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Some companies have actually jumped onto this and have developed 'open source auditing software which looks for OSS sourcecode or installed software.

Take a look at the Silhouette Scanner page. I have no idea what it is like but it is quite shocking that it is being done. I imagine there is a market for this for large companies especially. If I was a large company and was outsourcing coding to other companies (or countries), I would want an automated tool to run back home to verify its integrity.

Although I imagine it can be abused equally. If you know what the open source product is and where it is, you could probably obfuscate it.

Found another one by OpenLogic but it does not sound automated.
Anybody know any others?

And that same Wiki page notes that OSRM employed her once.
I guess they think she's real.

When the day comes that some of these patents are real (assuming any are) are you going to dig into your checkbook and pay the hundreds of millions in damages?

First, they're not real. Don't you think Microsoft would've been happy to name them, if they are?

Microsoft can't name the patents Linux and OO violates because MS didn't conduct or higher someone else to conduct the study. The study Ballmer and the rest of MS says Linux and OO violates MS patents was done by Public Patent Foundation for Open Source Risk Management an insurance company that sales insurance to businesses that use Open Source Software. And the study concluded Linux and OO "MAY" violate MS patents, not that they do.

She didn't work for OSDL, She worked for OSRM.

OSRM released a study that showed there were no high risk patent problems with the kernel. Oracle has just seemingly taken the results of that study and made some wild PR statements.

Thanks but no thanks. I'll stick with Red Hat.

In general, if I am using a Linux product I use it at least partially because of its rather clean non-encumbered IP position. The hope is that the GPL assists in that protection as well.

While it would be nice to be able to say "Well, if Novell (or whoever) is willingly putting IP encumbered stuff into their Linux then I don't want to use them", the reality is you can't really make that statement: the IP systems currently in play make disclosing the problematic elements a major no-no.

There has been basically one study (from 2004--New York based Open Source Risk Management will announce it has studied the Linux kernel and discovered it infringes on about 283 issued patents. Twenty-seven of those patents are owned by Microsoft.") so far that has addressed this IP problem in the kernel--the kernel, not the applications that run in that infrastructure.

Yes, we know a few of the items of interest, but 283 of 'em? And you can't exactly find the list because of the little perverse "if you knew then you willfully violated IP..." issue in patent law.

We (the Linux community in general) need to spend a little time making sure our IP is spotless against such (hopefully) groundless diatribes from the likes of Microsoft (and SCO, etc...).

Ultimately tho, companies with big pockets will always be able to sue (with cause or with malice) smaller entities and make them go away.

A few nice links:

Willfullness issue (just an abstract):
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id =472901

The OSRM position paper on IP issues in Linux (minus the specifics of course... )
http://www.osriskmanagement.com/pdf_articles/linux patentpaper.pdf

Another piece from D. Ravicher (of OSRM/PubPat fame) re: Ballmer's comments:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1729908,00.as p

I think we can be pretty sure Linux infringes on hundreds of patents. Just like every other nontrivial program. Supposedly OSRM will tell you which ones if you ask, although they do have a vested interest in saying Linux infringes. But the famous setuid bit patent is one concrete example, albeit expired. Whether the patents "could lead to further litigation" is a different question.

In a recent talk by RMS he mentioned that the Linux kernel violated around 300 software patents. He didn't mention what study he was quoting but he might have been talking about this one by the OSRM group: http://www.osriskmanagement.com/press_releases/pre ss_release_080204.pdf/ I don't know anything about these guys but this seems pretty legit. Does anyone here have better info on this?

Open Source Risk Management is a company that wants to insure companies against potential open source copyright/patent problems. Pamela Jones (of groklaw fame) and Bruce Perens are involved. OSRM released a whitepaper saying that at least 283 patents could potentially be used in litigation over the Linux kernel.

Open Source Risk Management is a company that wants to insure companies against potential open source copyright/patent problems. Pamela Jones (of groklaw fame) and Bruce Perens are involved. OSRM released a whitepaper saying that at least 283 patents could potentially be used in litigation over the Linux kernel.

No hard feelings between her and SCO could have crept into any of her announcements about that fine purveyor of THE Unix OS.

