Software Patents vs. Free Software

Bruce Perens writes: "Did you think you knew what I am doing about software patents from the news coverage? You're probably wrong. Get the real scoop here. There's been enough distortion that I took the time to put down my own opinions, and an explanation of the summit meeting I'm calling on Free Software and The Law. Thanks! - Bruce" You might need to read our previous story about Perens' patent activities for background.

Comments

Who is "We" ?

[Carnage4Life]

No, the strength of free software is that it is free. By tying it into treaties and contracts with companies we lose the strength which makes it far superior to any closed-source equivalent. We all know corporations aren't to be trusted, and despite their current "nice guy" acts, both IBM and HP have in the past abused their positions within the industry for their own gains.

People like the above poster and Bruce Perens make me wonder exactly where the notion of an Open Source Community and the concept of "we" comes up in this discussion. Bruce Perens does not represent the Linux kernel hackers, the Apache Foundation, the *BSD coders nor even the people that hack Slashcode. So on exactly whose behalf is he signing treaties with and who will enforce his end of the bargain?

I've previously told Bruce on kuro5hin that companies have no incentive to give up their IP and in fact will probably lose out on the deal (OpenSSH vs. SSH is a good example) and I'm yet to see a good counter argument for that. Also the fact that he has nothing to back up his threats to them with is also not encouraging. Here's an excerpt my reply to his post on K5 about that.

Regarding what incentive the big companies have to negotiate with us regarding their patents, if they were not interested in negotiating with us, we'd have reason to re-evaluate our participation with them, wouldn't we?

What exactly does this mean? Contrary to what most people who read slashdot and K5 believe, there is no Open Source community in any cohesive sense of the word. I doubt that Linux kernel developers are going to stop accepting kernel patches from IBM because they refused to give up all their IP when Bruce Perens said so, neither do I see the Apache Software Foundation kicking off the IBM members.

Secondly due to the nature of the GPL and other Open Source licenses, these companies can continue to reap the benefits of Open Source software even without the gestures they've made to the community. Quite frankly, companies like IBM, HP, Apple and Sun have been under no obligation to support Open Source in the ways that they have already. Taking this for granted and assuming that we can demand more seems to me to be the height of folly. This slashdot post though sarcastic should bring home the point that I am trying to get across.

In talking about whether or not a company can make money with Free Software, we should remain aware that most companies are deploying Free Software in a cost-center (like IS support at a business or systems programming at a hardware vendor), and if they save money in that cost-center by distributing the work load over multiple companies rather than duplicating effort in each of them, it's as good as making the money elsewhere. It's that cost-savings that is funding most of the Linux jobs today, not profit.

Exactly, and the kind of companies that see IS/IT as a cost center and Open Source products as a way to bring down costs are typically not the kind of companies that will jeopardize future profits to help the Open Source cause. Most of these companies would jump on a cheaper closed source solution in a heartbeat and do not feel indebtedness to the Open Source cause to the level to which you suggest.

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