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| What Would You Like to Ask Open Invention Network CEO Jerry Rosenthal? |
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Monday, September 25 2006 @ 05:05 AM EDT
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I know. Patents are boring. Or you have decided you are allergic to them. And you believe they are threatening the innovation that makes Linux and FOSS projects such a delight.
I agree with you. But now what? There they are, patents galore, and the USPTO keeps churning out more and more of them, and we keep trying to cope with the mess as the system seems to be speeding up and spitting out more and more stupid and dangerous patents, like the chocolate factory bonbons on the conveyor belt in that hilarious I Love Lucy episode, where Lucy and Ethel are frantically stuffing bonbons down their shirts and under their caps and into their mouths to try to keep up with the rapidly accelerating assembly line. Some, like Richard Stallman believe the answer is to get the law changed so that software patents are no longer allowed. That is a fine plan, but how are you going to do it? And can you do it this month? This year? Ever? And what about the patents in the meantime coming at us one after the other? Do we just wait for the ultimate solution? Some may think that is in fact the best, to let the system topple over. Let it get so bad that everyone sees how dangerous software patents are. Let it all play out, and then they will repeal it if it gets bad enough. Since this seems to be my week to disagree with famous people, I'll say outright that I disagree with Richard on this point. I think short term strategies have value. Here's my thinking. What about the victims of the patent system in the meantime? To me, it's like telling a wrongly condemned man on death row that you can't do anything to help him, because your goal is to overturn the death penalty, and in furtherance of that goal, innocent people getting put to death is helpful. I think he would hope you would rearrange your priorities, if not your ultimate goal, and find a way to do both.
A lot of legal brainpower has been going into trying to figure out solutions to the patent threat hanging in the air. We all assume that Microsoft will kill Linux if it can ever find a way, and heaven only knows Steve Ballmer has made veiled threats about using patents. Lawyers on the Linux side understand that language and some real creativity has gone into devising some ways to block, such as the OSDL's patent commons and FOSS search engine project to make it easier for the USPTO to find FOSS prior art and NYU's Open Source prior art project. I believe these are helpful projects. One of the most creative ideas, in my view, is the Open Invention Network, which launched in November of 2005. I know some of you have issues with any strategy that involves patents, so I asked OIN'S CEO Jerry Rosenthal if he would answer your questions, and he has agreed. It's an opportunity to get a firm grasp of what the strategy is, how it is working or not, and what the future might be. Why do I say it's creative? Because it's an organic solution. It's like a martial arts move, where you use your opponents' strengths against him. The patent system is set up like a cold war. And all the big guns make peace pacts with the other big guns, and money flows back and forth as needed to keep the system rolling along. They do that kind of mutual cross-licensing because it is no longer possible to write any significant code without stepping on someone's patents somewhere. Rather than noticing that this is indicative of a fundamental problem with software patents, they cross license. If the other side has no patents to use to cross license, they just sue. That is, stupidly enough, the way it works. And the problem is, Linux developers don't have any patents to cross license with in that crazy game. And even when they do, they have no money. Patent infringement lawsuits cost millions. Who has millions? Most FOSS developers don't work for big companies and don't have the kind of money you need to defend a patent infringement claim. Many are volunteers. So, how can they play this rich man's patent game? I remember in 2003 at a GPL seminar I attended, that was a question a lot of the lawyers were talking about, what if SCO had any patents? And what would Linux do if Microsoft attacked with patents, with nothing to use to negotiate with? OIN decided to address that weakness and provide a safe zone for Linux innovation to flourish, despite the reality that there are those that would like to abort it. Or as they put it, "Open Invention Network is an intellectual property company that was formed to promote the Linux environment by using patents to create a collaborative ecosystem."
