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Re: [gNewSense-users] FTL patent in kernel
From: |
Karl Goetz |
Subject: |
Re: [gNewSense-users] FTL patent in kernel |
Date: |
Wed, 09 Apr 2008 08:33:14 +0930 |
On Tue, 2008-04-08 at 13:22 -0700, Peter and Jesse wrote:
> I found the following in drivers/mtd/ftl.c. It's under the MPLv1.1 /
> GPL2 licence. What do people think?
> Peter
>
> LEGAL NOTE: The FTL format is patented by M-Systems. They have
> granted a license for its use with PCMCIA devices:
>
> "M-Systems grants a royalty-free, non-exclusive license under
> any presently existing M-Systems intellectual property rights
> necessary for the design and development of FTL-compatible
> drivers, file systems and utilities using the data formats with
> PCMCIA PC Cards as described in the PCMCIA Flash Translation
> Layer (FTL) Specification."
>
> Use of the FTL format for non-PCMCIA applications may be an
> infringement of these patents. For additional information,
> contact M-Systems (http://www.m-sys.com) directly.
>
Could be seen as descriminating against a field of endevour (all those
that are not pcmcia flash development). I'll let someone else make that
final call.
kk
--
Karl Goetz,
Debian user / Ubuntu contributor / gNewSense contributor
http://www.kgoetz.id.au
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