IP status of EROS

[shapj@us.ibm.com]

Mark Miller tells me that there are some people spreading misinformation about
the IP status of EROS.  What people are supposedly saying is words to the effect
of: "Jonathan says that IBM has said that the IP status of EROS is
questionable." I suspect that this is the result of a simple miscommunication,
but whatever the origins the situation needs to be made clear.

1. I have said no such thing.

2. IBM has said no such thing.

3. To the best of my knowledge, there is no issue with the IP status of EROS.

Here is the current status:

COPYRIGHT:

All of the code presently in EROS falls in one of the following categories:

     1. Written by me
     2. Assigned to me by students
     3. Derived from portions of NetBSD distributed under the BSD copyright.
     4. Derived from code under LGPL (kernel crt0)

     A few subsystems that are NOT presently distributed are under GPL.

PATENT:

To the best of my knowledge, EROS does not infringe on any patents.  It is
always possible that patents exist that I don't know about.

People have asked specifically about the KeyKOS factory patent.  The KeyKOS
Factory patent cannot be applied against EROS, because the KeyKOS patent was
allowed to expire due to missed maintainance payments while EROS was being
developed.  The patent was subsequently reinstated by petition, but EROS is
grandfathered under USCode Title 35, Part I, Chapter 4, Sec 41, (12)(c)(2).

In addition, it is not at all clear that the petition for reinstatement, which
was obtained under USCode Title 35, Part I, Chapter 4, Sec 41, (12)(c)(1) would
survive challenge by competent counsel.  The lapse was certainly not
unintentional, as several people including myself pointed out to Key Logic that
the lapse had occurred within plenty of time to meet six month automatic grace
period. Neither was it unavoidable under the theory that Key Logic was
insolvent, since I was trying to obtain a license at the time whose fees would
have more than covered the patent payments.  Key Logic's decision not to respond
to my request for a license, and their resulting lack of money, does not
constitute an unavoidable circumstance.  The fact that having license fees in
hand would have resulted in the dissolution of the company by the debenture
holders is *certainly* not an unavoidable circumstance, particularly given that
there is a strong case that the primary reason for their delay in bankruptcy
filing was to avoid their salary obligations to their former employees.


Jonathan S. Shapiro