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Red Hat Makes Patent Promise

Posted by michael on from the cross-our-heart dept.

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."

8 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. Good show, Redhat. by zCyl · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

  2. LGPL not suitable by Tet · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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.

    --
    "The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
    1. Re:LGPL not suitable by zCyl · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  3. Re:MS by kinkie · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    --
    /kinkie
  4. Damned if they do, damned if they don't? by dinotrac · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  5. Re:MS by jmichaelg · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  6. Re:MS by Mark+Bainter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

    --
    "No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
    --James Madison
  7. SGI had the same policy, it made no difference. by Performer+Guy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.