This month, as you may have heard, NEC joined the Open Invention Network's founding members, IBM, Novell, Philips, Red Hat and Sony, signing on as both a licensee and investor. And in May OIN got some more patents to add to the arsenal. So the patent portfolio designed to protect innovation in Linux is growing. When OIN was first announced, there was the usual naysaying from the usual suspects, but some saw the potential. I don't know why new ideas are so hard for people to accept, but it is so. Here is how OIN works: OIN's patents are available royalty-free to any company or individual that agrees not to assert its patents against Linux. The idea is to give business the confidence to invest in Linux. It's almost a year later, and I'm sure you have some curiosity about what has happened so far. For one thing, there is a list now of covered applications, as Mark Webbink, General Counsel at Red Hat explains: OIN was founded for two distinct purposes:
*To provide a network, or commons, around Linux and Linux-related applications; and
*To assure that the resulting large, patent-free “safe area” remains large, safe, and patent-free.... The OIN commons is created by having all participants in OIN, whether members or licensees, cross-license any owned patents that affect the Linux kernel, key components in any Linux distribution, and certain key Linux-related applications. The commons forms a large, safe area for development free of patent concerns.
The size of the safe area is critical to OIN’s future. If the commons is too narrow, it offers little protection. If it’s too broad, it makes it difficult for a company to join the commons for fear of undermining its proprietary technologies. OIN has tried to strike a balance between the two extremes by including applications the members believe to be valuable to the future of Linux and open source. The list of covered applications, which was scheduled to be published by OIN in February 2006, includes Apache, Eclipse, Evolution, Fedora Directory Server, Firefox, Gimp, GNOME, KDE, Mono, Mozilla, MySQL, Nautilus, OpenLDAP, Open Office, Perl, Postgresql, Python, Samba, SELinux, Sendmail, and Thunderbird, just to name a few. ...Any party willing to license its “Linux” patents to OIN and the other OIN licensees receives a royalty-free license to fully utilize all OIN-owned patents. The monetary cost to join OIN is zero." You may also have some thoughts about the concept of OIN or questions about why this is a clever strategy. So ask away whatever you wish, and I'll collect the questions, the best of them, and send them to Jerry. Of course, he'll no doubt read some of them right here on Groklaw too. All I ask, as always, is that you be polite, no matter what your views on patents or patent strategies might be. And should you wish to sell or donate a patent, here's where you go.
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| Authored by: feldegast on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 05:08 AM EDT |
So they can be fixed
---
IANAL
My posts are ©2004-2006 and released under the Creative Commons License
Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0
P.J. has permission for commercial use.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: feldegast on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 05:11 AM EDT |
Please make links clickable
---
IANAL
My posts are ©2004-2006 and released under the Creative Commons License
Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0
P.J. has permission for commercial use.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 05:23 AM EDT |
How about a theory that Microsoft won't kill Linux, but instead will move on
to a business model which we might call "International Home Entertainment
Machines" based on their XBox ?
Really, Microsoft need skilled programmers as
much as the next corporation, and the best way of testing whether a candiate is
any good is to look at 'what have you contributed to FLOSS' on their
CV/resume.
Oppressing them isn't going to help. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 05:38 AM EDT |
While this idea may prevent someone like MS attacking Linux directly, it doesn't
do anything against companies whose sole purpose is to assert patents. They
create nothing, so they can't be threatened by patents held by others.
As far as I can see, the only way to stop this patent mess is to assert patents
against the big companies. Start taking enough money from them, and you will see
how quickly patent laws can change. As long as there is a cold war, there is no
incentive to change. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 05:40 AM EDT |
"If it’s too broad, it makes it difficult for a company to join the commons
for fear of undermining its proprietary technologies."
So the OIN is little more than a guetto where the people most likely to opposed
software patents are parked while software patents are generalised worldwide.
You know, like the indian reservations : indians do not use western-style soil
property? Let's give them some land where it won't apply and they'll be happy
(and meanwhile, open the land rush gates)[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 06:00 AM EDT |
NEXT MONTH, AT THE BEGINNING OF OCTOBER we DO HAVE an opportunity to stop
software patents being legalised AT LEAST IN EUROPE, where the European
Comissioner Charlie McCreevie is trying to impose software patents through a
directive called EPLA (European Patent Litigation Agreement),designed, among
other things, to circumvent any democratic control of the EPO-bound patent court
decissions:
http://www.no-l
obbyists-as-such.com/florian-mueller-blog/
So avoiding software
patents or reversing current flawed patent regimes (USPTO)that allow them should
be priority number one.
