[Beowulf] Re: Beowulf Digest, Vol 67, Issue 31

Wed Sep 23 09:19:31 PDT 2009

1.
with a cluster
can the controller powered up node's' when it is need
and
can the controller  powered down node's' when it is not need
2.
that is the different between a computer cluster, computer ray, and computer
grid!
==============================
J Lee Hughes K C 0 H W A 73
=============================
Do what you can every day!
Learn what you can every day!
Life is good!
=============================
Mike Ditka <http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mike_ditka.html>  -
"If God had wanted man to play soccer, he wouldn't have given us arms."

On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 8:29 AM, <beowulf-request at beowulf.org> wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
>
>   1. How do I work around this patent? (Jeremy Baker)
>   2. Re: How do I work around this patent? (Greg Lindahl)
>   3. RE: How do I work around this patent? (Lux, Jim (337C))
>   4. Re: How do I work around this patent? (Nifty Tom Mitchell)
>   5. RE: How do I work around this patent? (Lux, Jim (337C))
>   6. Re: Re: switching capacity terminology confusion (Rahul Nabar)
>   7. Re: Re: switching capacity terminology confusion (Rahul Nabar)
>   8. Microsoft acquires the technology assets of Interactive
>      Supercomputing (ISC)  (Eugen Leitl)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:01:53 -0700
> From: Jeremy Baker <jellogum at gmail.com>
> Subject: [Beowulf] How do I work around this patent?
> To: beowulf at beowulf.org
> Message-ID:
>        <d2300d1c0909221201q54dc7216s234fe197cf5d35d5 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> I joined this community many years ago to learn about GRID computing when I
> was studying biology and the Linux file system, with future goals to write
> interesting open source programs. It's the future and I just hit a wall in
> the design process of writing code for my study.  This problem is related
> to
> the boring world of business and IP patents. I like patents, but lately I
> wonder...
>
> RE: "...Worlds.com filed a lawsuit Dec. 24 against NCSoft in the U.S.
> District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division, for
> violating patent 7181690. The patent is described as a method for enabling
> users to interact in a virtual space through avatars."
>
> Online read on patents:
> http://www.google.com/patents?id=wv5-AAAAEBAJ&dq=7,181,690
>
> http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=BYoGAAAAEBAJ&dq=6,219,045
>
> Can someone help me to better understand how these patents interact with
> the
> open source bazaar method of programing, Linux, the law, GIS systems with
> meta data that is essentially 3-D access for a user's avatar, etc? I am
> having flow chart issues that are not flowing... and I am now back to the
> world of research (patents) when I would rather be writing and compiling
> software.
>
> --
> Jeremy Baker
> PO 297
> Johnson, VT
> 05656
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> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:10:57 -0700
> From: Greg Lindahl <lindahl at pbm.com>
> Subject: Re: [Beowulf] How do I work around this patent?
> To: beowulf at beowulf.org
> Message-ID: <20090922201057.GA27344 at bx9.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> > This problem is related to
> > the boring world of business and IP patents. I like patents, but lately I
> > wonder...
>
> This is fairly off-topic for this list, but:
>
> It's basically impossible to write any significant program these days
> without infringing on dozens or hundreds of patents. The standard
> legal advice to software startups is to not read any patents, in order
> to avoid willful infringement. *If* you get sued, then it's worth
> looking at the patent in question to see if you can work around it.
> You can see this process in action in Linux with the argument over
> workarounds for the "long names in FAT filesystems" patent.
>
> The area you're apparenetly interested in, virtual worlds, likely has
> a zillion patents with a lot of overlap. The situation is the same for
> things like distributed filesystems, compilers, and perhaps MPI.
>
> -- greg
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:55:11 -0700
> From: "Lux, Jim (337C)" <james.p.lux at jpl.nasa.gov>
> Subject: RE: [Beowulf] How do I work around this patent?
> To: Jeremy Baker <jellogum at gmail.com>, "beowulf at beowulf.org"
>        <beowulf at beowulf.org>
> Message-ID:
>
>  <ECE7A93BD093E1439C20020FBE87C47FEB74E7B066 at ALTPHYEMBEVSP20.RES.AD.JPL>
>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> From: beowulf-bounces at beowulf.org [mailto:beowulf-bounces at beowulf.org] On
> Behalf Of Jeremy Baker
> Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 12:02 PM
> To: beowulf at beowulf.org
> Subject: [Beowulf] How do I work around this patent?
>
> I joined this community many years ago to learn about GRID computing when I
> was studying biology and the Linux file system, with future goals to write
> interesting open source programs. It's the future and I just hit a wall in
> the design process of writing code for my study.  This problem is related to
> the boring world of business and IP patents. I like patents, but lately I
> wonder...
>
> RE: "...Worlds.com filed a lawsuit Dec. 24 against NCSoft in the U.S.
> District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division, for
> violating patent 7181690. The patent is described as a method for enabling
> users to interact in a virtual space through avatars."
