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<font size=3>At 01:22 PM 10/8/2004, Greg KH wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Hi all,<br><br>
Enough people have been asking me about this lately, that I thought
I<br>
would just bring it up publicly here.<br><br>
It seems that the Infiniband group (IBTA) has changed their
licensing<br>
agrement of the basic Infiniband spec. See:<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab><a href="http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=18922" eudora="autourl">http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=18922</a><br>
for more info about this.<br><br>
The main point that affects Linux is the fact that now, no non-member
of<br>
the IBTA can implement any working Infiniband code, otherwise they
might<br>
run into legal problems. As an anonymous member of a IBTA company
told<br>
me:<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>If someone
downloads the spec without joining the IBTA, and<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>proceeds
to use the spec for an implementation of the IBTA spec,<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>that
person (company) runs the risk of being a target of patent<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>infringement
claims by IBTA members.</font></blockquote><br>
Caution: I'm not a lawyer so the following discussion is just a personal
opinion.<br><br>
Spec for free or spec for a price - neither grants anyone rights to any
IP contained within the specifications or on the technologies that
surround the specification. The change in spec cost, while clearly
unfortunate, has no impact on the IP rights. IP rights are
defined by the IBTA membership agreement (just like they are for PCI and
any number of other technologies used within the industry). If you
want to implement a technology, then you have to be a member of the
appropriate organization and agree to the same industry-wide terms that
others do. Hence, this problem is not IB-specific but a fact of
life within the industry.<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font size=3>Another person,
wanting to remain anonymous stated to me:<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>In
justification for this position people say that they are just<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>trying to
get more people to join the IBTA because they need the<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>dues,
which by coincidence are $9500 per year, and point out<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>that some
other commonly used specs are similarly made available<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>for steep
prices. I don't know one way or the other about that<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>but this
sounds a lot like the reason that we all gave ourselves<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>for NOT
including SDP in the kernel[1].<br><br>
So, even if a IBTA member company creates a Linux IB implementation, and
gets it into the kernel tree, any company who ships such a
implementation, who is not a IBTA member, could be the target of any
patent infringement claims[2].</font></blockquote><br><br>
Again, this is true of many technologies not just IB. For example,
if a company has patents on PCI Express and someone implements a device /
chipset / whatever and they are not part of the PCI-SIG, then they can be
subject to different terms than someone who is a member of the
PCI-SIG. In both cases, the access to specs, etc. has nothing to do
with IP licensing.<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font size=3>So, OpenIB group,
how to you plan to address this issue? Do you all have a position
as to how you think your code base can be accepted into the main kernel
tree given these recent events?</font></blockquote><br>
This problem isn't just an OpenIB issue. It is true for the IETF,
PCI-SIG, USB, PCMCIA, etc. which all have technologies with varying
degrees of patents. Even going beyond what is in these various
industry organizations, there are also many companies who have patents on
protocol off-load, OS bypass, copy avoidance, RDMA, QoS algorithms,
etc. Does any subsystem implemented in or on top of Linux
suddenly stop work because there is IP involved?<br><br>
<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font size=3>thanks,<br><br>
greg k-h<br><br>
[1] SDP, for those who do not know, is a part of the IB spec that
Microsoft has come out and stated they they currently own the patents
that cover that portion of the specification, and that anyone who wants
to implement it, needs to get a licensing agreement with them. Of
course, that license agreement does not allow for a GPLed version of the
implementation.</font></blockquote><br>
SDP was derived from Winsocks Direct. Microsoft may have IP
associated with the specification. Other companies who worked on
SDP may also have IP. One does not know all of the IP that
may exist in any technology until someone attempts to enforce their
rights.<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font size=3>[2] Sure, any
person who has a copy of the kernel source tree could be a target for any
of a zillion other potential claims, nothing new there, but the point
here is they are explicitly stating that they will go<br>
after non-IBTA members who touch IB code[3].</font></blockquote><br>
I don't see how this can be asserted. The IBTA defines the
licensing requirements for member companies. It is the companies
that own the IP that have to enforce their IP; the IBTA has no role
in the process other than to set a level playing field for those that
participate in the IBTA. This is true for other industry
organizations as well.<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font size=3>[3] An insanely
stupid position to take, given the fact that any normal industry group
would be very happy to actually have people use their specification, but
hey, the IB people have never been know for their brilliance in the
past...</blockquote><br>
The same can be stated for many different technologies. The IBTA is
no different than the rest of the industry and was founded using the same
principles already in use in the industry at that time. In general,
these operating principles are still in sync with other organizations so
it is not clear that you can blame the IBTA as doing something outrageous
when all of this has been known and published on the IBTA web site from
the start.<br><br>
Mike</font></body>
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