I would tend to agree that the MS patent is fairly limited on its face,
although I am not speaking as an attorney (due to my inactive Texas bar
card, retired status, darn near zero patent experience, and so forth). I am
also not speaking for my current employer TI (which seems regrettably more &
more in bed with M$ lately - WinCE? WinMedia? c'mon....). I believe there
are quite a few differences in the update process and underlying technology
which anybody who has used both MS-Windows and GNU/Linux can appreciate:
1. MS stores its .DLL/.EXE/etc. version/date information in the
all-encompassing Windows Registry - thus the "registry key" references in
the claims. Debian uses DPKG (sorry, but I'm not very familiar with
apt/dselect/dpkg inner workings) and RedHat/Mandrake/clones use RPM
databases. These are analogous but probably not infringing, since they rely
not on dates but on version numbers (e.g. aspell-.30.1-1.deb,
gaspell-.30-2rh61.i386.rpm) (see also
http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/packaging.html/ch-versions.html
) to uniquely identify packages. In any case you really don't even need a
package database - just have e.g. 'rpm -Uvh' compare version number[s] of
existing installed package[s] vs. available package[s] (as long as they
increment sanely ;-). Of course, version numbers sometimes are constructed
from dates, but usually only for devel snapshots...
2. As Anne mentioned, MS uses a server-side database to compare against,
while the Linux utilities use a client-side database. This is probably the
best argument technically speaking, since the Linux way doesn't require any
intelligence on the server side - just throw the files up there, and let the
client sort them out. (Kinda like "Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out"
[even though I am a pacifist agnostic] ;-p).
3. Debian and RHAT use ftp/nfs/localfiles/(http?) for net transport whereas
MS uses HTTP and DCOM/ActiveX (inside IE) I believe. Fortunately, you don't
need an "integrated" web browser running to update Linux. Unfortunately
something like MandrakeUpdate might blur the lines....
4. Linux does not use "software program module components" - we like files,
executables and libraries just fine thank you very much ;-) Yes, mere
semantics I know (but even retired lawyers like stuff like that). But MS
does tend to look at everything differently, whereas in UNIX-like OS's we
know "everything's a file"... this kind of also gets back to the Registry in
point 1.
5. Other stuff I'm sure we can come up with... any real practicing patent
attorneys out there?
--
Eric R. Sherrill, WF Software Systems Engineer
Texas Instruments HFAB1 Automation Systems
Stafford, TX 77477-3006
281-274-4133
-----Original Message-----
From: J.A. Bezemer [mailto:costar@panic.et.tudelft.nl]
Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2000 5:59 PM
To: arto.astala@nokia.com
Cc: debian-doc@lists.debian.org; debian-legal@lists.debian.org
Subject: Re: Help: Microsoft patent covers package download and upgrade
On Tue, 2 May 2000 arto.astala@nokia.com wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Microsoft was recently granted a patent that covers a core
> part of Debian, and probably Red Hat too. (If you have
No, it doesn't. See below.
> Filed Nov 14. 1997, granted Oct 26, 1999
> US5974454: Method and system for installing and updating
> program module components
>
> Abstract
>
> Installing and updating a software program module component.
> A determination is made whether the current date is on or
> after a date stored in a registry key on a computer. If the
> current date is on or after the date stored in the registry
> key, then a computer transmits a database query via the
> Internet to a database server. At the database server, a
=================^^^^^^====
> determination is made whether an upgrade package for the
=========================================================
> software program module component is available, such as by
===============================================
> performing a database lookup. If an upgrade package for the
> software program module component is available, then an
> upgrade package message is sent from the database server to
> the computer. At the computer, a determination is made whether
> the user wants to download the upgrade package. If so, then
> an upgrade package query is sent by the computer via the
> Internet to a package server. At the package server, in
> response to receiving the upgrade package query, the upgrade
> package is retrieved and sent over the Internet to the computer.
> The upgrade package is then installed on the computer to update
> the software program module component.
I've followed a course on patents at our Univ, and learned that formulation
is
EXTREMELY important. And M$ happily formulated things in such a way that
Debian and RH are not affected.
In the M$ way [translated2debian], the FTP server would determine if there
were newer package versions available. In the Debian way, the FTP server
just
sends a list of _all_ available packages, and the _client_ computer
determines
if there are new versions.
This is clearly a different solution to the underlying problem, so Debian/RH
do not infringe M$'s patents.
Regards,
Anne Bezemer
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-request@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact
listmaster@lists.debian.org