>
> Online read on patents:
> http://www.google.com/patents?id=wv5-AAAAEBAJ&dq=7,181,690
>
> http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=BYoGAAAAEBAJ&dq=6,219,045
>
> Can someone help me to better understand how these patents interact with
> the open source bazaar method of programing, Linux, the law, GIS systems
> with meta data that is essentially 3-D access for a user's avatar, etc? I am
> having flow chart issues that are not flowing... and I am now back to the
> world of research (patents) when I would rather be writing and compiling
> software.
>
>
>
> ---
>
> First off, you should know that only the claims determine what the patent
> covers.  The rest of the patent is just useful information.  You need to
> decide if your application "reads on" the claims.  Hiring a patent attorney
> used to doing this kind of analysis is useful.. a few hundred bucks  well
> spent.  Note there's a hierarchy of claims here.. Claim 1 is a big claim,
> and then, 2,3,4,and 5 hang on Claim 1.
>
> Glancing through the claims, it looks like they are patenting a scheme very
> much like described in Michael Crichton's "Disclosure", especially with
> avatars for other users.  Or any of a number of other multi user schemes.
>
> Maybe your implementation doesn't read on the claims. I note that most of
> the claims specifically reference "less than all the other users'" etc.  If
> your implementation has your local client receiving ALL the other user info,
> then this patent doesn't apply. (Claims 1,6, 9, 10, 11, 15, and 18 all have
> the "less than all" wording, the rest are subordinate claims)
>
>
> In any case, if what you are doing happens to match the claims, you can
> always try to break the patent (i.e. find a prior disclosure of what's being
> patented.. a description in a novel might actually be good enough.. consult
> your patent attorney).  Or, you can patent something yourself, and then
> offer to cross license with the holder here.  Maybe worlds.com would be
> willing?
>
> Whether you are doing open source or not doesn't really have any influence
> on whether something is infringing. If you're doing something described by
> the claims, you're infringing.
>
> Note that this patent was originally applied for in the mid 90s.. going to
> be dicey on the prior art.
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:07:41 -0700
> From: Nifty Tom Mitchell <niftyompi at niftyegg.com>
> Subject: Re: [Beowulf] How do I work around this patent?
> To: "Lux, Jim (337C)" <james.p.lux at jpl.nasa.gov>
> Cc: "beowulf at beowulf.org" <beowulf at beowulf.org>
> Message-ID: <20090922230741.GA9189 at tosh2egg.ca.sanfran.comcast.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 01:55:11PM -0700, Lux, Jim (337C) wrote:
> > Subject: [Beowulf] How do I work around this patent?
> >
> > I joined this community many years ago to learn about GRID computing...
>
> >
> > "...Worlds.com filed a lawsuit ....  for violating patent 7181690.
>
> This sounds like this is a patent for implementing the dictionary
> definition of an avatar.  The dictionary definition may provide prior art
>  ;-)
> and narrow their applicability.
>
> Reading through it the implementation includes bits I know or suspect to
> be in well known programs like Microsoft Flight simulator, the SGI "dog"
> multiuser flight simulator an SGI paper airplane demo that prunes the 3D
> space to render and interact with all combined with bits of centralized
> "Go" and "Chess" game servers that have been out there almost as long
> as the internet.  And Big Bertha networked progressive slot machines too..
>
> Greg and Jim's comments are spot on.
> Greg has his name on some clever patents, I do not know abut Jim.
>
> One of the critical points in a patent is that it not be obvious.
> So the point that you should not look at patents is spot on.  If
> you reinvent the idea with trivial effort - one point to you.
>
> So.. Unplug your development stations from the Internet and go back
> to work in isolation on a private internet.  Document your design and
> go see a patent attorney with your design. Update the design and send
> him/her updates on a regular basis.  In some cases he does not need to
> read them, just date and file them.  In your design document comment on
> all the moving parts, trivial, clever, novel, critical to the product etc.
> A good one may also see value in things you might dismiss.
> Keep the inventor list up to date too.
>
> One IMPORTANT point is the moment (date time stamp) that your code is
> seen live outside of the lab.  Alpha and Beta testers can start the clock
> for you on some critical bits.  Same for investor disclosure without NDA
> etc...
> demos for the kids etc.
>
> Good legal advice can help on all these bits.
>
>
>
> --
>        T o m  M i t c h e l l
>        Found me a new hat, now what?
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:12:44 -0700
> From: "Lux, Jim (337C)" <james.p.lux at jpl.nasa.gov>
> Subject: RE: [Beowulf] How do I work around this patent?
> To: Nifty Tom Mitchell <niftyompi at niftyegg.com>
> Cc: "beowulf at beowulf.org" <beowulf at beowulf.org>
> Message-ID:
>
>  <ECE7A93BD093E1439C20020FBE87C47FEB74E7B0B5 at ALTPHYEMBEVSP20.RES.AD.JPL>
>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> > Greg and Jim's comments are spot on.
