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Red Hat Makes Patent Promise
colonel writes "In a followup to an earlier story about Red Hat filing for software patents, a "promise" has appeared on RedHat's website stating that they do not intend to pursue patents against software licensed under a specific set of licenses. It's not binding in perpetuity, and some licenses are notably absent in the list of approved licences, like the LGPL. But, at least Red Hat's made their intentions clear now."
Red Hat, Inc. Statement of Position and Our Promise on Software Patents
Our Position on Software Patents
Red Hat has consistently taken the position that software patents generally impede innovation in software development and that software patents are inconsistent with open source/free software. Red Hat representatives have addressed this issue before the National Academies of Science, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, and the U.S. Department of Justice. Red Hat is also a signatory to a petition to the European Union encouraging the EU not to adopt a policy of permitting software patents. We will continue to work to promote this position and are pleased to join our colleagues in the open source/free software community, as well as those proprietary vendors which have publicly stated their opposition to software patents, in that effort.
At the same time, we are forced to live in the world as it is, and that world currently permits software patents. A relatively small number of very large companies have amassed large numbers of software patents. We believe such massive software patent portfolios are ripe for misuse because of the questionable nature of many software patents generally and because of the high cost of patent litigation.
One defense against such misuse is to develop a corresponding portfolio of software patents for defensive purposes. Many software companies, both open source and proprietary, pursue this strategy. In the interests of our company and in an attempt to protect and promote the open source community, Red Hat has elected to adopt this same stance. We do so reluctantly because of the perceived inconsistency with our stance against software patents; however, prudence dictates this position.
At the same time, Red Hat will continue to maintain its position as an open source leader and dedicated participant in open source collaboration by extending the promise set forth below.
Our Promise with Respect to Software Patents We Hold
Definitions:
"Approved License" means any of the following licenses: GNU General Public License v2.0; IBM Public License v1.0; Common Public License v0.5; Q Public License v1.0; and any Red Hat open source license. Red Hat may add to this list in its sole discretion by publication on this page.
"Open Source/Free Software" means any software which is licensed under an Approved License.
"Patent Rights" means any of the rights to make, use sell, offer to sell, import or otherwise transfer software, in either source code or object code form.
"Red Hat" means Red Hat, Inc.
Our Promise:
Subject to any qualifications or limitations stated herein, to the extent any party exercises a Patent Right with respect to Open Source/Free Software which reads on any claim of any patent held by Red Hat, Red Hat agrees to refrain from enforcing the infringed patent against such party for such exercise ("Our Promise"). Our Promise does not extend to any software which is not Open Source/Free Software, and any party exercising a Patent Right with respect to non-Open Source/Free Software which reads on any claims of any patent held by Red Hat must obtain a license for the exercise of such rights from Red Hat. Our Promise does not extend to any party who institutes patent litigation against Red Hat with respect to a patent applicable to software (including a cross-claim or counterclaim to a lawsuit). No hardware per se is licensed hereunder.
Each party relying on Our Promise acknowledges that Our Promise is not an assurance that Red Hat's patents are enforceable or that the exercise of rights under Red Hat's patents does not infringe the patent or other intellectual property rights of any other entity. Red Hat disclaims any liability to any party relying on Our Promise for claims brought by any other entity based on infringement of intellectual property rights or otherwise. As a condition to exercising the Patent Rights permitted by Our Promise hereunder, each relying party hereby assumes sole responsibility to secure any other intellectual property rights needed, if any.
I know of lots of other companies that gave promises before and changed their minds when it suited them!
Publicly stated corporate policies pledging good behavior toward intellectual property should be as commonplace as privacy policies have become.
This is quite deliberate. It's not possible to approve LGPL without opening up a hole that allows J. Random Megacorp to make an LGPL licensed librhpatents.so, which lets them use the patents with closed source proprietary apps. My only complaint with Red Hat about this is that they haven't made it binding in perpetuity.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
...suprised that the LGPL didn't make it to their list. the LGPL allows for other comercial products to be linked to a GPL libary without providing the source(comercial product). it's not in redhat's interest that other SW firms can use their patent in products, as long as they link to it from a LGPL libary.
