Linux Violates 283 Patents, says Insurance Company 475
Apro+im writes "According to this article over at ZDNet:
'Linux potentially infringes 283 patents, including 27 held by Microsoft but none that have been validated by court judgments, according to a group that sells insurance to protect those using or selling Linux against intellectual-property litigation.'
Dan Ravicher, founder and executive director of the Public Patent Foundation, conducted the analysis for Open Source Risk Management. OSRM is like an insurance company, selling legal protection against Linux copyright-infringement claims. It plans to expand the program to patent protections."
What a shame.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What a shame.... (Score:5, Insightful)
hopefully this will lead to the courts regarding software patents with the same contempt that I do.
An idea doesn't belong to a person, nor does it belong to a company... ideas belong to us all; it's society that inspires an idea, it should be scoiety that reaps the benifits!
Re:What a shame.... (Score:5, Insightful)
And this won't change, either, since it benefits large corporations at the expense of smaller entities, and large corporations are the only entities the U.S. government responds to anymore.
Re:What a shame.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Most major ideas are basically bound to happen once a certain point of technological and intellectual advancement are reached. We celebrate the people who invented this or that, but the reality is in most cases of "major" inventions, there are actually several people who can lay claim to the invention and we just remember the one who happened to market it or get the patent. Radio [pbs.org],
Telephones [uh.edu], these are major inventions, but many people arrived at the same point more or less simultaneously.
In the distant past, things tended to get invented by one person at a time because few were educated and had the advantage of our species collective knowledge. Now with printing presses and near instant communication we've all got that benefit. Quite a lot of things get invented in several places at once.
Now, I'm not opposed to patents for real inventions. However, I think our patent system has gotten ridiculous. Business method patents are a mistake, as are in my opinion patents on software methods which should fall under the category of mathematical algorithms which are not patentable. In other words, lets start inforcing the provision about not patenting things that are obvious to people in the field and start requiring that you actually _invent_ something worth mentioning to get it patented.
I worked my ass off earning $8/hour, in a manufacturing job (wood products), in middle of f*cking August with no a/c to pay for my application. I did not get any 'help' from 'Society'; in fact, I was impeded by you idiots. "For the children" and "For the good of the people" bullsh*t. Get off your fat ass, quit complaining about your life, and actually do something.
As for this little rant: If you to sell your idea with government protection, you have to pay for the application. If you've really invented something unique, good for you. Go reap the fruits of your effort. On the other hand, if you've come up with the stunningly original idea of say, having a "buy it now at this price" button on an online auction, your sweating in a factory doesn't really justify my having to pay you to do that.
Re:What a shame.... (Score:4, Insightful)
How does society inspire an idea?
You're confusing Society and Government.
While in the U.S. theoretically government represents society, many are of the opinion that bit does a fairly shoddy job of it.
As for how society inspires ideas, consider how you came up with yours. Would you have had your idea had you lived in a pre-agriculture society? Could your idea have even worked then? Did/do you need tools (that is, other people's inventions) to produce it?
Invention generally comes from the novel use of knowledge and ideas generally held by society. The level of that novelty varies considerably. That's why there are so many examples of parallel invention. While our history books tend to present a very cut and dried version of invention in the industrial revolution to the present, even the most cursory research will show that the question of who invented what is much hazier than that.
Under the current patent system one inventor 'wins' and the rest are effectively denied the fruits of their labor.
Consider, two inventors who have never heard of each other. Each spends a few years reducing the same general idea to practice. Since they both had access to the same body of knowledge and (of course) were constrained by the same natural laws, their inventions are significantly similar. Each believes that their invention is unique since they haven't heard from anyone else working on it.
According to patent law, one and only one of them is the 'original inventor' and the other is assUmed to have copied the invention. It may have taken 5 years to reduce the idea to practice, but whoever gets their application in first (even if the difference is minutes or hours) is the 'inventor' and the other is the 'copy cat'. No provision exists to issue a joint patent.
