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by AlyssaRowan
4144 days ago
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Yes: KSplice had software patents - Oracle bought them. And everyone knows what Oracle is like with software patents: aggressive! I'm not clear what they actually cover, and can't look them up right now, but I'd thought they were specific on how KSplice in particular operates, both applying hotpatches and analysing the source to create them. I don't know whether they'd apply to anything else, or whether there is prior art, but they're an obvious landmine to be aware of and to avoid. So a simple fork wouldn't do unless it'd change the way it actually worked. A fresh approach was needed, and we seem to have two fresh approaches here. I'm trusting they've been avoided here. They probably have, as this is much more general? The concept of hot patches are of course fine, people have been doing that for decades, and you can't patent concepts. The lesson here: please don't patent stuff jn your open-source software, in case you wake up one day and got acquihired by Evil™. |
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Of course the time they were granted (to Oracle, after Ksplice were bought) the applications became nigh-impenetrable patentese that really need a US-qualified patent attorney to interpret, so I'm absolutely not going to try and I'm just going to post what I found here.
Application: https://www.google.co.uk/patents/US20100269105 became patent https://www.google.co.uk/patents/US8612951 (B2) "Method of determining which computer program functions are changed by an arbitrary source code modification". (They've also cited a patent for a… coffeepot. OK, I'm pretty sure that bit's a typo. <g>)
Application: https://www.google.co.uk/patents/US20100083224 seems to have become patent https://www.google.co.uk/patents/US8261247 (B2) "Method of modifying code of a running computer program based on symbol values discovered from comparison of running code to corresponding object code".
Application: https://www.google.co.uk/patents/US20100269106 does not seem to have been granted directly, but then there's patent https://www.google.co.uk/patents/US8607208 "System and methods for object code hot updates" which I think is a continuation-in-part of it and oh I've gone cross-eyed, get a professional.