In the service of Aunt Tillie -- Zero-configuration networking

[Alan Cox]

On Tue, Mar 02, 2004 at 08:19:21PM -0500, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
> MS's patents?  This stuff was invented by Stuart Cheshire, a guy at Apple, and
> has been shipping in Apple products since 1998.  If there were going to be
> a patent kerfuffle with MS it would have happened already.

And there are those who believe zeroconf (but not the mdns stuff afaik)
were invented by microsoft, or apple, and various other possible prior art.
Microsoft however claim patent rights on certain parts of the basic zeroconf
operation

> but wouldn't it be a good idea to ask him and look into the facts before
> muttering "patents" and turning off your brain?

I talked to him a few years ago. He used to maintain the Linux strip
drivers before joining apple, and I talked to him when at apple about some
zeroconf related bits.

It amuses me therefore that you ask people to "look into the facts" when
you've not even done the most basic research yourself. Perhaps you should
ask your Aunt Tillie to show you how to use google usenet and list search
functions.

Alan