Then, in the cases that this cannot be achieved in
the short term, these compromise strategies can be useful, but one must make
sure these initiatives are useful TO EVERYONE and not only to the corporations.
For example, What about Debian? What about other Free Software projects apart
from Linux? Don´t they deserve the same level of protection against the greed of
patent trolls?.
I think that aside the defensive line of the OIN or OSDL
previous art there must be a parallel campaign fueled as well by the same
big-money interests to question and fix the current flawed system.
Otherwise
OIN and the like will serve the sole purpose of strenghtening the position of
the biggest players and will not tackle the real cause of the problems: A flawed
patent system where trivial patents and alghorithm/software patents are allowed
due to vested interests from big players and from IP attorneys/companies/patent
offices alike.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 06:34 AM EDT |
No "we" don't, unless this is the "royal we" ;-)
MS has bad enough
anti-trust
problems now, but think how much worse they would get if it killed
Linux.
MS needs smaller competitors for protection - it just doesn't want
them to succeed too much - giafly.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: billyskank on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 06:59 AM EDT |
You know, like stick our flag in the ground before the corporate interests do.
I dunno...maybe it is necessary after all. But I do find it very depressing. I
don't really see it as "turning their weapons against them," like a
ninja, but really just acquiring some of the same weapons for ourselves. In
that regard the comparison with the nuclear arms race is indeed highly
apposite.
To be fair, the doctrine of mutually assured destruction did indeed prevent both
sides from nuking each other for 50 years. It was certainly MAD, but it did
work I suppose.
But we don't have to like it.
---
It's not the software that's free; it's you.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 07:00 AM EDT |
At IBM (and I suspect at other corporations, too) there is a
steadily-increasing pile of 'end-of-life products' such as VisualAge
Smallalk
If you go to your IBM salesman and ask to buy a licence, you
will be told 'No'. (I guess if you waved enough money, the answer would change.)
So, it's not possible for IBM to make money from VisualAge Smalltalk, the way it
is at the moment.
Potentially, though, if IBM were to put the source code for
VisualAge Smalltalk on 'sourceforge', then someone might sign a contract with
IBM's Serivices arm, and IBM might start making money from VisualAge Smalltalk
again. So, potentially, there is a business driver to open-source it.
I'm
told that the reason for not open-sourcing it is 'it would be expensive for the
necessary legal review'; i.e. IBM might have 3rd-party obligations with respect
to some of the code, which would need to be chased down and extinguished before
IBM could even give the thing away.
So, question for Open Invention Network.
"Is it possible to establish a 'safe harbor', where corporations such as IBM
could place the source code for products which used to be commercial software
but which have been withdrawn from marketing ?"
It's a potential treasure
trove of 'prior art', since much of this stuff is ancient ... more than 20 years
old, so even if it was patented then the patents would have expires.
Also a
potential treasure trove to build new stuff on. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Winter on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 07:11 AM EDT |
Last week, the economist discussed the fact that for the first time since the
18th century (19th?), the first world had less than half the income (comparative
purchasing power) of the world. That is, the Chinas, Indias, and Brazils of the
world produced more than half the purchasing income of the world.
These countries will (and currently DO) see the current patent regime as
designed to extort money from them and in other ways keep them small and
dependend. I expect them to start to demand equal access to technology from the
WTO.
For one thing, the new economies will demand fair treatment of their own
"art" by the first world. The fact that India could not export Basmati
rice anymore because of a US patent on that variety, as well as the Neem tree
fracas has really made the injustice apparent. The murderous injustice of the
AIDS drugs has done even more harm.
For the whole time of its existance, US (and European) copyright and patent laws
have been primarily used to protect US (European) companies from foreign
competition. In short, the US courts will not protect foreign companies against
copyright and patent infringements unless these companies have a sizeable base
(campaign donations) in the US. And the US tries to force all the new economies
to play by the (biased) US rules.
The RIM and Rambus cases of patent abuse are recent examples of this bias. But
the inequality is written into the laws, eg., statutory damage is only granted
to those who register their works in the US within 6 months of publication. You
think any Indian or Chinese publisher gets to that?