That is a fundamental flaw in the system. Even if the USPTO's implementation of patents perfectly matched the law, that flaw would exist.
To make matters worse, there is no decent system to search patents for similarity. That would require a search system that actually UNDERSTANDS the concepts behind the patent text and the query. So, the person who has a thought and says to himself 'I'll bet a zillion people have thought of that, but nobody did anything about it' and happens to be in a position to go into production does just that. A month later he is sued for patent infringement. The law pretends that he could have found the one patent out of millions that applied and avoided the infringement.
Unless or until we have a sufficiently sophisticated AI, that will remain as an intrinsic flaw in the implementation of patents.
Unfortunatly, there are many other flaws in the implementation that ARE correctable, but I see no signs of effort to correct them. The best example is the way that vague or frankly bizarre descriptions of ideas are being accepted. They are so vague and bizarre that a person of average skill in the art would have no idea that the patent even applied to their field. This is clearly a failure of the USPTO to perform it's legally mandated duty. The USPTO also seems to be in the habit of ignoring prior art. When it's actually possible to get a patent on using a laser pointer to tease a cat, it's time to rethink the system.
So, good luck on your patent. I hope for your sake that nobody renders the (literal) sweat of your brow meaningless by applying 5 minutes before you do.
Re:What a shame.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Really? There's no grandfather clause? (Score:4, Interesting)
According to them, those patents should already be enforceable today, but the law is not interpreted the same everywhere. So they want to harmonise it and make sure that software patents are enforceable everywhere in Europe, except pretty much only in the UK as it is until now (they never mention this last part obviously).
Of course, our (FFII's) position is that until now, those patents are generally not enforceable, in the UK they interpret the European Patent Convention in a completely ass-backwards way (just like the Commission/Council) and when you force all of Europe to accept the UK's case law then this is not just some formal "harmonisation".
One interesting approach in America (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:One interesting approach in America (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One interesting approach in America (Score:4, Interesting)
The "loser pays" plan is usually implemented in countries where Lawyers don't command nearly as large a salary as they do here.
And on Kerry vs Ashcroft: Compare apples to apples - potential presidents to potential presidents, or potential cabinet members to potential cabinet members.
If you have problems with Ashcroft's civil liberties record, don't vote for his group just because Kerry is even worse - go third party.
Re:One interesting approach in America (Score:3, Informative)
See "The Happy Birthday Song" legal fiasco, as well as all the things that had entered the public domain by the late 1920s but then were re-applied copyright retroactively when the terms of copyright law were extended.
Re:One interesting approach in America (Score:4, Interesting)
Those things are illegal not because of ex-post-facto, but because it violates the 5th Amendment: private property was taken without compensation.
Copyrights which had been scheduled (since their inception) to be turned over to the public were seized by the government, and then handed over to the copyright registrants. This is flagrantly illegal, and if Lawrence Lessig were a better litigator, he could've proved so in the Eldered case.
Microsoft's patent strategy (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Microsoft's patent strategy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft's patent strategy (Score:5, Insightful)
And the US is worried about other countries having weapons of mass destruction. What about weapons like this, that harm the whole of society, and even Progress itself?
must...stop...rant....
Re:Microsoft's patent strategy (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Microsoft's patent strategy (Score:5, Insightful)
Bruce
Cart's before the horse (Score:5, Insightful)
The drugs protected by patents wouldn't even exist to save anyone if the pharmaceutical companies didn't think they could profit from developing them.
Do you think that brilliant research doctors and investors decide to develop drugs because they'll get a warm, fuzzy feeling in their hearts?
Do you think that a geneticist is going to work his tail off to develop some vaccine to save some people in sub-saharan africa, who can't pay for it, or work for a profitible company that will reward him so he can live comfortably and maybe even send his kids to college?
