Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Red Hat Files for Software Patents

Posted by michael on from the patent-applied-for dept.

Marsala writes "Apparently Red Hat has filed two patent applications for stuff related to the TUX webserver. The patents are for Embedded Protocol Objects and Method and apparatus for atomic file look-up. One has to wonder (if their patents are granted) what their licensing terms will be.... free for open source, or a tool to try and screw other Linux distros?" As reported by Linux Weekly News.

1 of 320 comments (clear)

  1. Doesn't matter by awptic · · Score: 5, Informative

    The GPL requires anyone holding a patent on the software to allow others to freely use/modify it.
    From the GPL license:

    Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software
    patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free
    program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the
    program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any
    patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.

    The only thing this patent prevents is from others creating proprietary versions of the technology in question; which, IMO, is a Good Thing(tm). In fact, in the thread about this on the LKML someone brought up that the FSF even encourages doing this.