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Rackspace accused of patent infringement for hosting Github

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Re: Rackspace accused of patent infringement for hosting Github

#21

Post by tzs »

WestCoastJustin wrote: post #6

The patents were issued and the law must be enforced. You might not like it -- so change it! Reminds me of when Teddy Roosevelt vigorously enforced prohibition to the point that is really pissed people off. The point that I gleaned from this was that he wanted people to stand up and change the law. I hope that patent trolls raise a stink and enforce their rights because it will hopefully lead to change. UPDATE: see c…

Wrong Roosevelt. Teddy was President from 1901 to 1909, and died in January 19. The Prohibition amendment was ratified 10 days after he died, and took effect one year later.

The Presidents who were in office during Prohibition where Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Franklin Roosevelt assumed office on March 4, 1933, when the effort to repeal it was already well under way. On March 22, weak bears and wines were legalized, and in December of that year Prohibition was repealed. I don't think there was ever any vigorous enforcement under Roosevelt. You must be thinking of someone else.

Re: Rackspace accused of patent infringement for hosting Github

#22

Post by freehunter »

[deleted] wrote: post #8

[deleted]

Apparently it's not a better link, since it just shows XML garbage.

How about the press release:

http://news.priorsmart.com/personalweb-technologies-v-racksp...

Or a scribd document of the court filing:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/106190890/PersonalWeb-Technologies...

Re: Rackspace accused of patent infringement for hosting Github

#23

Post by [deleted] »

USNetizen wrote: post #11
WestCoastJustin wrote: post #6

The patents were issued and the law must be enforced. You might not like it -- so change it! Reminds me of when Teddy Roosevelt vigorously enforced prohibition to the point that is really pissed people off. The point that I gleaned from this was that he wanted people to stand up and change the law. I hope that patent trolls raise a stink and enforce their rights because it will hopefully lead to change. UPDATE: see c…

Do you mean FRANKLIN Roosevelt? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighteenth_Amendment_to_the_Uni... Prohibition took effect after Teddy Roosevelt died - during the Woodrow Wilson administration. It was repealed in the first few months of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration in 1933.

[deleted]

Re: Rackspace accused of patent infringement for hosting Github

#24

Post by dfc »

mikey_p wrote: post #18

Some of these seem really questionable at first glance (note that I haven't read the entire patents yet) > United States Patent No. 6,415,280 "Identifying and Requesting Data in Network Using Identifiers Which Are Based On Contents of Data." This sounds alot like hashing the contents of a file to get and identifier for it. If anything it sounds like maybe Git itself violates this, but I thought that Git hashed the di…

I doubt jurisdiction was a deciding factor in who to sue. But I hated Civil Procedure so I could be wrong...

Re: Rackspace accused of patent infringement for hosting Github

#25

Post by jpkeisala »

daenney wrote: post #10
iambot wrote: post #5

Could anyone translate the legalese into plain English for us lay-men.

The gist (ha) is that Github and Rackspace themselves use some techniques that are described in those patents. Because of that they're now being sued for patent infringement. It's an 'obvious' patent troll, I doubt these patents would even hold up in court but 'till then...

How is it really possible that there are companies that just holds patents and are allowed to sue others who does things. No shame. What a world we are living at... This seems to be company who is suing Github and Rackspace. http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/sn...

Re: Rackspace accused of patent infringement for hosting Github

#26

Post by ktizo »

WestCoastJustin wrote: post #6

The patents were issued and the law must be enforced. You might not like it -- so change it! Reminds me of when Teddy Roosevelt vigorously enforced prohibition to the point that is really pissed people off. The point that I gleaned from this was that he wanted people to stand up and change the law. I hope that patent trolls raise a stink and enforce their rights because it will hopefully lead to change. UPDATE: see c…

Yeah, but the law also says that it is up to the court to decide if the patent is enforceable. Just because a patent has been issued doesn't necessarily make it valid.

Re: Rackspace accused of patent infringement for hosting Github

#27

Post by WestCoastJustin »

tzs wrote: post #21
WestCoastJustin wrote: post #6

The patents were issued and the law must be enforced. You might not like it -- so change it! Reminds me of when Teddy Roosevelt vigorously enforced prohibition to the point that is really pissed people off. The point that I gleaned from this was that he wanted people to stand up and change the law. I hope that patent trolls raise a stink and enforce their rights because it will hopefully lead to change. UPDATE: see c…

Wrong Roosevelt. Teddy was President from 1901 to 1909, and died in January 19. The Prohibition amendment was ratified 10 days after he died, and took effect one year later. The Presidents who were in office during Prohibition where Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Franklin Roosevelt assumed office on March 4, 1933, when the effort to repeal it was already…

My memory is a little hazy but after the comments I went and look it up. Teddy was the police commissioner for New York city and liquor sales were banned on Sunday (this is where my thought of prohibition came from). I guess the goal was to sober people up for Monday's workweek. Anyways, he vigorous enforced this law.. playing into my original observation that he wanted this law rolled back.

Re: Rackspace accused of patent infringement for hosting Github

#29

Post by hfs »

mrcharles wrote: post #3

How many of these ridiculous lawsuits will it take before lawmakers realize how bad software patents are? This will waste a lot of time and money for something that shouldn't even exist.

Why would lawmakers care about something that doesn't affect them at all? It's going to take a lawsuit against a company that actually affects them to have any action taken, and I can't think of anything off the top of my head that is actually in danger of that.

Re: Rackspace accused of patent infringement for hosting Github

#30

Post by adgar »

mikey_p wrote: post #18

Some of these seem really questionable at first glance (note that I haven't read the entire patents yet) > United States Patent No. 6,415,280 "Identifying and Requesting Data in Network Using Identifiers Which Are Based On Contents of Data." This sounds alot like hashing the contents of a file to get and identifier for it. If anything it sounds like maybe Git itself violates this, but I thought that Git hashed the di…

> If anything it sounds like maybe Git itself violates this, but I thought that Git hashed the difference between all the changes of a commit to get the hash. Some of the others sounds equally obvious at first glance.

Git creates hashed objects for individual file revisions, as well as tree objects referencing many individual file objects and commit objects which reference those tree objects.

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