From owner-freebsd-hackers Mon Jun 11 15:46:50 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from earth.backplane.com (earth-nat-cw.backplane.com [208.161.114.67]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F1D5E37B403 for ; Mon, 11 Jun 2001 15:46:45 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from dillon@earth.backplane.com) Received: (from dillon@localhost) by earth.backplane.com (8.11.3/8.11.2) id f5BMkdt33729; Mon, 11 Jun 2001 15:46:39 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from dillon) Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 15:46:39 -0700 (PDT) From: Matt Dillon Message-Id: <200106112246.f5BMkdt33729@earth.backplane.com> To: Mikulas Patocka Cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Patented algorithm in FreeBSD References: Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG :Hi : :Go to http://www.uspto.gov/patft/, search for patent number 5873127, and :you will find the description of mapping page table entries into virtual :memory via one page directory entry pointing to the page directory itself :- exactly what FreeBSD does with PTDPTDI and APTDPTDI entries on i386. :(including using alternate space as in get_ptbase() in i386/pmap.c to :access page table entries of different processes). : :Mikulas hahahahahahaa....The patent was filed in 1996. In the 90's the patent office starting granting patents for everything under the sun without doing real prior art searches. I'm sure even just going to the candy store these days is patented by someone... it's meaningless unless someone decides to challenge and in this case there is so much prior art (just in our own CVS tree, not to mention other sources) that they would lose fairly quickly. I wouldn't worry about it too much. It isn't a problem unless it becomes one. -Matt To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message