For the good of the code. stop them from sueing us
This'll be policy for as long as the shareholders allow it. The moment they get a whiff of Big Money to be made enforcing the patents, they'll about-face.
So ask yourself--are the apologetics that RH has produced honest in the sense that RH continues to be the torchbearer for Linux and the spirit of free software? Or is it just a ploy to try to keep as many of you as possible from defecting? Are you fundamentally for Linux or are you fundamentally for the idea of free as in speech software?
(the second question is not rhetorical--the answer shold not be linux.)
What about the The Apache Software License?? This would be more important to a lot of the work going on at the moment particularly on XML, it is the only real alternative to the proprietry stuff out there from the likes of $microsoft etc..
Does this give them a legal right to pursue patents on foundation software??
I also find that this license is popular within these technolgy areas even for commercial comapanies
It's safer to juggle chainsaws than patent politics and the open source community.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Couldn't the FSF, or some other good body, just start getting patents for everything that they can think of under the sun and then allow those patents to be used by anybody? This would help keep patents from being used like a club.
So they not only adopt the same "stance" as the bad guys" but they also claim it is in the interest of the open source community? I dont think so.
One of the points in being a "good guy" is that you _dont_ adopt the bad guy strategies because if you do you can not say "this n that is bad" because everyone just says "but you do it, too".
To be the good guys you have to have a higher moral stand than everyone else and i dont expect that from a company, at least not on the long run.
The promise is worthless anyway. Any patent that's not vigorously defended (i.e. that is selectively enforced) is null and void.
IAL
The idea is very similar to the GPL. Maybe we need a general "patent GPL" - one which is not a "policy", which can be changed later, but a stronger assignment of patent rights to a GPL'ish foundation in defense.
Maybe it's time to revive the League for Programming Freedom, but along these lines.
Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)
ok, so im not sure what red hat wants to do. i mean, if they feel they are protecting these by patenting them themselves, then i think they are making a mistake. my understanding of patent law, is that if you do not aggresively defend your patents, including fighting those who use your patents, then you will lose the rights to them if challenged in court. in my marketing class we covered a case where a company went 5 years before challenging a competitor who was using a patent and then lost the right to the patent because they had not responded sooner and had waited 5 years. im curious in how red hat would plan on retaining ownership of these patents if others will be allowed to use them, presumably for free.
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[insert funny
This is actually pretty good. They will as a practical matter be bound in many cases, because there is a legal rule called "estoppel" which will prevent them from changing their mind on someone after they have acted in reliance on this policy. The permission given here should actually be pretty difficult to shake off.
So "good guys" who operate under open source/free lienses should be reasonably well protected here, and at the same time the patents CAN be asserted against those producing proprietary software. Not bad at all, I would say.
In fact, it could be a net plus for free software.
no knead to buy ANYthing from/pay ANYthing to, ANY co./gov't., whose "business" practices you suspect of being lowdead with corruptshun. there ARE many alternatives, that are actually superior to the commershill/canned versions.
Sure, Red Hat's being nice to developers using certain licenses, but they're not being nice to anyone else. If Red Hat's patenting obvious or semi-obvious things, they can still use those patents against other companies-- that's what they have the patents for. Even if the patents are obvious. Or invalid.
Patents on the obvious are bad. They reduce competition, and give the big dogs levers to hit the smaller dogs with.
Not good enough. Patent things, or else don't. This middle of the road patent-but-not-against-friends crap just muddies the waters.
When Red Hat feels threatened by some smaller company, you can bet that patent portfolio will come out.
I don't know about this one.
Patents are used as weapons these days, without any regard for their validity.
The RedHat folks are right about one thing: the best defense against a patent suit is to hold the patent yourself.
Software patents are particularly bad. The PTO hands them out like cents-off coupons at a supermarket. Once in hand, they are presumed valid, a presumption that is difficult and expensive to overturn.
