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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."
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
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.
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
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.
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.
They should be applauded. The GPL license enforces the honesty of their promise where the two meet in code, and to me at least it seems like they are fully aware of that and did it intentionally to protect the open source community from likely attacks.
I write code.
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.
You are correct. When you start to stoop to the level that your opponent is sitting upon, you are no different that your opponent. Politics is a good example of this, is there any real difference in the Democratic and Republican parties to someone from the outside? Very little. Don't get me wrong for those of you that are political zealots, I know that there are differences. In one case they claim that they will tax us to support people that aren't as well off as we are and to support public programs and in the other case they claim that they will tax us to improve the infrastructure so that business will increase to support us. Does this mean that RH is going to keep us from developing free software, to protect our free software?
I have started formatting my hard drives on my 4 RH boxes and am installing SuSE 8.0 on them. I had tried SuSE about 2 years ago and didn't feel that it was as polished as RH, but that seems to have changed. I don't buy the theory that we are worried about protecting you. If they were worried about protecting us, why not help provide lawyers to fight some of these bogus patents that could be defeated on prior art? Prior art has been a good defense in the past, and having prior art is almost as good as having a patent from that point of view, but isn't as crippling as a patent to the community.
I have no sig, does anyone have one to spare?
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.
In all the westerns I saw, the white hats and black hats both had guns. The white-hats were just more careful about who they shot. Betchya the Red-hats will be too.
I write code.
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
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.
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?
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
This would seem to be an apt demonstration of Newton's Third Law.
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.
Especially true of a website's privacy policy*
:)
*hint to the moderators**: how much does the paper for a website privacy policy cost?
YES! You have renewed my faith that people can catch subtle humor
When I wrote that post I actully typed a "hint:" about the paper, deleted it, retyped it, and deleted it again before submitting LOL. Including the hint myself seemed to ruin the joke.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.