I certainly appluad companies that decide to play nice and sell drugs cheap to third world countries. I hold no ill will against those who do not. Either way, nothing would get developed without the profit motive, and no one, rich or poor, would benefit from the non-existent drugs.
And if you're going to bring up 'public funding', at least show me an instance where a government lab in the same field as dozens of private companies has managed to hold even a candle to private enterprise. I'm not saying such an example doesn't exist, but they will be few and far between.
Re:Cart's before the horse (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps. But should we not question the fact that the pharmaceutical industry is the most profitable industry in existence? Profit motive, okay. But at some point, they are fleecing people and unethically manufacturing a false scarcity of something that could save people's lives. Besides, buried in the industry's inflated cost estimates is their hugely aggresive advertising campaigns. Personally, I think it should be illegal to market prescription drugs, and the "payola" that goes on between pharmaceuticals and doctors is totally unethical, IMHO.
And I am going to bring up public funding. The companies' research is heavily assisted by university researchers who use NIH grants. NIH research consistently plays a critical role in developing important drugs, which are then given over to pharmaceutical companies to "bring to market". This is one of the worst exampes of corporate welfare.
Same nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
This line of "reasoning" has gotten repeated so many times, people are starting to accept it as true without questioning it. So let's stop a moment to question it here. Yeah. And no one whould write an operating system from scratch if they weren't assured of making a fortune. Or, for that matter, a novel.
And, by the same logic, nobody ever makes food or thinks up new foods because you can't patent or copyright them.
No, the brilliant ones do it because they are obsessed. It's the dedicated ones that do it because they care.
Oh, and (in my experience) the ones that only do it for the money are the hacks that we'd be better of without. Pretty much the same as in any field.
Well, given the fact that they always seem to talk about the choice (again, in my experience) in terms like "selling out" vs. "doing what I love" the fact that many of them "sell out" doesn't mean they like it.
There are actually many logical steps here, all highly questionable if you stop to think about them:
- Nothing ever gets created without the creator being reasonably assured of a profit
- The more talented and creative people are, the more they are obsessed with money
- You can't make a profit at all unless you can crush anyone who tries to compete with you
- R&D is the reason companies need to make so much money, even though they spend far more on marketing, lobying, etc.
- The pharmaceutical companies profits are causing all the progress; and, by implication, general advances in science and technology have nothing to do with it (oh why didn't they think to give patents and promises of obscene profits to the alchemists! Think what they could have accomplished!)
...you get the idea
-- MarkusQRe:Microsoft's patent strategy (Score:3, Interesting)
If drugs are vastly overpriced and drug companies truly spend more on marketing than R&D, then why doesn't some group of concerned scientists start their own (private) non-profit drug company?
Re:Microsoft's patent strategy (Score:4, Informative)
Bruce
The keyword is "potentially" (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The keyword is "potentially" (Score:4, Funny)
-
Until someone jumps up and down in court with their army of lawyers, we'll keep it at "potentially"....
Shhh, SCO might hear you and get ideas...Re:The keyword is "potentially" (Score:5, Insightful)
Shooting self in foot? (Score:5, Insightful)
Kind of like an auto insurer producing a report on which car locks are least secure, and how to pick them.
Re:Shooting self in foot? (Score:5, Insightful)
-
Surely if your business is in insuring against something, it's not in your interest to do the research to show exactly how that thing can be brought about, even if in the first instance it improves your sales?
Except in this case they're planning to expand insurance coverage to cover patent claims too. This is sort of a "hey, if you're using Linux without our insurance you may get your asses sued off, better sign up now!" Of course it's largely FUD (since none of this has stood up in court) and the insurance company may never have to fight a single suit. They might end up fighting a lot as well, that's the nature of insurance.So as odd as it may seem this is a pretty standard way to promote buying their insurance.
A thought... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:A thought... (Score:4, Interesting)
Bruce
Re:Shooting self in foot? (Score:5, Informative)
But the patent problem is really scary, not just for Free Software but for any small-to-medium sized software manufacturer. It should not be discounted.
