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IBM Grants Universal and Perpetual Access To IP

Posted by samzenpus on Thu Jul 12, 2007 04:06 AM
from the free-at-last dept.
StonyandCher writes "IBM is making it easier to utilize its patented intellectual property to implement nearly 200 standards in the SOA, Web services, security and other spaces. Under a pledge issued by the company Wednesday, IBM is granting universal and perpetual access to intellectual property that might be necessary to implement standards designed to make software interoperable. IBM will not assert any patent rights to its technologies featured in these standards. The company believes its move in this space is the largest of its kind."
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  • by arivanov (12034) on Thursday July 12, @04:21AM (#19835663)
    (http://www.sigsegv.cx/)

    In most other industries and in fact in other parts of the IT industry you are mandated to do that as a part of the standards process. At the very least you have to guarantee that you will offer your IP on non-discriminatory terms.

    It is entertaining to see SOA getting to its supposedly standard and uberinteroperable status without anyone paying attention to this minute IP detail. Entertaining, but not surprising. If you actually can read a SOA spec, comprehend it entirety and have some functioning brain cells left after that you are mad anyway. Every time I have to read Xpath or god forbid one of the WS security or addressing space specs I remember Dijkstra. He was absolutely right:

    b> The problems of business administration in general and data base management in particular are much too difficult for people that think in IBMerese, compounded with sloppy English. Still right today. Just change data base management for interoperability and you got a description of WS/SOAP and the rest of that standard ilk.

  • A bad thing? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by sincewhen (640526) on Thursday July 12, @04:36AM (#19835729)
    This may be a bad thing, as the IP/patent system is becoming so broken that a fix will be required. But acts like this may prolong the status quo as supporters of the current system can point to this example and say "Look, the system balances itself." Personally, I wouldn't rely too much on the kindness of large corporations (or small ones).
  • Maybe...maybe not (Score:3, Interesting)

    by djupedal (584558) on Thursday July 12, @04:50AM (#19835793)
    "The company believes its move in this space is the largest of its kind."

    If the definition of 'move' and 'space' mean that certain baseline/root information was made available in a manner that meant both easier access and freedom to use it, with the expectation that such a move would foster more information and more giving, etc. etc, I contend that when the printing press was unleashed, a much larger move occurred, in a similar place.

    Don't get me wrong - I'm not chipping on IBM, but if you are doing good for goods' sake, then do it, but please try to leave out the part where you paint yourself up as all warm and fuzzy and giving :)
  • Motivation (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bentcd (690786) <bcd@pvv.org> on Thursday July 12, @05:49AM (#19835985)
    (http://www.pvv.org/~bcd)
    The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if this is the payback for the "User Product" language in part 6 of GPL3 ( http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html [gnu.org] ) - which seems to be aimed at making GPL software cooptable for purely business purposes.

    The more rational side of me observes that IBM probably sees itself writing the business logic side of the web services architecture in the future, and doesn't really care much who wrote the middleware so long as it just works. Letting people write middleware without fear of IP lawsuits would tend to facilitate this.
  • by axonis (640949) on Thursday July 12, @05:52AM (#19835991)
    To make SOA and web services workable, governance is a neccessary evil allowing for SLA's to be 'stapled' to a service, especially true when the service gets a new version and breaks exisiting consuming applications ...
  • Too slow! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Mr2001 (90979) on Thursday July 12, @06:01AM (#19836027)
    (http://www.hansprestige.com/ | Last Journal: Friday September 14, @04:25PM)
    BitTorrent has already been providing universal access to IP since 2001. Nice try, IBM!
  • /me is glad to see this.  It might mean better driver functionality for older IBMs and maybe some Lenovo machines.
  • Maybe add another clause? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dysfunct (940221) * on Thursday July 12, @06:40AM (#19836199)
    As far as I understand the article, there already was a royalty-free way to license their IP for those standards, only that as of now people don't have to explicitly fill out forms to be granted a license.

    Making standards easier to apply is always a good thing, but IMHO for a standard to make sense it's even more important to force people to actually implement it properly and in a conforming way. Which brings me to the licensing terms of Adobe's PDF stuff, which can be freely implemented as long as the implementation strictly follows the standard. In the same vein, it might have been a good idea to add a constraint to the license that makes the free use of IBM's IP only available to people who strictly adhere to the standard. Everybody else who thinks they have a good reason for adding their own "extensions" would have to fill out forms like it used to be and maybe have to make any documentation and patent portfolio regarding their changes freely available.

    As a result, people would either have to follow the standard or at least provide documentation and patent licenses to guarantee some degree of interoperability, in order to prevent things like Microsoft's bastardization of Kerberos.

