles. It is painfully obvious reading the comments to date that comments are only hurting the effectiveness of those patches, rather than contributing to a discussion of a high enough quality where upholding 'free speech' might be worth the consequences.
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jul 1, 2009 0:54 UTC (Wed) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link]
I have found the discussion in this thread to be interesting. I would not necessarily have expected it to go in the direction it has. Sometimes, on this site, an essentially political story spawns technical discussion which quickly goes over my head. Other times a technical article results in a political discussion. It's really hard to predict. But few sites on the Internet consistently have such *good* discussions. And few flame wars, despite the fact that we are an opinionated bunch.
I suggest that you might want to reconsider your opinion on allowing comments to patent-related articles. I'm not at all sure that cloaks and daggers are likely to benefit our community.
VFAT patent avoidance and patent workarounds
Posted Jul 2, 2009 14:45 UTC (Thu) by mjr (guest, #6979) [Link]
Regardless, the patch is pretty simple, so at least vendors can apply it on their systems without too much trouble and maintenance effort to avoid becoming collateral damage in Microsoft's FUD war.