Bruce
Re:Shooting self in foot? (Score:5, Informative)
Bruce
Re:What tasks require high-speed interconnects? (Score:4, Informative)
Regarding how much I expect to make, I have helped create several companies so far without making anything. Maybe someday Progeny will be worth something, I don't know. So, I am not expecting anything. Nor do I see that my rep is suffering among those who take the time to examine the issue. The main reason I am participating in this is so that there will be a force able to defend Linux while being independent of hardware vendors and distributions, with their proprietary agendas. I am also working hard to fix the system, but politics takes years or decades to change. What else do you suggest?
Thanks
Bruce
Re:Shooting self in foot? (Score:5, Insightful)
To follow along with your car insurance analogy... for the same driver an insurance company will have different rates for a brand new sports car than they would for an older station wagon because of the perceived risks involved.
Re:Shooting self in foot? (Score:5, Informative)
They will show you the patents if you insist, but they recommend strongly that you not look, since if you know about the patents you are infringing, then in the US the infringement becomes wilful, and renders you liable to triple damages.
This is one of the reasons that people such as Linus recommend that engineers should not do prior patent research before coding anything.
Re:Shooting self in foot? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, you just avoid the TRIPLE damages for willful infringment. If you innocently violate a patent you only get hit with single damages.
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Re:Shooting self in foot? (Score:3, Insightful)
Broken knees (Score:5, Funny)
Almost.
Re:Broken knees (Score:5, Funny)
yup.. .and here's a more critical analysis (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:yup.. .and here's a more critical analysis (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, come on... here are a few choice quotes:
Yeah, the code just sort of suddenly appears on Linus's hard drive. *rolls eyes* Good god, this is unfo
Re:yup.. .and here's a more critical analysis (Score:3, Insightful)
We know who submitted the code (PGP signed or such), we know who committed the code (audit trail), but we still are not possitive where the code came from, we assume the submitter wrote it and did not break patent law
Re:yup.. .and here's a more critical analysis (Score:3, Interesting)
"(a)Criminal Infringement-- Any person who infringes a copyright willfully...for purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement."
Daniel Lyons is a wild-eyed nutjob (Score:3, Insightful)
that Forbe$ article is by the very same rabid anti-Linux pro-Micro$oft zealot Daniel Lyons, who obviously is too confused about the issues to know what he really wants and resorts to badmouthing anything about Linux even when he contradicts himself.
This is the same guy that was badmouthing IBM last year for not indemnifying users [forbes.com] for Linux. Hello Daniel, IBM doesn't indemnify its Windows users either! But I think it does indemnify AIX users, because
What kind of patents can a kernel have? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What kind of patents can a kernel have? (Score:3, Informative)
I can see potential patent violations in at least the following things a kernel does:
Re:What kind of patents can a kernel have? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not our responsibility to enforce the property rights of other people.
Re:What kind of patents can a kernel have? (Score:4, Insightful)
If there's copyright infringing code that you're using, you're liable, period.
We're talking about patents.
Re:What kind of patents can a kernel have? (Score:3, Informative)
Apparently, it does for patents:
"If you have knowledge and are found to infringe, a court can punish you," tripling financial penalties, Ravicher said. "If you say you didn't know and didn't see it, a court can't punish you. It's a screwed-up rule."
-- ZDNet article linked to in story.
Re:What kind of patents can a kernel have? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously - can anyone think of the kind of thing that anyone could have patented? Disk I/O? Threading?
Remember that anything already presented to the public cannot be patented. You have to file before presentation. For example, if you present your concepts to a conference before filing a patent, you're screwed. I'm wondering how many of these "patents" were filed after Linux was released with the incorporated code? Granted, the USPTO is back-logged and can't do prior art searches.
