- Monday, 11 January 2010
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Web journalism is here to stay - Roy Greenslade, Guardian Online
Linux backers rally against Microsoft patents
A ROOKERY of penguin fanciers has been meeting to protect Linux from Volish patent lawsuits.
According to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) the meeting included such big names as IBM, Red Hat and Sony.
Their plan is to avert legal threats that might discourage the adoption of Linux by buying up a set of 22 patents formerly owned by Microsoft.
The Vole flogged the patents to Allied Security Trust, which buys patents to protect its members from patent litigation, provides them with licences to the technology, and then resells the patents on the open market.
The group, which is called the Open Invention Network (OIN), argues that its acquisition will protect users of Linux software from expensive lawsuits that could result if the patents fell into the wrong hands.
OIN and AST, which sounds like a tag team of Japanese Sumo wrestlers, said their cooperation will ensure that the Microsoft patents won't end up with patent trolls.
Microsoft knows that the patents are connected to Linux because it flogged them to AST saying that they were. Goodness knows why the Vole did this. Maybe it thought that its patents weren't really worth much.
However 22 patents are only a tenth of the mysterious patents that Microsoft claims are violated by Linux. µ
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Open Invention Network is just a figleaf for companies like IBM, who really like patents, to sustain the illusion that software patents can be nice, instead of moving to purge software patentability like the plague it really is.
If IBM and pals really wanted to protect Linux from Microsoft's patents, it would bring its not inconsiderable influence to bear on eliminating software patents completely.
I agree with figleaf 100%. Software patents must be eliminated. It will certainly reduce the ability of companies to play games with their patent portfolios.
I know two people that work for the US Patent Office. One is a brilliant programmer, the other is an idiot with a master's in "Computer Security". Guess which one reviews patent apps? :-(
Good, I'm glad the OIT and others are doing what they need to do. Microsoft sucks anyways, why would anyone want to pay for softeware that doesn't work properly or where you need to do massive updates to fix stuff they didn't work out beforehand. They'll take your $$$ yet they can distribute software that is rather useless.
I'm an avid linux user, and anything I use is all free and open source. Many top software that i use rivals mostly anything microsoft can come out with or is affiliated with. When I introduced my friends who've always used microsoft windows to ubuntu, they loved it and it was very easy for them to get the hang of it. Why on earth would anyone want to pay 100's of dollars on software when you can get it for free...I don't support the fact to pay for something that doesn't work properly, yet they can take peoples money with no shame and over charge on what bogus software. Its only recent that Microsoft is taking idea's and things from Linux distros and incorporating them into there own. Don't get me wrong, some software and patents they have are good but I can't justify paying loads of money for poor quality products, and for the fact taht Microsoft has stolen or bought off ideas from others and taken full credit...its funny Ubuntu blows Win XP or Vista out of the water in pretty much every category and its free.
Look, patents in general are good because they a) encourage innovation and b) encourage full disclosure of how inventions work.
But imagine for a moment if, in 1915, someone patented the steering wheel. Imagine if the person holding the steering wheel patent didn't want to produce cars, they just wanted car producers to pay him for the privelege of using a steering wheel in their cars. This patent application would STIFLE innovation, contrary to the aims of patent protection, because it creates another cost for real innovators.
Some things ought not be patented because they make good standards, and some things ought not be patented because they're so obvious (1 click checkout). Let's try again with patents - this time on physical objects instead. DMCA already protects software against reverse engineering.