Re: [gNewSense-users] FTL patent in kernel

[Karl Goetz]

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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