They could also argue that their patent collection is not conceptually different from the GPL itself. After all RMS, Bradley Kuhn and assorted other FSF luminaries are on record as saying that IP shouldn't exist at all. In a world without IP, you can't have a GPL, and, presumably, don't need one. Yet, in our world, we have a GPL that relies on current IP law.
These things make sense to me.
But...
Software patents so distort the whole software sphere.
I guess, in the end, my head understands RedHat's moves, but my heart is deeply troubled.
copying and pasting the entire article without even commenting on it is not informative
it is redundant
wake up moderators
Using software patents to impose a licence on developpers is plain wrong. It's just what we hate with MS and the likes. Plus this will divide divide the community (what about the BSD folks...). We should use patents only against patents. What about a GPL-like model, where all patents used in conjunction with RH patents in the same software suite would have to be licenced the same way ?
Red Hat is a publically traded company. They get bought out, what happens to the promises?
I couldn't agree more. The thing that we all have to remember is that RedHat has been pushed into a situation that requires a pro-active decision. What would happen if a large software manuf came after the OpenSource community for infringing on the patent of a particular app (like the RPM analogy above)? How can one protect against this?
The only thing that sets RedHat apart from some of the smaller dists (in this casse) is the fact that they have corporate funding to file the USPTO stuff. The paperwork/process is one that takes time and money, they are to be applauded!
--- I'll have a Bloody Mary, a Steak Sandwich and a uh Steak Sandwich.
Gobbledygook!
OK, then assign the patents to the FSF.
No? Why not?
There's only one answer to that question. Red Hat wants to retain the ability to leverage these patents against other Open Source companies.
I'm not saying that as though it's a great revelation: Red Hat are a commercial company, and their main competitors aren't Redmond, but other Linux distros. What I am saying is that they are being hypocritical about this, and that their actions - and the specifics of their promise - don't match their high ideals.
Here's what they've actually promised:
This is a thin promise. Open source developers are still infringing their patents, they're just not (at the moment) going to prosecute those infringements. That's a nasty sword of Damocles they're dangling over our heads.
Again, ask yourself why if Red Hat are actually serious about their claim to loathe patents and support open source they don't assign the patents to the FSF, or at a minimum, actually waive rights or grant an implicit or explicit license to open source developers. The actions and the promise don't match the rhetoric.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
What would be nice is if Red Hat, or some one else who 'can', started an Open Patent policy with terms such as:
You can use our patents for Open Sorce development, or X patents Closed source Development so long as you make Y nagotiated patents available for Open Development.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
orginization that has a charter designed specifically to maintain patent absudities. The charter would be such that it could only use the patents in defense of the OS community. Then, if the orginization fails the patents return to the community. If the patents need enforcing to defend the OS community they are available. Make the orginization democratically controlled by members of the OS community in good standing. Done!
Nobody can take control of patent absurdities for short term personal profit, as large corps are known to do.
-- The morphemes of your disquisition are ascertainable, but they have eschewed an ambit of transpicuous exposition.
This is misinformation. Far from being an alternative to proprietary products, the Apache foundation is pushing proprietary solutions.
The Apache foundation has been pushing Sun's proprietary Java technology for several years, with packages like Cocoon; indeed, most of their XML work is based on non-free Java components. Even though the code Apache produces is free, most of it (other than the Apache httpd) is based on proprietary foundations which compete directly with truly free alternatives like PHP and DotGNU/Mono's ASP.NET implementations.
Apache has served its purpose, but I just don't see why they're now trying to base their tools on closed source platforms. History has shown again and again that, even when the upper layers of software are proprietary and commercial, the platform itself must remain relatively free and open. That's why I've come to abhor the Apache Foundation.