...the speaker figured that she believes there are substantial IP risks in Linux because of her relationship with OSRM - a logical enough conclusion considering OSRM has claimed that the Linux kernel infringes 283 unidentified patents and wants to sell users insurance covering the cost of defending themselves against an infringement suit.

But PJ claims the speaker "twisted" her involvement in OSRM and says it's being used it for FUD. So, to deny anyone the possibly of the FUD, and at the sacrifice of the "income stream," she quit.

Why does noone point out that
Opens Source Risk Management do that for opensource products in a vendor-neutral way ?

And, btw, MS new "indemnification" doesn't come for free like Internet Explorer, all MS users will pay for that ...

An article on the LinuxInsider site (Sept 6th) said that of the 283 patent violations, 27 were for MS patents. All of the patents had been issued, but not validated.

The search of the kernel code was done by Open Source Risk Management (who sell insurance).

Their report is available http://www.osriskmanagement.com/press_release_0802 04.pdf

In the Linux world, nobody stands behind patent claims

what about OSRM?

The article says:
"Marshall Phelps tries to dispel the notion that Microsoft is preparing a patent assault on open-source software. He notes that at IBM he never initiated a single lawsuit"

Will this mean that the 27 seven unidentified patents that Open Source Risk Management have found can just remain then? Maybe not. If those 27 patents are identified under a contract of no disclosure to key kernel developers, will the community be able to implement workarounds before the suits starts to rain?

I would be very interested in knowing who else owns a patent that yet have not been tested in court that covers code in the Linux 2.4 and 2.6 kernel-series. Without knowing if they have been tested in court or not we will just have to stick with the numbers made public then: IBM has 60 patents, Microsoft has the 27, 20 has HP and 11 goes to Intel. That leaves us with just above 160 other unidentified patents to deal with.

Microsofts 27 patents are most likely the worst here, but have they been tested in court? Things like their silly patent for "activating a program on a handheld device by holding a button down for several seconds" will most likely not pass any court, or I for sure hope not.

I think that the SCO-case will set a precedence so that other stupid claims are thrown out without years of countersuits and motions in all directions. Lets atleast pray it does. I will.

Check this out.

OSRM is the company PJ (you know, of Groklaw) 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.]

It looks they are patents that haven't been litigated yet. I RTFA, I read the report. I have yet to see which patents they're referring to. Seems like a bunch of crap to me.

http://www.osriskmanagement.com/press_release_0802 04.pdf

It is already having an effect - Linus is spending time worrying about legal nonsense instead of developing the kernel.

It is already having an effect - Linus is spending time worrying about legal nonsense instead of developing the kernel.

Microsoft has the patience and communication skills to write in a style and medium that government policymakers listen to and respond to.

The vast majority of open source advocates have no interest in this boring yet important work.

IMHO, This sounds like something I'd like to see Perens' " Open Source Risk Management" take on.

So when will your new company selling Linux insurance start competing with Perens, Jones and McBride?

Feel free to smack me around for being insolent, but it seems to me grokline has been launched in order to provide OSRM with the knowledge base to launch their business on. Please say it ain't so!

Not really. Depends on what she is doing for them. I suggest you visit the OSRM website yourself and find out.

Linus works for companies, and no one accuses him of conflict of interest. When he gets that Nike endorsement deal, though, I'm going to call him a sell out.

1) I don't remember hearing anything about Groklaw coming under any corporate umbrella. I don't think my employer (if I had one, heh) would provide me with any legal protection for one of my personal websites, either. OSRM has hired PJ with the proviso that she be allowed time to continue her work on Groklaw. As far as I know, that's it.

2) I don't think OSRM is an insurance company. Of course, when we can't even expect slashdotters to RTFA, can we expect anyone to visit the OSRM site to find out what they really do?

According to news release on riskmanagement.com NEWS, the hiring of PJ happened first week of February. Also see this article

http://www.osriskmanagement.com/about.shtml is pretty clear that Pamela Jones is staying with groklaw.

http://linuxpr.com/releases/6631.html is as well.

http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/mai n/open_source_insurance.html doesn't mention PJ but is informative.

Who coincidentally have just hired PJ of Groklaw fame as Director of Research.

Who coincidentally have just hired PJ of Groklaw fame as Director of Research.