    But I'm neither a patent lawyer nor do I have any special insight into licensing deals, so if this idea is stupid then please feel free to point out any potential issues you might see.

  • by Jerry (6400) on Thursday July 12, @06:50AM (#19836249)
    put your IP where your mouth is and make "interoperability" a fact and not a PR campaign.
  • This is about M$ (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 12, @07:11AM (#19836389)
    FTFA:

    "IBM has provided a non-assertion statement that says people are free to use any of its patents needed to implement the standards, provided they do not sue IBM or anyone else over use of their own patents involved in implementing the standards." The important part is "provided they do not sue IBM or anyone else..." - think about it - MS get free use of IBM patents UNTIL they sue someone over the use of their patents cover the same technology (OOXML, anyone?). Then the jig is up, no more free ride. Its an economic incentive for MS to not sue. Nice job IBM!!!!
  • by Churla (936633) on Thursday July 12, @07:42AM (#19836577)
    Is this "pledge" a PR release, or is it legally binding?

    If new management comes into power at IBM can they suddenly just decide to rescind the pledge and nail people for IP infringement and demand royalties?
  • Awesome (Score:1)

    by huckamania (533052) on Thursday July 12, @08:11AM (#19836807)
    (http://www.mercurialmusings.com/)
    As a child of I've Been Moved, I just have to say how nice this is. IBM is a wonderful company with a grand history. Like all successful companies, they have had their bad days. This is a great day for them.
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • Probably the best read on the subject right here: http://cafe.elharo.com/xml/north-and-south/ [elharo.com]
  • This is the most significant development I've seen in IP practice for years. This is the largest of the corporate entities saying that IP-sharing is a good idea; they don't go full FOSS because that has them making costly products and giving them away for free, which doesn't work under capitalism. But they're approving the idea, and that will inspire others to follow their line of thinking.
  • by jshriverWVU (810740) on Thursday July 12, @08:56AM (#19837303)
    Why not just let the patent's slip then into the public domain? It costs a good bit, almost doubling each year that you renew a patent. So if they're allowing universal access the patents are then pretty much public domain except they can still say they are the owners. Sounds like they virtually GPL'd their patents :)
  • Re:Good first step... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Renegade88 (874837) on Thursday July 12, @04:24AM (#19835673)
    Yes, because Open Source is the answer to everything!

    How is it "logical" that IBM needs to open up their commercial products to entrench service standards? The standards should stand on their own. Open source products can embrace them regardless if commercial software remains closed.
    [ Parent ]
    • Re:Good first step... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tutwabee (758134) on Thursday July 12, @04:26AM (#19835683)
      (http://www.squirrelmuffins.com/)
      I agree. It is a big enough step for a large IT corporation such as IBM to freely open up so much of their intellectual property. These standards can be used by open source applications now. That is what really matters when it comes to open source and this issue.
      [ Parent ]
      • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Good first step... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by jkrise (535370) on Thursday July 12, @04:34AM (#19835715)
      (Last Journal: Monday August 22 2005, @11:02AM)
      The standards should stand on their own. Open source products can embrace them regardless if commercial software remains closed.

      The biggest and most commonly used 'product' to develop SOA-compliant applications is the JBoss stack - JBoss Enterprise Middleware Suite, JEMS for short. It is open source, and uses the Rosetta ESB for building SOA apps.

      Despite it's open source nature, RedHat is making a pile of money on JBoss - from training, certifications, consulting, site implementations etc. In fact RedHat makes over a billion dollars a year, based purely on Open Source offerings. Commercial success and Open Source offerings aren't mutually exclusive - if IBM really believes in the Open Source philosophy, they ought to make their offerings Open Source, else they risk dwindling mindshare.... and unltimately marketshare as well.
      [ Parent ]
      • Re:Good first step... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by suzerain (245705) on Thursday July 12, @04:46AM (#19835779)
        (http://www.gravitycollapse.com/)
        Please how explain how open source automatically translates to "mindshare". I don't really see the link, but I'm interested in hearing your thoughts behind that assertion.

        IMO, there are certainly advantages (as well as disadvantages) to being open source (depending on the project), but either way I think mindshare has a whole hell of a lot more to do with marketing than the open/closed nature of your product.
        [ Parent ]
        • Re:Good first step... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by jkrise (535370) on Thursday July 12, @04:58AM (#19835821)
          (Last Journal: Monday August 22 2005, @11:02AM)
          Please how explain how open source automatically translates to "mindshare". I don't really see the link, but I'm interested in hearing your thoughts behind that assertion.