I also don't agree with their willingness to give away so much code under a non-copylefted license, handing over their 'crown jewels' to companies who then proprietarise them. It sickens me to see companies package up Apache pre-releases and sell it on without source code as "Apache 2" months before the release date, damaging the reputation of the Apache httpd and Open Source in general. But that's another can of worms.
omg ;)
for a moment there a thought RedHat had patened promises :)
i mean .. someone has already patened sideways swinging so ..
i'm a bit paranoid about patents these days i guess :D
Am I the only one who just got a giant (double size) banner at the top of the page?
/.
I doubt it. I've been seeing those on and off for about a month now. I think taco and the greedy pigs (perhaps that should be "taco, the greedy pig") at VA are trying to sneak a few more dollars from
SGI used to tell their employees that they filed patents purely as a defense (they had been sued).
Then SGI sued NVIDIA because they were losing in the market.
Then SGI sold all their graphics patents to Microsoft because they needed cash.
Patents are an asset, once they are aquired they can be abused and sold irrespective of what the original intent was.
Notice how the BSD style license is also NOT included.
*yawn* Wake me when RedHat removes its head from its ass
The GPL makes a guarentee that the software in question will have it's source sharable for the lifetime of the software and ensures that any investment you make in GPLed software won't be closed off and resold by someone else who don't want to share.
Could a license be made that allows this to happen with patents. In particular:
* This license in irrrevocable
* This license is freely licensed for GPLed software
* This license is freely licensed for all free software subject to the condition that:
1. The software is not linked to non-free software
2. If the software contains any patents, those patents must be freely licensed to any free software.
Informative / Interesting
The inclusion of "any Red Hat open source license" leaves alot to interruptation. There have been both LGPL and BSD licensed works which have carried the Red Hat branding. If you read inbetween the lines, it seems also to be stated that Red Hat reserves the right to defend itself (under the real defination of defense, not the Amazon one). There are several projects on SourceForge that IBM could use it's patent profile to attack but IBM has shown that they intend to make much more money on GNU/Linux systems than on software patents. Red Hat's income flow also depends on allowing projects under other non-explicitedly stated free software style licenses (LGPL, Apache, X11, etc.) to continue. Red Hat is not looking to bite the hand that feeds it!
However, Red Hat and other GNU/Linux friendly companies are going to have to get more patents to help protect us. The number of patents granted per patent examiner continue to increase. That means the number of trade journals that a patent examiner has time to review in a prior art search is dwindling. Also, it is very costly to prove prior art in court after a patent has already been granted. As a result, the situation has become one where if you want your ideas included in a prior art search, rather than publishing in a trade journal, you must now get a patent. So, that is exactly what Red Hat is doing.
If you have a free software (or "open source") project which you feel may be attacked by Red Hat's patents then I would suggest you contact Red Hat. I believe they will be willing to provide additional free grants on a case by case basis.
Otherwise, if you are aware of Red Hat using software patents to attack free software projects, feel free to send the story into Slashdot and we will let the masses tear them apart just as one done with LinuxOne (the US company). Attacking Red Hat now is premature.
Suppose that Red Hat gains a patent on a new voice compression algorithm, and United Megacorp produces a voice conferencing product that uses this algorithm. UM can release its product with modular plugins for the codecs, and then just release the patented codec as OSS. Hardly a big win for the open source side.
Having said that, not all patents could be subverted so easily. The codec patent could be evaded, but a patent on using the codec within a voice conferencing application would not. At that point (AIUI) UM would have to release the entire conferencing system as OSS in order to fit inside the RH promise conditions.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
Like many open source advocates, I am generally opposed to the idea of software patents, particularly under the current US patent system.
It is very hard for me to understand why anyone should be granted a 17 year monopoly on something in an industry that changes so quickly. Given the relatively low cost of developing new algorithms (compared to say drug research), the amount of simultaneous development, and the vast amount of prior work and prior art that all programming depends on, it seems a little disingenous for anyone to even apply for a software patent.
But as is often the case reality doesn't exactly jive with our open source utopia.
I have long thought that the FSF (as inimical or oxymoronic as that would be) or some other open source leadership group should create a foundation to manage software patents on behalf of open source developers.
