🚀 go-pugleaf

metzger@halley.watson.ibm.com (Perry E. Metzger) writes:
>I think a boycott of AT&T for their unsportsmanlike behavior vis a vis
>backing store would be quite a good thing.

I think that it would be a *bad* thing until someone actually reads the
patent and finds out just what AT&T is claiming ownership of.  It may
be as simple as an overzealous new lawyer in AT&T's legal dept.

The letter that was sent out does *not* describe the technology that
the patent covers.  From my knowledge of Rob Pike's work on raster
graphics, it is not at all obvious to me that the patent must cover
the general concept of backing store, especially in light of the fact
that you can't patent general concepts, only implementations.  Pike
did come up with a very efficient implementation of backing store, and
I would be surprised if AT&T *didn't* have a patent on that particular
mechanism.

Now, it may be as bad as it seems, but jumping to conclusions prematurely
will only muddy the waters further, and, if the conclusions prove false,
make us all look pretty silly.  Is that really what you want?

-- 
Amanda Walker						      amanda@visix.com
Visix Software Inc.					...!uunet!visix!amanda
--
"We can only know something if we love it."	--St. Augustine