Re:What kind of patents can a kernel have? (Score:5, Informative)
That is only for international patents. US Patents are valid if filed within one year of public disclosure. A US Patent is all you need in most cases, due to the size of the market. Also note that 50% of patents that make it to a court ruling are found to be invalid. A much larger percentage of patents would be held invalid if they were brought to trial. My guess is that 99.999% of software patents would be held invalid after a well funded defence. The risk is not that someone with a valid patent sues you, the risk is that someone deep pocketed sues you based on one of their many invalid patents. The cost of invalidating a patent is huge in both time and legal fees.
Re:What kind of patents can a kernel have? (Score:3, Informative)
There is no such thing as an "international patent".
There is a procedure called an "International Patent Application", governed by a treaty called the Patent Cooperation Treaty [wipo.int], but it's just a way of applying for a bunch of national patents at once. The national patent offices still apply their own rules, both to the application and to what they grant (Article 27 para 5 of the treaty says: "Nothing in this Treaty and the Regulations is intended to be construed as pr
This insurance doesn't make any sense. (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand if the patent claims are bogus then your investment will be useless, too, as there is nothing to defend.
The money would be better invested in a real legal insurance which covers being sued by teh mad discrimination laywers of NAL-p'ThUK-NZer-RaK etc.
Re:This insurance doesn't make any sense. (Score:5, Interesting)
So, when Foo Corp claims that by using Linux you are infringing their patents you simply remain noncommittal (just as you should never accept blame at a car accident) and call OSRM. If OSRM is as good as my car insurer that's pretty much the end of the matter as far as you are concerned. They deal with Foo Corp and their lawyers and resolve the issue as best they can, whether that be getting the case dismissed or negotiating and paying your license fees. You'll probably get a letter every now and then letting you know of any developments, requesting information they might need and so on, but that's all. For many CTOs paying a company like OSRM some money each year might just be worth the removal of one less thing to fret and loose sleep over.
Gee... (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with Linux is that there is no one organization with sufficient stake to specifically pursue such a strategy. Though I'm sure if push came to shove, IBM would be willing to use its patent arsenal in defense of its Linux-using customers, given how much they've invested in Linux deployments and Linux-based services work. Anyway, of course it's in this insurance company's interest to point out every possibly infringing instance.
Re:Gee... (Score:5, Informative)
The article is fairly well balanced.
>I don't know of any product that doesn't "potentially infringe" on other patents.
The article mentions that.
"That number isn't unusually high for a package comparable to Linux, he added. Microsoft, for example, faces several patent suits, he said."
>Certainly for every software product I've worked on, when we did a patent search,
Its not a case of Linux people not doing a patent search or not caring, its that they are better off not doing one.
From the article:
>"If you have knowledge and are found to infringe, a court can punish you," tripling financial penalties, Ravicher said. "If you say you didn't know and didn't see it, a court can't punish you. It's a screwed-up rule."
One way is to be proactive, as your companies were. Another is to remain ignorant, but still take responsible action if informed of an infringment. Sounds legally ok either way.
Re:Gee... (Score:5, Interesting)
Uh, no kidding? It's interesting how the one time the OSRM guy doesn't get Bruce Perens and PJ Groklaw to be the company's public face, all the comments are suddenly about what a scam this is. Tomorrow there'll be an interview with Perens where he talks about what a noble, altruistic venture it is and the mob will instantly fall back in line again.
Re:Gee... (Score:4, Insightful)
That is the difference between noble altruism and fear-mongering. I understand the fear can be an effective sales tool, but that doesn't mean I can't call it like I see it. As for Bruce and PJ, they are well respected, so the company initially obtained the benefits of their reputation. If the company's management stops acting in a way that people respect, they will eventually lose that goodwill. I don't think this means everybody is a mindless Slashbot.
Re:Gee... (Score:5, Insightful)
That is the difference between noble altruism and fear-mongering.
I thought it was the difference between copyrights and patents. The statements above are not mutually exclusive....