The foundation would have clearly established rules for licensing and royalties and patent grantees so inclined could assign their patents there.
Eventually the open source community would have a portfolio of patents that they could use as a defense against software patents owned by corporations.
At the same time, this would have the benefit of calling attention to the inanity of PTO granting software patents.
It seems to me that this is what RedHat is doing - and I give them a lot of credit for it. The danger is that these patents become an asset of the corporation. While the current management may be completely trustworthy in this respect, there is always the danger that a change of control might put the patents at considerable risk.
Anyway, what do people think? What is open source's best defense against a world of software patents?
For me, the most disturbing thing about the question of Red Hat's proprietary move is the shift in focus that it forces on me and the community, and the shift in focus that, I think, is taking place within Red Hat.
Until now, the focus of Red Hat, at least as we, out here, perceived it, was outward, like the focus of every other Open Source developer. Lists were open, licenses were open, policies were (more or less) open and, above all, minds and attitudes were open for viewing by all of us.
But not anymore. Red Hat now has "property" of which it can think as "mine" or "ours." Property which does not belong to all of us in the community, but belongs solely to its owner, Red Hat Software.
For "us" and for "them," the meaning of "us" has changed.
I realise that it's never really been true that GPLed software "belonged" to everybody, in the proprietary sense, but there has always been a sense of participation in it; a sense that, because GPL gave us all licence to use it, and because Red Hat was playing the game in the same way that the fourteen-year-old who writes a GUI for configuring something also plays it, the company was still participating in the community on the same level of innocence as the child.
I think that's not so, anymore. Private property creates an atmosphere of secrecy -- what, exactly, are these patents, and which of the many bits of software I'm using are now subject to secret decisions at Red Hat?
I don't know. Not because Red Hat won't tell me -- if I ask, they probably will -- but because it's in the nature of a private thing to remain private and become more so.
Once there is proprietariness, it seems to me, it's difficult to go back. Once there is something powerful about which it is appropriate to make secret policy decisions, then secrecy in policy decisions becomes a part of policy, itself -- and secretiveness is highly addictive.
GPL protects the public right to use. Patents protect the private right to own, and to control.
It seems to me that that's an important difference, and a crucial one, to the OSS community. It's quite true that Joe Blow still owns, and always has owned, the copyright to the software that he wrote and that I use every day. But that was not the focus of GPL. The point of GPL was to put a limit on Joe Blow, so that he could no longer decide to hide away the source code for the software he had released. The point of patents is to put a limit on us.
And, whether the patent is enforced or not, and whether or not its proprietor make a promise not to enforce it, the right to enforce it is implicit in its existence .
And, suddenly, I'm having to look at Red Hat in a different way. Suddenly it's no longer a company formed to protect the rights of the many, but a company part of whose stated policy is to hold some rights to itself, and away from the community.
No matter what it says.
It isn't that I don't trust Red Hat -- I do. (At least as long as Alan stays there.) It's that that's a different kind of trust.Suddenly I'm no longer trusting a bunch of geeks who are a lot like the rest of us to hold off the Borg at the bridge. Instead, I'm trusting a corporation to keep its promise to refrain from bashing in the heads of the villagers.
Red Hat is a different animal, today, and I'm going to have to think hard about that.
Mac
Whats the big fuzz?
This is just a way to use the patent laws against itself, just as the GNU/GPL uses the Copyright laws against itself. No need to worry. (If you are going to worry, worry about the existance of software patent laws. I'd rather see Redhat have these patents then someone else like Microsoft.)
I suggest that we have a "patent day". Everyone thinks out something to patent and then approve use of their patent as long as the program is licensed under the GNU/GPL. Wouldn't that be something?
//Andreas Henriksson
However, what if Red Hat go bankrupt? One of the things that will be up for sale will be the patents that Red Hat own. What happens if Unisys(for example) buys these patents, does anyone really want to see another GIF debacle?