          I thought it was obvious. Why is Microsoft finding it difficult to retain "Devleopers, Developers and Developers"? Because their philosophy is Closed Source, and developers like to control their entire development environment - from the IDE to the compiler, to the authentication mechanism, the security model, the protocols, port numbers etc. Merely unencumbering a standard from patemts is only half the battle won - people will flock to an implementation of said standard that is patent unencumbered AND Open source at the same time.

          Open sourcing a platform like Websphere or a collabarative suite like Lotus Notes will not be a commercial disaster, like the bloke who modded my original post 'Troll' seems to believe.
          [ Parent ]
        • Open source is more likely to get my bucks. by MikeFM (Score:2) Thursday July 12, @08:26PM
      • Re:Good first step... (Score:4, Funny)

        by Renegade88 (874837) on Thursday July 12, @04:47AM (#19835787)
        So your position is that ultimately these companies need to completely open source all their current products, release all new products as F/OSS, and move over to the certification, consulting, and training for income model, or risk extinction? Companies have to be either entirely closed or entirely open? You can't mix-and-match based on market and product? I'll let IBM, Oracle, and Microsoft know they are ultimately doomed right away! F/OSS will overcome!
        [ Parent ]
      • Re:Good first step... by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Thursday July 12, @04:55AM
        • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
      • Re:Good first step... by Stalus (Score:1) Thursday July 12, @08:07AM
      • Re:Good first step... by Mark Imbriaco (Score:3) Thursday July 12, @08:58AM
      • Re:Good first step... by savio13 (Score:1) Thursday July 12, @12:42PM
      • Good Points by Luft08091950 (Score:1) Thursday July 12, @02:36PM
      • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Good first step... by beheaderaswp (Score:3) Thursday July 12, @07:01AM
    • Well, yes actually. by jotaeleemeese (Score:2) Friday July 13, @05:52AM
  • Re:Good first step... (Score:5, Interesting)

    If you live in a country with no IP protection, your point of view might make some sense, but IBM still makes plenty of money on software, so going fully open-source is unlikely, even if you believe it's the right thing to do. I think no other company but perhaps Sun has done as much for Linux and open-source as IBM, at least if you discount the Linux distro publishers. For some reason, Big Blue seems to have decided to side with the public good rather than fear open-source as most corporations do. I don't fully understand how a monster company like IBM can act like this, while virtually every other huge corporation out there seems to be guided by Dilbert's boss.

    I agree with the kudos! Let's hope Big Blue can keep on proving that large corporations don't have to be evil!
    [ Parent ]
    • Re:Good first step... by sg_oneill (Score:3) Thursday July 12, @04:41AM
    • Re:Good first step... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by petrus4 (213815) on Thursday July 12, @04:44AM (#19835765)
      (http://aqpeag.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Saturday April 21 2007, @05:39AM)
      For some reason, Big Blue seems to have decided to side with the public good rather than fear open-source as most corporations do.

      They're doing it because I'm guessing they're able to think big picture. IBM have been in existence for nearly 120 years now. The only way you get to last that long, especially while staying as big as they still are, is by being able to ride the rapids of consumer demand and desire.

      They're still going to want to make money, of course...but they're smart enough to realise that a company doesn't really control either half of the supply and demand equation. The consumer declares their demand, and a company that wants to make money and last a long time supplies that demand, rather than trying to change or control what the consumer's demand is.

      It is deeply appropriate that the animal most often associated with IBM is an elephant, I think. As well as being large, an elephant is a long lived and very intelligent animal. Also, although its' huge size means that things that shouldn't might get inadvertently stepped on occasionally, being herbivorous, an elephant is usually a fundamentally benevolent animal, as well.
      [ Parent ]
    • Re:Good first step... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by gujo-odori (473191) on Thursday July 12, @06:53AM (#19836269)
      How can a monster company like IBM act like this? It's not mostly out of altruism, although I am sure they have some. IBM invented FUD, as any old-time mainframer can tell you.

      Why, then, do they do it? The number one reason IBM supports open standards, supports open source, has opened its patents, and has contributed so much code to Linux is that IBM believes it can compete more effectively on a more level playing field. Compete against whom? Microsoft, mostly. When there is an entrenched de facto monopoly that fully dominates one area of your business (the dekstop) and is trying to muscle in on your turf (higher end servers, databases, web services, hosted services) and has already muscled in very successfully on your groupware turf, how do you fight back?

