[OpenIndiana-discuss] What is OI/illumos stance on recreation of features from Solaris 11 (and other proprietary OSes)?

[Jim Klimov]

2012-10-10 16:25, James Carlson пишет:
> Jim Klimov wrote:
>>    So, the main question of this post is: in legislations that
>> are relevant and actively applicable to illumos-derived OSes
>> such as OpenIndiana, are *ideas* and technical specs (meaning
>> public-API/config compatible but code-different implementations)
>> patentable and protectable, or are coders allowed to implement
>> on their own things that others created somehow else?
>
> Assuming that the US is one of those "legislations," yes, the system
> here does allow for at least two types of patents that cover these sorts
> of ideas (design and method patents), and the exact implementation
> doesn't matter at all.  You can easily infringe without ever having seen
> the other's code or even without ever have seen or known about the
> existence of the other patented idea.
>
> This is how, for example, an extremely large fruit-related company can
> claim ownership of rectangles with sanded-down corners.
>
> If you're trying to solicit legal advice on an open mailing list, I
> suspect that's a fruitless search.  In fact, talking at all about it is
> probably a Bad Idea -- doing so can change any future case into a
> "knowing" infringement.  That can have a significant effect on liability.
>
> Much better to just discuss ideas rather than ownership.

In practical terms, yes. However, before we start coding something
that looks like something else someone else has made - and we might
know about that, such as the enhancements I've outlined in the OP
(in this case, we do even consider making such features *because*
they exist elsewhere) - if this per se is known to be a dead-end job
that won't be integrated because it can make users of OI/illumos
liable to Oracle or anyone that wishes to do so (i.e. by patenting
this or similar idea sometime later), than we shouldn't even waste
time discussing and coding that? Right? Hooray, innovation!..

Does anyone know how, in this case, open remakes of proprietary
tools and protocols can exist (i.e. CARP vs. VRRP, LACP vs.
EtherChannels etc.?) - is it just good will of a proprietary
author that doesn't care about hunting for imposters, or even
embraces their resulting solutions as a widely-accepted defacto
standard?

Thanks,
//Jim