Re: [Linux-decnet-user] LATD 0.8

[Patrick C. <pa...@pa...>]

On Mon, Jun 26, 2000 at 11:51:52PM +0100, Kenn Humborg wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 25, 2000 at 01:04:38PM +0100, Patrick Caulfield wrote:
> > I am pleased to annouce the release of LATD 0.8.
> > 
> > This release is feature-complete for 1.0 so please report any bugs you find -
> > the plan is to do a bug-fix 0.9 and then release a 1.0 shortly afterwards 
> > depending on how many problems people find.
> 
> I've been wondering...  LAT looks like a fairly simple protocol.  The
> most 'innovative' element seems to be the way it reduce LAN traffic
> my aggregating users' keystrokes for sessions going to the same host
> (if I understand it correctly).
> 
> Why were they so insistent on keeping it proprietary?
> 
> Patrick, have you discovered any deeper meaning to all of this?

Not really. I have been searching the patent archives for DEC's terminal server
entries and one is just a description of a terminal server in general and one
concerns the "slot" system in use by LAT. Of course it had to be a simple 
protocol because there was not enough memory or CPU power in a DECserver 100
to fit a complicated one into !

I can understand why it was kept proprietary - it was just the prevailing mood
at the time. But the patents make no more sense to me that any other of the
"obvious" patents that the US office grants so freely :-(

Of course, they're not enforceable here in Europe so <f.x. rasberry>!

patrick