The rules for prior art in patent applications are another case. And the US 1
year grace period on patent applications allows US firms to patent foreign
*patent applications* by back-dating their invention. This forces the whole
world to keep their PATENTS secred for at least a year.
It is clear that the Chinese and Indians are well aware that it will be useless
to play by these biased rules. The Chinese rigorously refuse to license foreign
patents and just create their own standards with associated patents. The Indians
are bound to do that when they get to it.
In short, I see the patent system up for a very bumpy ride in the near future.
And software patents might very well be the first casuality as they hurt
everyone but the trolls.
Rob
---
Revenge, Justice, Security, and Revenge, chose any two.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: brian on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 07:15 AM EDT |
In a previous post here at Groklaw with another patent
scheme I posted These<
/a>
five points. Can you address them to
satisfaction?
B. ---
#ifndef IANAL
#define IANAL
#endif [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: danielpf on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 08:24 AM EDT |
Besides the patent system, the justice system needs a
deep reform. The multi-million procedural costs for a
patent trial is a clear sign that the justice system is
itself out of track, unable to fullfil its goals in an efficient, democratic
way.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: jseigh on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 08:25 AM EDT |
| FOSS is more than just the Linux kernel and a few selected Linux apps and
libraries. This scheme wouldn't protect or provide any benefit to the lock-free stuff I was doing.
Lock-free is currently a hotbed of patent activity. It's pretty much impossible
to do anything that doesn't infringe on an existing patent or future
patents.
So far, I haven't seen any schemes that address the issues and
concerns of FOSS developers outside the Linux kernel except in a vague and
meaningless way. Certainly nothing that could help my project anyway. [ Reply to This | # ]
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- Too narrow - Authored by: PJ on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 02:59 PM EDT
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| Authored by: PolR on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 08:26 AM EDT |
Some, like Richard Stallman believe the answer is to get the law
changed so that software patents are no longer allowed. That is a fine plan, but
how are you going to do it? And can you do it this month? This year?
Ever?
This answer to this question is "with patience and
stubborness". The patent system is in a mess. No amount of work will fix the
software patent problem because the very idea of software patents is a bad one.
Damages to society and economy will keep piling up until they are unbearable. At
some point lawmakers and judges will just give in because all credible ways to
prolong the use of the system will be exhausted.
The key to this plan is to
keep being right and refuse to be silenced. Patience and stubborness is a long
FOSS tradition. Since the GNU manifesto of the mid-1980's, the FOSS movement has
grown into a mainstream software force noone can ignore anymore. The movement
got there through patient and stubborn coding of free software.
The danger
is what if the FOSS movement doesn't live long enough to be patient and
stubborn? Software patents has the potential to kill us. Initiatives like OIN
have the ability to buy time, to ensure that FOSS will have a voice that last
until the times changes. It doesn't solve the fundamental problem, but buying
time is a necessary thing.
The above is my opinion, but oviously it is not
shared by everyone. So I want to know about Jerry Rosenthal and OIN position.
How do you see the value of OIN? Is it a buy time strategy targeting an eventual
abolition of software patents? Or is it a measure meant as a permanent
solution?
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 09:27 AM EDT |
What would I like to ask?
Can OIN proactively go on the offensive in efforts to invalidate patents and any
other efforts that patent troll companies like Myhrvold's "intellectual
ventures" attempts.
Seeing a few of these well-funded IP-troll companies fail is probably the best
short-term goal toward cleaning up the patent mess. Right now it seems VCs are
enamored with the "hey, why take the risk of making products when you can
just farm patents instead", and until this troll industry crashes you'll
just see more and more coming.
Can OIN proactively go on the offensive in efforts to use patents to attack some
of the large SW companies who have been making patent-based threats? These big
companies often have products of their own, so they'd make an ideal victim of a
product-free company like OIN -- and they have deep pockets so wining a few
lawsuits against them might be an easy way of funding operations.
Philosophically, though, I agree with the guys PJ refered to who say it won't
get better until the system gets worse enough to collapse under its own weight
-- so IMHO the best OIN could do is help accelerate the collapse while taking
out as few innocent victims as possible.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 09:34 AM EDT |
The applications in the "Safe Haven" are those in which large
corporations have
a direct interest.