One of the ideas of patents is that they are not valid if there is prior art. The open source community is all about creating art (reuse not recreate) so it is by definition prior art. Instead of just having various places like gnu, freshmeat, apache or others there needs to be a deliberate attempt to create a "prior art registry". This would be both a place the patent office can check to see that indeed the patent application is just an attempt to cash in on prior art and a place people looking for software for a specific purpose can bee found. The free software foundation and others that believe such should support this and might get funding from NGO's and the UN that need cheap software for the worlds use. Once such a corpus is created then it should be much easer to show that a patent is invalid and put the onus on the enforcer to show that it was patented before registration. There will still be cases where an algorithm was published in some journal or something but they would be less and less frequent. All releases and versions would need to be held in toto with dates and names of authors. But I'll leave it to the lawyers to come up with the details.
They will not sue just as long as you write software the way THEY want you to, GPL'd so that they can grab it!
:-(
This is just as an abusive as some other companies
If defense was the primary reason, RedHat would have started a printed technical disclosure bulletin. Another reason is to have more "assets" with fuzzy values. Pretty useful to stretch over the accounting books every quarter...
Microsoft dosen't need a patent to have a monopoly. But anyone who has a patent by default has a monopoly.. thats what a patent is.
It would be foolish for any company to piss off it's consummer base by releasing falty defective software and worse to clame everybody dose it.
However both Microsoft and RedHat have done exactly that.
RedHat has made versions of it's system that are so incompatable with other Linux destros that it has rased the question of compatability between destros.
Everyone seems to be working on a solution. Everyone but RedHat.
RedHat has given Linux such a bad name recently it's been hard to look the other way.
RedHat has earned a great deal of latatude by producing a lot of software and giving money back.
But when I think of Microsoft wanabe's RedHat is on my list... just below AoL.
Unisys patented the Gif file compression method after giving it away (before it was part of the Gif standard).
The whole idea was to protect themselves from lawsutes later on. Just in case IBM desided to patent same.. (and IBM did..) and use that patent (and IBM did)
But they ran into money problems. So they started pushing for liccenses but promised not to go after this group or that. As the ecconomy got worse Unisys realised it couldn't keep those prommises.
RedHat's current CEO is prommising us he will NEVER force open sourced software to pay for the patent.
Two years later RedHat runs deeper in money problems. More scandals with falty RedHat destros. Maybe a bios mod so that no other Linux destro will work forcing the user to actually buy a new PC to switch to something else.
CEO quits and a new CEO enters.
What dose RedHat have that's worth something... It's Linux destro is so badly scanalised nobody in there right mind would use it..
What else...
Oh here... a patent...
Outside Microsoft mind you... don't need a new CEO for a change of mind.
But it's happend.. a lot.. long before Microsoft Windows ever existed.
Patent today.. calm the masses down by prommising to never explote the patent...
Then... years later change mind...
No go...
Solidify this prommis by contract.
Hand the patent over to the FSF or OSF. or just liccens it to them so that they can deside what liccenses are acceptable for this patent.
After all later on RedHat may deside that the Microsoft open liccens is acceptable or that the BSD liccens isn't.
Either I'm missing some patents assigned to them, this policy is completely vacuous, or Red Hat intends to buy/patent many things starting soon.
"Evil company X is threatening to restrict our rights! Let's all get together to stop--OOOH! SHINEY!!!" -- AC
I really wish Red Hat hadn't restricted the licensing of its patents to free software. I'd much rather see it form a defensive patent pool, as described in "mixing patent and copyright."
Regardless of its seemingly noble intentions, Red Hat is positioning itself as a patent aggressor. Licensing only to (a subset of) free software is not defensive; it's offensive.
The vibe here seems to be along the lines of "Red Hat needs to do this to defend themselves from other patent holders." But RH is going beyond that, with it's offering of free use only to certain types of software. If self-defense was the only reason for this, RH could easily grant free use to "anybody that agrees not to ever sue us for patent violation." They have not done this.