> > Greg has his name on some clever patents, I do not know abut Jim.
> >
>
> I don't know that it's necessarily clever, but US 5,971,765 is mine...
> It's certainly unique... (and has been litigated, too..)
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 23:51:40 -0400
> From: Rahul Nabar <rpnabar at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Beowulf] Re: switching capacity terminology confusion
> To: Nifty Tom Mitchell <niftyompi at niftyegg.com>
> Cc: beowulf at beowulf.org
> Message-ID:
>        <c4d69730909222051j49b02cf9hdeab7989aa8be702 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 7:58 PM, Nifty Tom Mitchell
> <niftyompi at niftyegg.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > The cluster itself needs very little in the way of special services and
> can be
> > setup and managed as a homogeneous soft gooey center with a hard crusty
> > outside.   A "simple" but fast switch with enough ports seems sufficient.
> > NFS traffic (fast cascading funnel tree) can be different than say MPI
> traffic
> > with all hosts communicating at the same time with all the neighbors (one
> big cross bar).
> > Your cluster design may well shape your switch benchmark testing.
>
> Yup, I guess we need to wait for a "simple computing" switch model for
> HPC just like siilar offerings on the compute server side recently.
> I've had not much success getting any significant discounts or
> evaluation switches off my local Cisco Vendors. Now if only there are
> any Cisco powers-that-be on this mailing list............ :-)
>
> --
> Rahul
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 7
> Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2009 23:53:55 -0400
> From: Rahul Nabar <rpnabar at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Beowulf] Re: switching capacity terminology confusion
> To: H?kon Bugge <h-bugge at online.no>
> Cc: beowulf at beowulf.org
> Message-ID:
>        <c4d69730909222053v768a6f46j63319d20a959f3a3 at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 9:31 AM, Håkon Bugge <h-bugge at online.no> wrote:
>
> > You might check out the reports from the Tolly Group (www.tolly.com),
> they
> > used to evaluate different eth switches. Not sure how un-biased they are
> > though.
>
> Thanks Hakon! The Tolly group is definately a good lead. i found some
> Dell reviews on there. But Cisco switches seem non existant. The three
> reviews that I could find were from back in the 90's!
>
> --
> Rahul
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 8
> Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:26:05 +0200
> From: Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org>
> Subject: [Beowulf] Microsoft acquires the technology assets of
>        Interactive     Supercomputing (ISC)
> To: Beowulf at beowulf.org
> Message-ID: <20090923132605.GZ27331 at leitl.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
>
>
> FYI
>
>
> http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/archive/2009/09/21/microsoft-has-acquired-the-technology-assets-of-interactive-supercomputing-isc.aspx
>
> Microsoft acquires the technology assets of Interactive Supercomputing
> (ISC)
>
> Hello everyone,
>
> Today, Iâ€™m very excited to announce that Microsoft has acquired the
> technology assets of Interactive Supercomputing (ISC), a company that
> specializes in bringing the power of parallel computing to the desktop and
> making high performance computing more accessible to end users.  This move
> represents our ongoing commitment to parallel computing and high
> performance
> computing (HPC) and will bring together complementary technologies that
> will
> help simplify the complexity and difficulty of expressing problems that can
> be parallelized.  ISCâ€™s products and technology enable faster
> prototyping,
> iteration, and deployment of large-scale parallel solutions, which is well
> aligned with our vision of making high performance computing and parallel
> computing easier, both on the desktop and in the cluster.
>
> Bill Blake, CEO of ISC, is bringing over a team of industry leading experts
> on parallel and high performance computing that will join the Microsoft
> team
> at the New England Research & Development Center in Cambridge, MA.  He and
> I
> are both excited to start working together on the next generation of
> technology for researchers, analysts, and engineers, as well as those who
> have yet to be exposed to the benefits of parallel computing and HPC
> technologies or may have thought they were out of reach.
>
> We have recently begun plans to integrate ISC technologies into future
> versions of Microsoft products and will provide more information over the
> coming months on where and how that integration will occur. Beginning
> immediately, Microsoft will provide support for ISCâ€™s current Star-P
> customers and we are committed to continually listening to customer needs
> as
> we develop the next generation of HPC and parallel computing technologies.
> Iâ€™m looking forward to the opportunities our two combined groups have to
> greatly improve the capability, performance, and accessibility of parallel
> computing and HPC technologies.
>
> You can find more information on HPC and parallel computing at Microsoft in
> these links and stay up to date on integration news and updates at
> Microsoft
> Pathways, our acquisition information site.
>
> Kyril Faenov
>
> General Manager, High Performance & Parallel Computing Technologies
>
> Filed under: HPC, High Performance Computing, windows hpc server 2008,
> Parallel Computing
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> Beowulf mailing list
> Beowulf at beowulf.org
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>
>
> End of Beowulf Digest, Vol 67, Issue 31
> ***************************************
>
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