Is the OIN of any relevance whatsoever to the
small,
cash-strapped dev teams who develop lock-free systems or
model railway
software, or those who have creative uses
for Rockbox?
Isn't it the case
that the war lords have cherry-picked their
"golden geese" that lay the golden
eggs for their brekfast,
and can throw all else to the dogs, instead of
working
constructively for patent reform?
So, what's in it for the small dev
to acquiesce in this
"merry jape"?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Alan(UK) on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 09:49 AM EDT |
I ANAL and I am not a US citizen.
1) The US has strong anti-trust laws. Is there any difference between two
companies jointly monopolizing the market by patent-pooling agreements and two
companies monopolizing the market by any other means of squeezing out smaller
competitors? Can the courts do anything to stop the abuse or do patents trump
cometition constitutionally?
2) The US has a symbiotic relationship with China; the US provides a market for
Chinese goods, China lends money so that the US can buy oil. I am not an
economist, I cannot see any plan to end this arrangement. China cannot afford to
lose its main market and the US has no way of repaying its debts. Will not China
finish up by owning US IP?
3) US patents are of value to large US businesses both from the point of view of
supressing local competition and from restricting foreign imports. These combine
to give those businesses economy of scale at the expense of competition-driven
efficiency. While the US is economically dominant in the world, this is
beneficial to the US. As the US dominance is diluted by the rise of other
economies, will not foreign companies be setting up US subsiduaries and taking
out patents to benefit themselves instead of the US?
4) The US tends to periodically swing between being inward-looking to being
outward-looking. Are patents not just another form of protectionism? Are we
going to see the US return home and pull up the drawbridge again?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: cventers on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 09:54 AM EDT |
Open Invention Network is something I am personally
thankful for. I do not think it is a complete solution to
the patent problem (but then what could be a complete
solution to such a large problem other than a total shift
in political thinking?).
I was very excited to learn that OIN has a lot of support
from prominent technology companies and patent holders.
I'm pleased that OIN licenses its patents royalty-free to
those who agree not to attack Linux.
I have also heard that OIN has some rather important
patents.
My question is: can you disclose if the big guns have been
used? I think we would have heard about it if there was a
full-on attack of Linux that OIN defended, but can you
either point to any specifics or just answer in the
positive or negative if OIN has flexed its mighty muscles
yet?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: rdc3 on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 10:30 AM EDT |
In reviewing the
Open
Invention Network website, I have a
number of questions. Some of them
relate to
information that would be helpful to have on the website
itself, while
others relate to longer-term goals.
- How large is the set of patents
and applications that have
been made available for the Linux environment? Is
there a list or database somewhere?
- Have the licensees committed to
making all their future patents and applications available for the Linux and
environment as well as their existing ones?
- The website refers to a
partial list of licensees. Why isn't the complete list of licensees made
available?
- If a licensee sells one of its patents or applications
to a
non-licensee, does that take it out of the pool
available for the Linux
environment?
- Is there a legal text of a covenant or license
available?
- The website lists an extensive set of programs that
constitute the "Linux environment" and I congratulate you on
the thoroughness of
that. Is there any protocol for adding programs to this set? What about
future versions of the programs?
- What constraints are there on
combinations of
Linux environment components with other
hardware and software
components to qualify for the
royalty-free license?
- The OIN patent
pool itself appears to be an exceptionally tiny carrot to attract new licensees.
Are there any plans to grow that pool?
- Although the name "Open
Invention Network" connotes
a much broader vision, the mandate actually appears
to
be limited to providing patent stability for the existing
software base of
the Linux environment.
How do you see OIN interacting with upstarts
like
International Characters that are promoting a model
that patents should be
free for any software
distributed under any open source
license?
Rob Cameron
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: dwheeler on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 10:32 AM EDT |
| I have a question - have you considered adding Wine to the OIS list of applications? Wine is an
open source implementation of the Windows API on top of a Unix-like OS (often a
Linux-based OS), and OIS already has Microsoft competitors like Samba,
OpenOffice.org, and Firefox.
The
Wine
developers have been working with the Software Freedom Law Center to audit the
code base to have records of all contributions.