      You try to level the playing field by commoditizing the thing your opponent sells. Microsoft is a software company; IBM sells a lot of software, but their primary business is hardware and services. If they can commoditize the software that runs on their hardware and on which they provide value-added services, it gives them a competitive advantage against software companies (and against hardware companies that don't use open source, too). The revenue stream of the software company goes down, while the revenue they make on service and on hardware sales increases as a result of reduced software costs.

      While Sun also has some altruism (maybe more than IBM, because Sun's roots are in BSD; IBM's roots are firmly in proprietary software), I think it's a pretty good bet that the main reason for open-sourcing Solaris and Java is that they weren't making a lot of money on those things anyway (Solaris used to cost hundreds of dollars a copy, then it became essentially free as in beer) and Microsoft has done a pretty good job of fighting off Java on a lot of fronts, so if they open-source Java and Solaris they get:

      -Commoditization pressure on Microsoft
      -The same benefits of that pressure that IBM reaps, because like IBM, Sun is a hardware and consulting company that also sells software
      -Probably more Java mindshare and marketshare
      -Some respect from the FOSS community; what accountants call good will
      -Linux might stop eating Solaris' lunch a little bit on the lower end of Sun's market

      Why do they hope HP will do this too? Because of HP is the same kind of company Sun and IBM are, although HP is more purely a hardware play than either Sun or IBM. If they follow suit and start opening their patent portolio and maybe even open source HP/UX, that puts even more commoditization pressure on Microsoft. Of course, Sun, IBM, and HP all compete against each other - they're selling into the same markets - but each of them views Microsoft as more of a threat. If they all act to substantially level the playing field by opening up lots of their IP, that will make a significant counterweight to Microsoft's dominant position.

      Fast forward five to ten years into the future and envision one possible scenario: the successor to Vista has just been released, or maybe hasn't even made it yet. Some places are still running XP. Linux has continued it's slow push onto the desktop and has pushed even farther into the server market. IBM, Sun, and HP all sell servers with either Linux or Solaris, AIX, or HP/UX. Same price either way; the lot have been open-sourced.

      On the desktop side, Dell is still selling Linux machines, and they've been joined by Gateway, Lenovo, maybe even Sony (OK, that last one is crazy talk :p). Linux has a 5-10% desktop market share, and Apple has risen to 10% also. Google has 1/4 of the office suite market, and is competing very effectively with Microsoft Exchange Hosted Services for spam filtering, email archiving, and IM & web security.

      Microsoft is still a formidable company, with a huge warchest of cash and a lot of highly successful product lines, but the combined weight of its competitors has not only checked its market share gains, but reversed a number of them.

      Linux and Mac c
      [ Parent ]
    • Re:Good first step... by dan the person (Score:2) Thursday July 12, @07:04AM
    • Re:Good first step... by fjanss (Score:1) Thursday July 12, @07:56AM
    • Why? Simple! by eggnoglatte (Score:1) Thursday July 12, @08:06AM
    • Re:Good first step... by db32 (Score:2) Thursday July 12, @08:42AM
    • Re:Good first step... by wrook (Score:2) Thursday July 12, @09:02AM
    • Re:Good first step... by orasio (Score:2) Thursday July 12, @10:44AM
    • Re:Dilbert's boss. by Don_dumb (Score:2) Thursday July 12, @06:43AM
    • Re:Good first step... by jedidiah (Score:2) Thursday July 12, @07:33AM
    • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
  • The logical second step would be to Open Source their offerings, so developers can enhance them without fear.
    While I can agree on some gentle pressure over time, keep in mind that being overly pushy can be self-defeating.
    The river erodes the mountain a particle at a time.
    You can come through with a tidal wave, if you want results by the next election, but there will be side effects.
    Keep working at it, but mind the side-effects.
    [ Parent ]
  • Re:Enlighten me. (Score:3, Funny)

    They have a patent on interfacing Javelin.Tilt() with Landscape.Windmill
    [ Parent ]
  • by iminplaya (723125) on Thursday July 12, @11:10AM (#19838931)
    (Last Journal: Friday November 09, @01:36AM)
    It's merely an attempt to tranquilize the angry mobs, of which I'm a proud member, who want to see the abolishment of patents and copyright. They(IBM) are very afraid that their vast portfolio would turn into a useful pile of paper merely taking up space. Microsoft doesn't seem so worried about it.
    [ Parent ]
  • by forgotten_my_nick (802929) on Thursday July 12, @12:45PM (#19840253)
    What do you mean enhance them without fear? There are many applications built on Notes/Domino/Websphere, and at least in the Domino+Notes space I know there are many Applications which enhance the application. (Teamstudio /YTria for example).

    Opening the patents actually allows other companies to build competing applications without having to pay IBM tax.

    [ Parent ]
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