[Patents] Dutch MP's demand triviality criteria in the law before allowing SW pats

[Bernard Lang Bernard.Lang@inria.fr]

You should send that info to AMD, to get more support for Linux ...

Linux is cross-platforms, hence recreate competition between
incompatible instruction sets.
  ... exactly as was done deliberately with eCos (TRON) embedded
Cygnus operating system.

  but the 80x86 is not dead yet ... lots of legacy hardware, and
market inertia.

  Bernard


On Wed, Feb 21, 2001 at 03:42:20PM +0100, Francois PELLEGRINI wrote:
> 
>       Hello all,      
> 
> Ram'on Garc'ia Fern'andez wrote:
> > 
> > On Fri, Feb 16, 2001 at 12:53:04PM +0100, Luuk van Dijk wrote:
> > > Ram'on Garc'ia Fern'andez wrote:
> > >
> > > > Another topic: did you consider the exclusion of patents on 
> > > > interfaces?
> > > > These patents hurt interoperability.
> > >
> > > They were not explicitly discussed.  I take it
> > > that interfaces are as 'software' and 'representation
> > > of information' as it can get. Not?
> > >
> > > Luuk
> > >
> > 
> > Making clearer in the law the exclusion of interfaces cannot hurt.
> > The clearer the better.
> > 
> > On the other hand, an interface can be new. For example, a new
> > instruction in a processor.  Yet in this cases, the monopolistic
> > effects are more important that the need to encourage innovation. It
> > is not posible to sell a processor/operating system if there are no
> > applications available for it; therefore a processor needs to be
> > compatible with existing popular processors in order to succeed.
> 
>       Nope.
> 
>       Recent events with Intel patenting the instruction set of
> its new Itanium family is a clear example. In a market that does
> no longer expand as it did, Intel has trouble with its competitors,
> that do not stay on the low-cost low-margin market, but attack it
> on its high-end market.
>       For performance reasons, the 80x86 family must be abandoned,
> as its CISC paradigm is a severe performance impediment (complexifies
> pre-fetching, superscalarity, and such...).
>       Then, to avoid competitors, Intel has patented the instruction
> set of its new processor family:
> 
> http://www.bigcharts.com/news/articles.asp?newsid=693306370&orig=charting&time=&symb=INTC&sid=2564&source=htx%5Chttp2_mw
> 
>       The idea is clear: Intel, due to its weight, will impose its
> processor to the after-PC market, backed by Microsoft which will
> quickly provide a Windows for it. At the same time, I guess, patents
> on smart cards by GemPlus will fall into the public domain, and
> licences for Microsoft products will be included in specific smart
> cards with un-cyphering capabilities (Microsoft has put much money
> in it these years). Then, all previous easily-copyable versions of
> Microsoft products will vanish, because they will not be able to run
> on the new architecture.
>       
>       Maybe I should also post this to alt.conspiracy...   8^/
> 
> 
> 
>                                       f.p.
> 
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