The Wine folks are hoping
for a Wine 1.0 release around the end of
2006 or beginning of 2007. It'd be nice to
see OIS add Wine before the time
of Wine's official 1.0 release (whenever that will be).
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 11:23 AM EDT |
| Flamebait for all:
Any comments concerning this recent research
publication stating that software patenting has not harmed innovation (not
caused the gloom and doom scenario predicted as of yet?)
"Patents, Entry and
Growth in the Software Industry "
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 11:34 AM EDT |
Both PJ's article, and Stallman
's article make some good points. Simplifying a bit, Stallman points out
that doing anything that strengthens the existing patent system is a bad thing,
while PJ points out that we could avoid some of the damage that patents are
doing today, by helping the USPTO weed out the invalid ones.
Here's
another idea: Don't help the USPTO - let the torrent of crap patents flow -
but, as soon as anybody asserts a software patent against any free
software, then have an organization, database, and set of tools ready to
search for prior art. In other words, let the bad guys and the USPTO generate a
patent. Then go into action.
Benefits:
- We don't help the
bad guys to produce stronger patents
- We don't take away any pressure
for reform
Disadvantages:
- Cost. It costs money to
fight a patent after it's been issued.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 12:00 PM EDT |
Victims of patent law are also victims of living in evil times. We are
surrounded by death and abuse of all kinds of power, not just subtle powers.
We can't possible hope to compensate for all the wrongs done, merely correcting
them will have to do for now.
Step 1: Abolish all patents, software or otherwise.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 12:03 PM EDT |
If we have ideas that we think are patentable, can we give them to OIN and let
them deal with the patent paperwork, on condition that they make them free for
Open Source projects?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 01:05 PM EDT |
"Some, like Richard Stallman believe the answer is to get the law changed
so that software patents are no longer allowed. That is a fine plan, but how are
you going to do it?"
Here is one way to change the law. Currently
there are two patent reform bills in front of the U.S. Congress. They are
similar and all of the reforms that they contain are ones where there is a
consensus on that reform. Congress is currently not interested in passing
controversial patent reforms. So abolishing software patents could appear in
the final bill only if every software company which lobbies Congress would agree
to abolishing software patents. Is this possible? The only way to find out is
to ask to software companies to lobby Congress to abolish software patents. So
in April and May I sent letters to the software companies asking them to lobby
against software patents. Will the software companies do it? Probably not
immediately but it is worth a try.
"And can you do it this month?
This year? Ever? And what about the patents in the meantime coming at us one
after the other? Do we just wait for the ultimate solution?"
We
should not simply wait around for the ultimate solution. We should support
every solution or partial solution to the software patent problem, both in the
US and the EU. Obviously each person puts their efforts into the solution that
they deem the best solution. We should give moral support for other people's
solutions and we certainly should not waste effort attacking other people who
are trying to fix the patent problem with a different
solution.
--------------------
Steve Stites
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 02:29 PM EDT |
Let me start by noting that Linux is part of Open Source and if OIN is only
protecting Linux then its role should be expanded to protecting all of Open
Source. Also OIN and its members are part of Open Source. They are a subset of
the Open Source community.
OIN's goal is to protect Linux in the patent
wars. The protection works by mutually assured destruction. If you use patents
to attack me, I will counter attack with my patents.
Open Source in
general, including Linux, does not participate in patents. We do not file for
patents and therefore any potential adversary can use our ideas without fear of
being sued over an Open Source patent. This leaves us in the moral position of
a pacifist in the middle of a war. Other people have to fight our battles for
us while we refuse to help. OIN would have an easier job if we would patent our
ideas and add our patents to the OIN pool of defensive patents. So I ask the
following questions:
Would OIN be willing to pay for the work of filing
patent applications on Open Source code?
Would Open Source developers
be willing to allow OIN to obtain patents on Open Source ideas? Such patents
being added to the OIN defensive arsenal.
Would we be willing to
rejigger GPL3 to include the idea of Open Source defensive patents? This
question applies even with the current way that OIN is
structured.