Re:Gee... (Score:3, Informative)
skeptical (Score:4, Insightful)
Interestingly enough, at least one person works for both orginizations, Daniel B. Ravicher.
What does everyone else thing? is it something to be concerned about or is it a ploy to sell insurance and drive up the cost of linux adoption?
Sounds fishy (Score:5, Insightful)
Either that, or OSS is screwed, and the other shoe is about to drop. ( don't think it would stop with the Linux kernel, much more is vunerable if its taken that far.. )
WTO (Score:3, Insightful)
Won't happen (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone believe that is they really thought this could happen, they would sell insurances against it ?
I'd hate to see something happen to your nice OS.. (Score:5, Interesting)
419 (Score:5, Funny)
The "insurance" might be a good thing. (Score:4, Insightful)
If someone does sue the OSRM insured companies, the insurance company's best interest is fighting the battle with its resources (insurance money) pooled together instead of each companies having to fight on their own.
It might not be that bad of thing.
Before you all go and get your panties in a bunch (Score:5, Informative)
Check this out. [osriskmanagement.com]
OSRM is the company PJ (you know, of Groklaw [groklaw.com]) joined a few months back to provide indemnification for Linux users. This organization isn't the enemy, folks.
[I thought that name (OSRM) sounded familiar.]
Re:Before you all go and get your panties in a bun (Score:4, Insightful)
For all I respect PJ and Groklaw, this does look like a pretty grimy attempt by OSRM to stir up business. Just the headline gives it away: "Results of First-Ever Linux Patent Review Announced, Patent Insurance Offered"
I mean yes, there may be patent issues with OSS. Yes, it's good that someone did the research. And yes, it is important that someone have answers ready for when the CIO raises the issue. But there are obvious vested-interest questions about OSRM's research.
I'd like to see it replicated outside OSRM. Or at least some disclosure, with right-of-reply to OSS developers. Spill the beans OSRM: what are those 283 patents?
They won't point a single line of code (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course they won't point a single line of code. They'll wait more then a year and try to show something. And, of course, it will be so insane that it nobody will care.
The point here is that OSRM can't just point out every line of code that has copyright issues because they will have to pay if companies get sued. They need to show that it has copyright issues so they can capt clients, but can't show too much or the issues.
Re:Before you all go and get your panties in a bun (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, when you see a risk, you take precautions against it happening. That is known as risk management and it is well-known as a cost of doing business.
I don't want to hear any BS about Linux not infringing on any patents; there's so many ridiculous patents out there (see the icon of this story for an appropriate analog) that it would be good to have a buffer against another SCO coming a
Patent violation is rampant (Score:5, Informative)
Not a prob in many other countries. (Score:3, Insightful)
Which came first, OSS or the patent? (Score:3, Insightful)
My guess is that very few companies will persue any litigation in this area because of the possibility that the OSS community came up with the concept first, thereby invalidating the patent they claim to be protecting.
Sad commentary on our society (Score:4, Insightful)
The purpose of patents is to encourage innovation by protecting the income for the developer/innovator to recoup the cost of innovating/developing, not to discourage innovation.
If Linux truly violates patents, why are they only bringing it up now that Linux is becoming a viable alternative for mainstream america?
Besides, the whole thing is suspect simply because it comes from a company selling insurance for patent suits.
Patent law subverts the very purpose for patents (Score:4, Insightful)
Never do patents protect or grant the right for someone to make money, nor do they even grant the right to use/manufacture the idea that was patented. Patents only restrict anybody else from making money or otherwise using the idea.
This is why the "don't look, don't know" advice is so indicative of a really messed up system. In order to minimize your legal liability, you have to not look at patents...which means the primary purpose of patents (the disclosure and distribution of knowledge) is directly subverted by the very law establishing them.
Re: Sad commentary on our society (Score:3, Insightful)
But it is possible to write the laws so they don't actively encourage leeching off the system.
