DMD Backend Long-term

[BCS]

Hello Nick,

> "Robert Jacques" <sandford at jhu.edu> wrote in message
> news:op.vepzxsdx26stm6 at sandford...
> 
>> On Tue, 22 Jun 2010 16:47:14 -0400, BCS <none at anon.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Hello Robert,
>>> 
>>>> On Mon, 21 Jun 2010 23:55:48 -0400, BCS <none at anon.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> The main issue (as I understand it) is adding windows style
>>>> structured exception handling to LLVM.
>>>> 
>>> After a little digging it seems that LLVM legally CAN'T add SEH as
>>> MS has it under patent. I'm still digging to figure out how it could
>>> be patented without making SEH an irrelevant technology.
>>> 
>> The patent seems to be Borlands's:
>> USPTO patent #5,628,016 Patent held by Borland on compiler support
>> for
>> SEH.
>> From a Wine wiki page:
>> http://wiki.winehq.org/CompilerExceptionSupport
>> It does seem to expire on June 15, 2014, though and I assume
>> DigitalMars has a license, so a LLVM fork is not unreasonable.
>> 
> Seems a weak reason. A programmer that's worried about infringing
> software patents can't write anything more useful than "Hello World".
> I'm seriously not convinced at all that it's even possible to write
> useful code that doesn't technically infringe on some software patent.
> As a programmer, either you accept the fact that what you do is
> inevitably going to trample software patents, or you just simply don't
> be a programmer. That's all there is.
> 

Or keep an eye on what people have actually been sued over and don't do that.

In this case I'd be surprised if it could stand up in court. Unless SEH is 
insanely convoluted to implement I can't see how the patent passes the non-obviousness 
criteria.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inventive_step_and_non-obviousness

I wonder if you can get a patent thrown out as invalid without someone infringing 
on it?

-- 
... <IXOYE><