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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
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.
It seems to me that Red Hat (and other OSS companies) have basically two choices-- A) Patent your technologies so that others may not or B) Don't patent them and be forced to license them from those that do.
There is no gray area here. For better or worse, companies are obtaining software patents. In some cases, some of them are for stuff they had nothing to do with. You can say what you want, but the fact remains that anything Red Hat and company produce outside the realm of the standard Linux kernel is subject to being patented by someone else.
Some companies have billions in the bank ready to fight off lawsuits, Red Hat isn't one of them.
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.
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.
No, there's another answer. Red Hat wants to retain the ability to license these patents to closed-source companies, and make some money that way. Hey, what an idea, making money. Red Hat must be pretty evil to think of that. Maybe we should all go use Debian, and get Debian to pay the salaries of Alan Cox and others too.
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.
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?
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.
No other answer comes to mind?
If you were running a business, would you trust the FSF or ANYBODY else to use their patent portfolio to defend YOU in case of a hostile patent infringement suit?
This would give the FSF a lot of leverage over Red Hat that they might choose to use in the future. RMS, or his successors at the helm of the FSF, might require you to do all sorts of things that are against the interests of Red Hat as a business with this leverage.
War is nasty and requires us to have a lot of dangerous and potentially abused weapons at our disposal. Patent lawsuits are similar in this regard.
You don't criticize a country for having dangerous weapons, only for using them immorally. Wait until Red Hat abuses their position, then criticize. Until then, I think it's best to be circumspect.
If you don't agree, how do you propose that Red Hat protect themselves from patent lawsuits? Assign their patents to the FSF and hope that the FSF defends them and doesn't make any onerous demands in the meantime? Is that your only solution?