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Re: Ping! [PATCH - revised] New Optimization: Partitioning hot & cold basic blocks
- From: Daniel Berlin <dberlin at dberlin dot org>
- To: Mike Stump <mrs at apple dot com>
- Cc: Caroline Tice <ctice at apple dot com>,gcc-patches at gcc dot gnu dot org,law at redhat dot com
- Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 01:15:39 -0400
- Subject: Re: Ping! [PATCH - revised] New Optimization: Partitioning hot & cold basic blocks
- References: <60F29B77-06A8-11D8-B5ED-003065BDF310@apple.com>
On Oct 25, 2003, at 1:02 AM, Mike Stump wrote:
On Friday, October 24, 2003, at 10:44 AM, law@redhat.com wrote:
What was the result of your patent search. That is critical.
If these techniques are covered by HP's patents, then we absolutely
can not
use them.
That'd just mean that we should ask HP to grants us permission... :-)
Or design around them.
It's usually not as hard as one would think (though obviously, it
depends on the specific patents and their history).
Seriously, in a world where everything is blanketed by patents, we
should get in the habit of just asking. We aren't the competition...
Patents only give you the right to exclude others from making your
invention. Thus, the first instinct of any IP lawyer to a request to
use a patent is no. So unless HP has some clued in IP lawyers (which
when it comes to being clued in about free software, to be honest, are
not all that common), it's unlikely you'll get far unless you've got
people at HP who can push the lawyers around. :P
--Dan