Resending in plain text....... On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 11:06 AM, John Lanza<jdlanza@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > If I understand the proposal (which I think I do), Tridge is correct. > If a patent prohibits a system from performing steps "A" and "B", > simply separating the steps into separate modules, or utilities, won't > avoid infringement. > > I'm happy to answer specific questions, but it might be best to do > that separately from lkml. > > johnl > > On Tue, Jul 21, 2009 at 9:04 AM, <tridge@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> Hi Boaz, >> >> > I guess you tried putting a zero at first char and it breaks everybody? >> >> It works with some devices, but with many it doesn't. A space followed >> by a nul works with quite a lot of devices, but not enough (the last >> patch used a space followed by a nul). >> >> I went to a large electronics store and told them I wanted to buy >> devices that didn't work with my computer. They were very helpful, and >> as a result I was able to test a lot of devices. That is what led to >> the design of this patch (plus the feedback from people like Jan and >> his IOneIt MP3 player). >> >> > I guess (35^6)*8*7 is not that bad >> >> yes, but luckily For the WinXP bluescreen the probability of the crash >> is actually much lower than that figure would give. With the same >> modelling assumptions of WinXP memory slots for 8.3 entries that Paul >> used for the last patch, it comes out as less than a 1 in 10k chance >> for a full directory (ie. 32767 long filenames). For 100 files in a >> directory it is around 1 chance in 10^11. I'm sure Paul will do the >> full expansion and modelling if anyone wants more precise numbers. >> >> For the chkdsk rename, the probability is much easier to calculate as >> it is just the usual birthday expansion (see wikipedia for simple >> formula for that). That is what gives 0.5% for 32767 files in a >> directory, and 4.8x10^-8 for for 100 files. >> >> Basically it won't happen very often. In each case the probability is >> rougly 75x less than it was for the last patch. >> >> > What if we had a user mode utility that does these short-names >> > renames that a user can optionally run after umount? since it >> > only writes the (random) short-names it's also safe. >> >> While I will defer to John Lanza if you want a more complete legal >> view on this, I think it is likely that separating the steps of the >> patent between programs within one system is not a safe enough legal >> strategy to be used. >> >> Please do keep thinking about it though. There could well be some >> simple combination which is legally safe and also technically >> completely satisfactory. If you think you have hit on a winner, you >> may wish to discuss it with John Lanza in private first though, so it >> can be fine tuned before being presented publicly. >> >> Cheers, Tridge >> > -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-fsdevel" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