----------------------
Steve Stites
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- Correction - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 02:40 PM EDT
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 04:28 PM EDT |
Is it possible for OIN members to have conflicting contractual obligations
in the patent wars? For example could an OIN member (OINmember) have placed a
patent in the OIN defensive patent arsenal while at the same time including the
patent in a cross licensing agreement with a non-member (NM)? Then NM sues an
Open Source user (OSU) over one of NM's patents. Wouldn't this situation place
OINmember in the situation of being contractually obliged to defend OSU against
NM and also contractually obliged not to attack NM over the patents that
OINmember has cross-licensed to NM?
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Steve
Stites
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 04:32 PM EDT |
I think none of this is worthwhile in the US unless
obvious patents get eliminated by the Supreme Court in the
upcoming case.
As long as obvious things can be patented, you end up in a
patent thicket and in danger from patent trolls no matter
how many patents you have.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 04:43 PM EDT |
Question(s):
Using the Socratic Method - Explain the Logic of Software Patents and their
value (or lack of)? Why have software patents when you have copyright
protection for all software as soon as it is written (with no need to file
anything)?
Why do the OIN member companies think that they NEED to have software patents?
Has anyone ever completed a survey of all companies to see what their opinions
are regarding software patents? And if so, has this survey ever been
published... or provided to Congress?
Is there any future that we might see where there might not be ANY software
patents? What are the chances of this glorious day happening?
What are the chances that software protection methods, instead of using/having
patents, could instead evolve toward a system where copyright holders instead
get original protection from a creative commons style of license that grants
certain uses, and spells out the uses clearly, without having to contact the
"copyright holder"?
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 08:14 PM EDT |
Your list of Linux "applications" includes several very large software
suites (Gnome/KDE) as well as very large applications (Firefox).
1. How does the covenent handle depenencies and plug-ins? For example,
gstreamer, the media back-end used by Gnome, includes a BSD-licensed mp3 plugin
(it is not GPL because it can only be redistributed by signing a contract with
Fluendo, who purchased the original patent license to develop it). If the
appropriate companies joined the patent pool (highly unlikely for mp3, but
certainly possible for other media formats), would the protection for Gnome
extend to cover a) the gstreamer subsystem and/or b) the plugins, which are
likely to contain most of the patent-encumbered code.
Plug-ins are a highly useful software abstraction, and many of the Linux
applications in your safe area rely on them for major pieces of their
functionality, to the extent that without the relevant plugins, much of the
application's utility would be lost (e.g., Apache, Firefox, etc.).
2. How does the covenant handle future modifications to the software. For
example, if tomorrow one were to incorporate a native MPEG4 decoder into Firefox
(say to get around the plugin problem, should the answer to the previous
question be negative), would this suddenly grant users a license to the relevant
MPEG4 patents, if they were held by members of the patent pool?
In light of this second consideration, it really seems as if the size of the
safe area is, in fact, completely irrelevant. As soon as a corporation becomes a
member, one could "undermine" its "proprietary technologies"
simply by incorporating the relevant technology into one of the "safe"
applications. Without protection in place against this, those companies will not
join your pool. With protection, the covered projects will either a) be
constrained in their innovation to NOT incorporate technologies that would cause
the patent pool members to bolt, or b) innovate anyway, moving their programs
out from under your protective umbrella, rendering it useless for any user who
does not wish to run unmaintained code that is decades out of date.
3. I touched on the GPL issue above. One of the restrictions of the GPL is that
recipients of the code must be able to modify it and re-distribute it freely, or
you are not allowed to distribute it at all. For those GPL'd Linux applications
that are in your safe area, this means that in order to be able to incorporate
any patent-encumbered code, your covenant would have to be broad enough to
provide protection for forks and derivative works. Does this not also make the
size of the safe area somewhat irrelevant, since any GPL'd application in the
safe area could promulgate any desired technology to the rest of the free
software community.
4. For the applications which are not licensed under the GPL, and do not have
this restriction, would your covenant produce a chilling effect on forks,
harming the dynamic which has made free software so successful in the first
place? Would it not also discourage the development of new applications?
