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."

Comments

MS

[davemie]

I know of lots of other companies that gave promises before and changed their minds when it suited them!

Re:MS

[Yorrike]

True, however, this isn't Microsoft, it's Redhat, and they're not a monopoly.

Redhat has competition in the OSS industry and it won't take much for anyone running Redhat to switch to Mandrake, Debian, Slackware, Suse or any of the other distros (not to mention the *BSDs)

Redhat knows that the people who run their OS are smart and more than often, open source advocates. It would be foolish to piss those people off.

Re:MS

[kinkie]

It's not just the people who use their OS, but also the people who write their OS.

Re:MS

[jmichaelg]

He was using Microsoft as an example of companies that change their mind. There are plenty more. Think Yahoo ( we won't sell your id), Hewlett Packard (The HP3000 has a long life ahead of it), Yahoo again (we know you opted out but you'll have to do it again because we didn't like it), AT&T ( yes, we sold you megabit cable access but we didn't expect you to use it so you can't), Tivo (that machine you thought you bought from us is really ours to use as we wish).

The original parent post was right on - if Redhat sees a need to change their mind, they will - their post notwithstanding. Or go even deeper and read their post with a modicum of scepticsm and you'll see plenty of wiggle adjectives that give them leeway to do as they wish.

Re:MS

[Mark Bainter]

This is true, and because of their history I'm inclined to believe that's what they intend.

Unfortunately, we have absolutely no guarantees. This is only what the redhat of today intends, and the people currently running it won't be running it forever. Some future nimrod who ends up running redhat might see things differently, or be forced to see things differently by a board of directors.

Their exclusion of some very valid licenses (eg lgpl and bsd) concerns me as well. Does this mean they /will/ go after people who use their "patents" in their lgpl/bsd licensed software?
Is this yet another attempt to scare people into using the GPL?

Re:MS

[Bouncings]

Redhat has competition in the OSS industry

You're missing the point. The benefit of Open Source is nill when it comes to software patents. If Red Hat can sue BSD because they violated a software patent, there is nothing the open source community can do to defend that.

Redhat knows that the people who run their OS are smart and more than often, open source advocates. It would be foolish to piss those people off.

First of all, they already have pissed off those people, several times. Slashdotters are quick to boycott something they wouldn't buy anyway. But if it's something we actually want, a boycott just doesn't seem like the answer. Case in point: Star Wars -- inspite of the fact that this film exists purely to fund the companies that gave us the DMCA, slashdotters went in droves to see it.

Secondly, Red Hat's income no longer comes from selling CDs to hobbiests. Take a look at their recent earnings report. $15.7 million of that $18.6 million in revenue comes from "enterprise" sales. Meaning consulting and training, mostly. Red Hat makes no secret that they intend to become some kind of "e-business player" and is trying very hard to shed its image as a hobbiest's company -- something most companies involving Linux are doing too.

Please don't dismiss this so quickly. Red Hat is changing my friend, and fast.

Good show, Redhat.

[zCyl]

Publicly stated corporate policies pledging good behavior toward intellectual property should be as commonplace as privacy policies have become.

Re:Good show, Redhat.

[Brightest Light]

Publicly stated corporate policies pledging good behavior toward intellectual property should be as commonplace as privacy policies have become.

ooooohhh, you mean like the ones that are are "subject to change without notice (read: as soon as we need the money badly enough, we'll sell your personal data) ?"

LGPL not suitable

[Tet]

some licenses are notably absent in the list of approved licences, like the LGPL.

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.

Re:LGPL not suitable

[zCyl]

My only complaint with Red Hat about this is that they haven't made it binding in perpetuity.

They're trying to achieve an open environment by using laws that have been designed to enforce a closed environment. Of course they can't make it binding in perpetuity, because the laws they're referring to are moving targets, and if patent laws change, or court interpretations of them change, Redhat may have to change its patent policy just to maintain the same good intention that it had before.

Yes, there's a potential for future abuse, but this is unavoidable. Better that Redhat not lock itself into a promise that could potentially defeat the purpose of the promise.

Meh.

[szcx]

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.

Damned if they do, damned if they don't?

[dinotrac]

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.

Apache is proprietary

[AirLace]

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.

Re:Put your patents where your mouth is

[rsidd]

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 had the same policy, it made no difference.

[Performer Guy]

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.