This violates my Patent. (Score:5, Funny)
283? That's it? (Score:5, Funny)
Kernel-land or User-land? (Score:5, Interesting)
The article didn't mention it, but are the potential violations in kernel-land, or do they also entend into user-land and ``Linux'' is being used in the broad sense of the term?
m$ patenting spree (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:m$ patenting spree (Score:4, Funny)
Among those patents (Score:3, Funny)
May be embedded in devices other than plastic toys found in breakfast cereals and happymeals
May be built without bloat (a prohibitive patent owned by Microsoft)
Able to run for months, or years, without reboot (another prohibitive patent)
Uses letters of the alphabet
Uses arabic numbers
Multitasking
May be networked with multiple other computers
Enables a spoon to stick to admins nose during boot
Proverbs (Score:4, Insightful)
Argh! Insurance! (Score:3, Insightful)
My wife and I are currently trying to move our web hosting and Linux support business [suso.org] into an office, and getting cheap insurance is proving to be a pain in the rump. Mainly because most insurance companies won't cover Internet Services companies and the ones that do charge as much as 7 times more than they charge other businesses. Yet they don't cover anything that would be a threat to those businesses.
Now this. What is a person to do who wants to offer state of the art services and technologies? I'm sure I'm preaching the choir here, but patents are hindering cutting edge technology rather than helping it these days.
Re:Argh! Insurance! (Score:3, Insightful)
Once you understand this, everything about insurance becomes clear.
OSRM: Friend or Foe? (Score:4, Insightful)
everybody does it -- just more visible in OSS (Score:4, Insightful)
There are plenty of copyright infringements in proprietary code
Patents are another story. Given right now the patent system seems to suck (even though it's supposed to serve a valid purpose) -- is patent infringement truly patent infringement in many cases? I would argue a lot of the patent cases will be thrown out because of prior art, no merit, etc. I'm not advocating patent infringement, but just saying that a lot of the existing problems are most likely not really problems at all. Only some will be huge problems.
Not a problem. (Score:3, Interesting)
- Try to enforce the patent. Doing this risks having the patent invalidated, losing one of their trading cards. And the best they could hope for is to collect a little money until a workaround is found.
- Follow suit and release the patent for uses in Linux. Sure you won't make money off this, but you could still trade the patent with other companies for use of their patents.
The one fly in the ointment is any company (*cough*Microsoft*cough) that has a vested interest in seeing Linux fail. They might be willing to sacrifice some of their patent portfolio in order to make that happen. It also makes them number one on the patent examination hit parade.Re:Not a problem. (Score:3, Interesting)
Inaccuracies in press release (Score:5, Informative)
corporations that are friendly to Linux - ones with some current financial interest in broad Linux
adoption, including: Cisco, HP, IBM, Intel, Novell, Oracle, Red Hat, Sony, and others However, to date,
no Linux vendor has [...] entered into an explicit agreement promising never to use its own patents against Linux users.
How about this one [gnu.org]?
Each time you redistribute the Program [...]. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
I think threatening patent infringement action against any user of a Linux distribution that you had provided them with would be placing a further restriction on usage, hence a violation of this term that a Linux distributor must have agreed to in order to distribute Linux.
Re:Inaccuracies in press release (Score:3, Insightful)
Say, for example, if IBM had a patent that MPlayer was infringing on, they could sue to their heart's content as long as they do not themselves distribute MPlayer. The fact that they distribute other GPLed software has no bearing on that.
Also, even if they were distributing a GPLed program that was then the subject of an infringement suit, surely they'd go after the
It's how insurance works, dammit! (Score:4, Insightful)
Look, insurance is not some crapshoot. It's highly dependent on using statistical analysis to mitigate risks. Stats require data. Insurance companies are ALWAYS trying to get more data to understand the risks they need to hedge against.
Why does the insurance industry fund Underwriter's Laboratory (you know how everything under the sun is "UL Approved"?)? So they understand (and, by engaging in the process, can minimize) the risks associated with using electrical appliances (electrocution, fires, loss or damage). They then price insurance accordingly.
