Date: Wed, 07 Oct 1998 13:59:10 -0700 From: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au> To: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> Cc: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>, Chuck Robey <chuckr@mat.net>, FreeBSD-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Microsoft has a patent on [] (fwd) Message-ID: <199810072059.NAA02414@dingo.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 07 Oct 1998 14:41:47 MDT." <4.1.19981007144036.00c00ad0@mail.lariat.org>
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> At 01:42 PM 10/7/98 -0700, Mike Smith wrote: > > >Interpreters are specifically excluded (they don't produce object > >code). > > Many interpreted languages compile to object code for a virtual > machine and then interpret from there. Perl is the most popular > example. You feel like responding to the next sentence, where I pointed this out? > > Interpreters are specifically excluded (they don't produce object > > code). It's arguable whether a JIT bytecoder intrudes on enough of > > this to be covered. "bytecode" is a generic term for just that, as is P-code, etc. Most popular interpreters these days (Perl, Tcl, Java, etc.) are either JIT- or pre-bytecoders. As I said, it's arguable as to whether this is covered or not. If it is, then there are literally decades of prior art, and if not, then it's really only applicable to someone trying to produce a compiler/support library that turns any scripting language with associative arrays into real object code. Since people have been doing the latter since before 1994 when the patent application was filed, I think we can fairly safely consider this patent manifest but bogus. -- \\ Sometimes you're ahead, \\ Mike Smith \\ sometimes you're behind. \\ mike@smith.net.au \\ The race is long, and in the \\ msmith@freebsd.org \\ end it's only with yourself. \\ msmith@cdrom.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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