Re: IBM/MontaVista Dynamic Power Management Project

On Tuesday 03 December 2002 18:39, Alan Cox wrote:
> On Tue, 2002-12-03 at 17:46, Bishop Brock wrote:
> > IBM and MontaVista have initiated a joint project to develop a
> > dynamic power management control and policy mechanism for Linux
> > for processors supporting dynamic voltage and frequency scaling.
> > A paper describing the proposal can be obtained from
> >
> > http://www.research.ibm.com/arl/projects/dpm.html
>
> Interesting. One small question however. The paper says "Others have
> also explored the possibilities of this type of fine grained control".
> More to the point however they have patents covering them. What does IB=
M
> intend to do about that ?

The same thing they always do:

1) Wait for some idiot to sue IBM.

2) Fire up the IBM legal department.

3) Find 300 trivial patents on breathing and mitosis that the idiot curre=
ntly=20
violates, from among the 8 zillion patents IBM files each year.  Counters=
ue. =20
(If this drags on, find more trivial patents they violate and keep piling=
 on. =20
Loop forever until they give in.  Note that litigation in this regard is =
sort=20
of a marketing expense: It makes sense to dig deep and make an example of=
 the=20
bastard so everybody else is afraid to sue IBM.  This is how they keep=20
pandora's box cosed, by hitting every idiot who tries to open it with a v=
ery=20
large sledgehammer.)

4) As part of the inevitable settlement, strong-arm them into cross-licen=
sing=20
their entire patent portfolio with IBM.  Problem solved.  IBM can certain=
ly=20
issue a license to the contents of its own patent portfolio, even placing=
=20
them under the GPL.

Any big company will work this way.  It's mutually assured destruction=20
enforcing detante, just like nuclear weapons, and then cross-licensing=20
agreements disarm the issue like an actually enforcable SALT treaty.

These days, the threat of patent lawsuits is usually a lot more effective=
 than=20
actual patent lawsuits.  Even with small  companies.  Patents are complet=
ely=20
useless to individuals or small firms, even a clearly legitimate case cos=
ts=20
over $1 million and more than a year to litigate against an opponent of a=
ny=20
size.  Any individual or small company that distracts itself to that degr=
ee=20
with something other than product development and marketing is going to p=
ut=20
itself out of business long before a judgement is handed down.  And big=20
companies with a brain don't want to open the patent issue against small=20
companies any more than the US wants to use nukes against Iraq and tick o=
ff=20
China and Russia...

So you get a lot of sabre rattling, a few cease and desist letters, but v=
ery=20
little actual litigation.  Hence Linus's "show me the supoena" position.

Rob

(It would be really nice if the GPL could explicitly be turned into a pat=
ent=20
pool that large companies like IBM could simply cross-license their=20
portfolios with.  But unfortunately, such a change to the language of the=
 GPL=20
would require the cooperation of Richard Stallman, and he wants to bundle=
 in=20
a zillion other changes in any proposed GPL 3.0.  The community's abhoren=
ce=20
of log-rolling means that GPL 3.0 will probably never become a reality, a=
nd=20
Stallman simply won't do a GPL 2.1 addressing just the patent issue.  Oh=20
well.)

--=20
penguicon.sf.net - A combination Linux Expo and Science Fiction Conventio=
n=20
with GOHs Terry Pratchett, Eric Raymond, Pete Abrams, Illiad & CmdrTaco.




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