Re: Draining the Swamp: A Technical User's Experience

[Alan Cox <alan lxorguk ukuu org uk>]

> > Unfortunately it seems to have the usual "and while we were at it we
> > US patented all sorts of prior art" problem.
> 
> Really? I had the impression that Apple was pushing these things as
> proposed IETF standards, so the patent thing seems surprising. I think

I wasnt directly referring to Apple but the field in general

It includes such gems as:

o	Autoconfiguring DNS - Inca (6,167,446)

o	Microsofts patent on comparing mac addresses to figure out if a
	computer has been seen before on the network and then giving it
	server info (6,301,612), 

o	Automatic configuration of a network printer - HP (6,301.012)

o	Automatic configuration of a home network - Philips (6 314,459)

o	Automatic discovery of network services - HP (6,286,047)

o	Registration/discovery services	- Intel (6,101,528)

o	Asking a server to find resources for you - AT&T (4,800,488)

o	Setting up network configuration automatically and saving the old
	configuration somewhere safe - Cisco (6,286,039)

o	some IBM garbage as 6,360,260  ("sending a packet to someone so
	they notice you are there when using SNMP...), 

o	Automatic setup of central services - IBM


> Apple definitely wants this to work with non-Apple computers too. Can
> you give me more specific info about the patents in question, so I can
> look into it with people at Apple?

Alan