Software patents are wrong for many reasons. The work that Red Hat have put into what they've patented does not warrant granting them a monopoly on the technique for over a decade. Exploiting a misguided, fascist system to quash potential competitors is wrong.
It was wrong when Amazon did it, and it's wrong now. The fact that Redhat does free software (which 'we' like) and Amazon doesn't (which 'we' don't) doesn't make this right.
Many companies "promise" that they file for patents for defensive purposes only. Please. Maybe Red Hat is really telling the truth, but in general one should never believe what a publicly traded company promises todo. One should assume that the publicly traded company will try to maximize profits for their shareholders.
If a company truly is filing for a patent for only defensive purposes then they would donate it to an intellectual property conservancy, like The Knowledge Conservancy run out of Yale. That way a company won't be tempted to try to cash in on their IP if they have a change of heart about their "promise" or if they get bought by someone else. Hopefully we can learn something from the CDDB debacle.
From their web page RedHat states:
"... Red Hat agrees to refrain from enforcing the infringed patent against such party for such exercise"
IANAL, but doesn't this pose a problem for the validity of RedHat's patents. My understanding is that if you refrain from enforcing a patent, then that patent becomes unenforcable. When a patent suit is litigated, if the defendant can prove that a patent holder knew of a violation of their patent and did nothing about it, then the patent becomes unenforcable and the defendant doesn't have to abide by it.
So as soon as RedHat chooses to not litigate one open source project voilating their patent, it becomes unenforcable and useless.
Try "in/molnar" next time you're over at the USPTO's site when you search against the applications database. The items don't have an Asignee yet.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Tradmarks require enforcement. Patents and Copyrights do not. Now, having said that, there's some leave-way in what you can get out of someone if you knew they were infringing and did nothing about it for a handful of years- but it doesn't invalidate the patent.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
The GPL breaks down if a Patent is enforcable against it (i.e. you don't have a license to use the patented stuff...). Unless Red Hat hands us a license like TimeSys has for GPL, etc. users on the Real-Time Linux patents, it's not good at all. If there's not a license, forget ANYTHING to do with the TUX webserver enhancement.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
...even though it was worded to look like one. It's a promise, which is not the same thing as a license. A license is a binding agreement/contract, spelling out what you get if you abide by certain stipulated terms and what those terms are. All Red Hat did was say they promise to not sue open source developers over any infringements- there's no implicit or explicit statement that you can use the covered items, just that they won't pursue infringement proceedings over those uses.
The whole thing's pretty much trying to placate the Open Source and Free Software communities over what appears to be an only partly thought out, business driven decision that could cost them the real value proposition the company has- their Free Software reputation.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
RedHat ought to grant a blanket patent license to the FSF that allows the FSF to grant sublicenses to anyone they see fit.
The FSF is an organization that we all trust implicitly. After all, even the GPL contains a default "or any other version" clause that is inspired by our collective trust that the FSF will stick to its ideals in the future.
By granting the FSF such a license, RedHat preserves for itself the ability to make money by granting licenses to proprietary vendors. The FSF on the other hand, can be trusted to grant licenses to other Free Software projects as appropriate even when the licenses are not explicitly spelled out by RedHat. (Why would RedHat want to spend its money on lawyers for this purpose. Do any of us really think that the FSF would give a boost to proprietary software to hurt RedHat?)
The FSF could then also grant a patent license to software under BSD or LGPL with the proviso that that license only survives for a combined work as long as the combined work remains Free Software. This way, the BSD Free Software community is not hurt while those who want to take BSD stuff proprietary would have to negotiate a paid license from RedHat. Despite some people's paranoia, the FSF considers BSD stuff to be a full-fledged part of the Free Software community. A lot of GNU is under BSD and MIT licenses.
If Transgaming hadn't it their prime objective to basically rip-off the work of the Wine Community, this move by RedHat wouldn't have been all that neccessary.
When I read it I laughed at the joke.
When I saw the moderation I laughed again to see it modded insightful when it is obviously sarcasm.