Imagine, for a moment, that KDE, and not Gnome, was the only current desktop
environment, and that it had never moved to the GPL. Having KDE inside the safe
area would discourage the creation of Gnome altogether. All the competition and
cooperation between the two projects that has helped make BOTH of them better
would be lost, and the freedom of developers to innovate and then compete on
their merits would be impinged by the unfair advantage given to programs under
the umbrella.
This last question is fairly theoretical, in that I can not point to specific
measurements of the damage to the community that would be produced by this
chilling effect, but the first three are considerably less so. #1 has a real
impact on both the end users and the process by which code is developed. #2
would be my first concern if I were a lawyer for a company with a significant
patent portfolio, and #3 is absolutely essential to be compliant with the GPL at
all, e.g., for your approach to even be legal.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Simon G Best on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 08:20 PM EDT |
How can I (and others who believe that software patents are
immoral/unethical/unacceptable) support OIN without being
hypocritical?
(In my case, I'm opposed to software patents (and patents
generally) because they reduce others' freedom unjustly. Without patents, if
Alice comes up with a commercially useful idea, and puts it into practice
commercially, it does not matter whether or not Bob had already come up with
that same idea earlier. Alice is still just as free as always to commercially
use that idea. But with patents, Alice would have to consider whether or not
Bob (or anyone else) had already had that same idea, and, if so, whether or not
they patented it. Alice's freedom is diminished, even though she herself has
done nothing to warrant that reduction of her freedom.)
---
NO
SOFTWARE PATENTS - AT ALL! [ Reply to This | # ]
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- Hypocrisy - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, September 26 2006 @ 12:35 PM EDT
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| Authored by: mjscud on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 09:54 PM EDT |
The constituion has, among the powers of Congress, "To promote the Progress
of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and
Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and
Discoveries".
1. Do you see any room for software patents being a wise use of this power of
Congress?
2. If so, how should Congress change things to reduce the current abuse of the
system?
3. If not, what should Congress do, other than allow Software patents, toward
this end spelled out in the constitution?
4. Is the patent power you are accumulating being used for just short term
protection of freely modifiable software, or is it also being acquired with the
aim of lobbying and causing others to lobby for changes in the patent system?
---
Even a fool, when he keeps silent, is considered wise. Proverbs 17:28[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, September 25 2006 @ 10:01 PM EDT |
Are FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, DragonflyBSD, etc also covered under OIN? What
about ReactOS, Wine, DosBox, DosEmu, FreeDOS, FD32, Syllable, PostgreSQL,
Firebird, dotgnu, and so on? That is, would OIN's patent portfolio be used to
protect the above projects from an attack by a troll (or a large software
company seeking to snuff out competition)?
I can't find it now, but I recall reading that PostgreSQL dropped a feature
because just before the non-beta release with that feature, a major proprietary
competitor announced that it had filed for a patent on this feature.
Also, will OIN somehow keep an index of Sourceforge, Savannah, Tigris.org,
ObjectWeb, and similar "forge" type sites where FOSS projects tend to
congregate? This could be a big help in any prior art invalidation attempts.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, September 26 2006 @ 01:34 AM EDT |
- How does OIN fit in with other patent projects, including PubPat,
Peer-to-Patent, Open Source as Prior Art, patent-reform legislation, and F/OSS
advocacy? Which applies most directly to which threats and/or situations?
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Do any of the proposed patent clauses in GPLv3 affect OIN, and if so,
how?
Paul E. McKenney (my own opinions, not necessarily those of my
employer)[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, September 26 2006 @ 03:46 AM EDT |
PJ I think you are missing a crucial point; most of the world doesn't have
software patents yet.
The short term goal is not abolishment of software patents in USA or fixing US
system. The short term goal is preventing the rest of the world from
implementing an identical system.
Right now Australia has crumbled uder US pressure to alow software patents. The
American goverment will try to push software patents through via. TRIPS/WIPO,
while american businesses are lobbying forieng goverments and the EU.
With US patent system broken it is easier arguing why the rest of the world
should not allow software patents.
If it becomes clear that there is no way the rest of the world will allow
software patents. Getting rid of software patents in US will be a lot easier,
American companies will start lobbying for abolishment in USA because their
increased costs due to software patents prevents them from competeting
effectively.[ Reply to This | # ]
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