Ideally, an insurance company will contract (or fund) a third-party company to do the analysis. The insurer gets the stats and determines their rates, while the 3rd party works to minimize the risks. The UL label program has dramatically reduced house fires, for example.
This is exactly what's going on here -- OSRM engaged PubPat, a group dedicated to FIGHTING bad patents, to do the analysis. They get their data, while PubPat can work to get those patents invalidated.
There's another benefit here to the Linux community: companies should feel more free to adopt Linux now that the risk is known and there's a way to minimize it (i.e., insurance). Which is more likely to keep you in the house, knowing that if you go outside you can be violently murdered, or that there's a less than 1% chance of being murdered that can be made to almost zero if you avoid certain behaviors?
Put another way: Companies don't mind taking risks (it's what they do), provided that they're identified and can be hedged. Unknown risks that can take down a company, however, are untenable.
Everyone knew that patent suits were a huge risk to Linux, but it was an amorphous big deal that was unquantified. Now it's known. I'm surprised that people who so violently disagree with "security through obscurity" are against the public release of risk information around patents. Understand the problem, make it public, then address it quickly. It's the same situation, just a legal one and not a programming one.
As an aside, this is not to say insurance companies can't be evil -- dropping people after genetic testing shows a proclivity for a disease is just wrong, IMHO. But, economics dictates that if everyone knew exactly what chance they had of contracting diseases, there would be "genetic protection insurance", since no one knows
In short, what you're seeing is a responsible insurance company going about their business.
* Full disclosure -- I only read the comments on this article at +5 before writing, so sorry if this is redundant.
Burying our heads in the sand... (Score:4, Insightful)
What can we do to counter act software patents? Can we create some sort of "prior art" / "idea" database online that holds instances of prior art or ideas for software programs that the community could build up and use as a weapon in defense of the open source software development? If we create a resource for prior art then it may be easier for the USPTO to deny some software patent applications...
Just my two cents...
coding anyting violates patents (Score:3, Interesting)
How many patent violations are there in proprietary code, violations that no-one can see, due to the closed nature of the code?
Yes, Linux infringes. Like other software. (Score:4, Insightful)
This is not a sign of "Linux is broken", this is a sign of "software patents are broken and it's fucking insane that the US allows them".
I'd love to see IBM lobby against them, but IBM, like all large tech companies, has their own healthy patent portfolio to keep competitors from entering their markets.
Very depressing. Every day that we continue to allow software patents is another day worth of patents that must be grandfathered in if any fix occurs -- the US legislature will never, *ever*, *ever*, even if they eliminate software patents, not grandfather in old ones. Lots of comopanies put a ton of money into getting them, and they won't yank assets from under their feet.
If we stopped allowing software patents today, we'd still have a two-decade-long software patent minefield to deal with. If you're fifteen today, you'll be thirty-five before the industry is free of software patents. If you're twenty-five today, you'll be middle-aged when the industry is patent-free again, and if you're forty-five today, you'll be retired when the industry is patent-free. Assuming software patents stopped today, which isn't going to happen.
Re:Yuck. (Score:4, Interesting)
It's like selling earthquake insurance to a farmer in Indiana.
Re:slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)
I also sell alien abduction insurance to go along with the Linux insurance for a well arounded protection.
Re:That's nothing (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I don't get it... (Score:3, Interesting)
If they blow up a few figures to create that fear they may get more business.
Re:A subtle version of the Scott McCollum gambit (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, since Bruce Perens and PJ of Groklaw are involved in this, I somehow doubt the point of the patent search/announcement was to set up a case that Linux is illegitimate because it's not backed by a company.
Just because we'd all like there to be no patent violations in Linux, the odds are that there are some, just as there are patent violations in almost every major piece of software, simply due to the fact that the patent system is completely screwed up when it comes to software. The reason people don