"We all know privacy policies worth as much as the paper they're printed on."
Especially true of a website's privacy policy*
*hint to the moderators**: how much does the paper for a website privacy policy cost?
**Oh well, here goes the little karma I got, it will teach me to bite the hand that feeds me karma.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
I'm more than happy with Transgaming's product. The regular wine cannot run most of the games that Transgaming's winex can. They went specifically for a particular focus that the winehq was simply blowing off.
Transgaming and only Transgaming gave DX 8.0 compatibility to wine(x). Transgaming is also temporarily holding the code until they make back what they put into it. Perfectly fine and fair. Free everything just isn't real world.
I wanted wine almost exclusively to permit me to play the games I want to play without needing to bootup windoze. Winex gives me that for 90% of the games I am interested in. Wine NEEDED and NEEDS groups to focus on particular targets instead of the hit or miss general everything that is wine itself. Transgaming focused exlusively on games, and good for them (and we who play those games).
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
It goes like that (and it is repeated a thousand times every decade):
... end follows soon. CEO lands on all fours. Founders live in infamy. or...
... greed and superiority complex.
1. A few bright young kids have an idea
2. They start a "business" in parent's garage
3. They find enthusiastic customers same age and geekery level
4. The thing grows
5. Enter lawyers and accountants
6. Enter investment bankers
7. Enter career corporate sheisters
8. All of these new additions start to seed visions of empires in the eyes of young CEO's and CIO's
9. Enter hordes of employees
10. Employees are also same kind bright kids but they are now a "lower form of life" and slowly the founders become more and more distant and their ear s are more open to the "professional business consultants"
11. Enter IPO
12. Enter rules of coroporate behaviour, investment bankers persuade the founders to hire "experienced" and "professional" CEO and CFO. After all the shareholders expect it...
14. Enter CEO who previously ran a cement factory, shoe chain and a railway.
15. CEO immediately takes stock of the situation and: issues himself and his assistant (wife), consultants (all the nephews) stock options totalling 60% of the worth of the company (off-the books of course, as options are) and decides the company has no true assets but a bunch of vaporous ideals at its core. Fortunately he sees a way to remedy this. PATENT EVERYTHING! That's how its done.
16. Formerly idealistic founders object feebly and unconvincingly
17. Enter greedy IP lawyers18. Depending on the strenth of the product and the level of idiocy of the CEO the company either:
A. Annoys all of its customers, followed by loss of revenue and gouging in order to improve it
B. The company grows and trasmogrifies at each stage becoming more and more close to Wall Street, conducts series of mergers/acquisitions, gets bought and sold. Harvard and Yale educated CEO's come and go, senators and bankers play musical seats in the board of directors and after a while there is no resemblance to the original idea the kids had. Bah, there is a concerned effort to sanitize the company's history removing any reference to those "whacky" and "immature" ideals.
The end.
Guess what stage RedHat just reached? Face it. It is inevitabe. Human nature. That is how Capitalizm works, draws its force from the most base animal instincts
it's not redundant; it's just nice to be able to read the article if the site gets /.'d
One could easily license the patents for use where the program consists entirely of free software. As soon as you link in a proprietary byte of code, the resulting work is not covered by the permission grant. Just about any reasonable definition of free software would do, since accidentally licensing demo-ware or something should not be a problem if the patent is for defensive purposes only. It would not even be necessary to create a list of approved copyright notices.
Theoretically, this should be easier to write under patents than under copyrights, since patents restrict end use, while copyrights are only supposed to restrict a few actions, like copying and live performance.
I am not a lawyer. So, please do not use this message as legal advice.
If their intentions are good, they can always give people additional licensing choices later. Committing today to letting GPL'ed programs use their patents in perpetuity would not change that.
Yes, there's a potential for future abuse, but this is unavoidable.
Oh, it is quite avoidable. And it is quite necessary. RedHat is a corporation, and their legal responsibility is to maximize shareholder profit. Unless they make binding commitments now, that may well entail using those patents against free software in the future.