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The Linux Kernel and Software Patents
batsman writes "The Linux VM system programmers are discussing the software patents that could block further development of important features. Alan Cox brings up several SGI patents covering the techniques they were considering, and Daniel Phillips has found some patents that affect features already present in Linux. Linus Torvalds thinks they should ignore these patents and pretend they don't exist until they cause troubles. How long before kernel developers are sued for patent infringement?"
For a company which has been very Linux friendly (contributing XFS and so forth), SGI could certainly do a lot better.
If Linus has no problem violating patents, I would have no problem violating the GPL. Intellectual property is intellectual property, whether it's covered by a copyright or a patent or a trademark or whatever. If Linus intends to willfully violate someone else's IP, he should have no problem with me violating his IP.
Programmers the world over decide to ignore the GPL and pretend it doesn't exist until it causes trouble.
Way to go Linus.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
"look everyone, them there linux varmints are pirates and theives!! patent infringers!! patent infringers!!" And of course, Linux is the "respectible" free UNIX w/out the Devil on their shoulders, so obviously the BSD people must be worse then. It'll adversely affect all of the free software community and make Microsoft look "right" -- free/open software is for pirates and h4x0rZ and shouldn't be trusted w/ your business.
I thought that you could only violate a patent if you sold the resulting product for a profit. (IE the guy with that one hand typing machine a few weeks ago).
Isn't the Kernel Free?
As in Beer?
Maybe I'm completely off base here. Please let me know if I am.
We Apprentice Developers and Designers
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Any patent can be legally used for home or hobby use. The problem will lie with commercial exploitation of the patent. The developers are off the hook. Not so easy for Redhat et al.
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can't kill the beast.
In this happy to sue you world, its not long before some trouble comes up. If I remember correctly redhat engineers took verbatum a bsd driver, and someone from I think frebsd pointed out. I would be afraid of adding various code until its approve or checked by the lawyers these days, you never know if someone has alread licensed it.
1. Ignore patents.
2. If you get sued:
a. Replace the infringing code with code that does not infringe on that particular patent.
b. Sit back and watch patches back to the infringing code appear.
3. Laugh as the corps realize that they are completely ineffective.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled revolution.
-Peter
The patented parts of the kernel were deveopled in Malta, Egypt and Madagascar where no one holds said patents.
Also, kernel.org releases the SOURCE code. And it's more of a "reference implementation" or "proof of concept" than anything else. If someone actually COMPILES the kernel without first removing patented techniques, well, that's their own problem.
-... ---
Why post this on slashdot?
If anyone at SGI knew about this and wanted ignore it, now they can't because it's too widely publicised.
How long before kernel developers are sued for patent infringement?
This brings up an interesting question. Who gets sued in this kind of situation? The one who writes the code, the one who compiles it, the one who distributes it or the user? Technically, there shouldn't be anything wrong with the source code itself, since it is not a product or a device. An example is that the ISO source code is freely distributable, even though there are many patent problems. Now it's it's not the developers, who is it? Unisys seems to have tried going after GIF users (web sites), while some others seem to try differt approaches. This is one really bad thing about software patents.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
"...or you just hire a hit-man to whack the stupid git."
Is it just me, or is this very immature speach? It certainly doesn't do anything to make me respect Linus.
42 - So long and thanks for all the fish.
How long before kernel developers are sued for patent infringement?
Now that this has been posted, probably not long
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world... those who understand binary and those who don't
As usual, the average IQ of a slashdot poster is 50 right after an article gets posted. I think the people at Slashdot who reward based on who posts first to an article are idiots who greatly lower the quality of discussions of postings here.
Linus is saying that people should ignore patents, in the sense that people should come up with their own ideas independent of what other people may come up with at the same time. This way, if the patent goes to court, they can say "I invented the same thing with no knowledge of their patent"; obvious things can not hold up in court.
As the recent BT case shows, the patent courts are more reasonable than the average Slashdot loonet thinks they are.
I am not logging in; the Slashdot editors like bitchslapping people who don't hold their party line.
Just because a company holds a patent doesn't mean they have to enforce it, or plan to. If they wish they can grant Linux or the world an unlimited license to use the patented technology (which would be the friendliest approach) or they can simply ignore patent violations, which is at least neutral. (Ignoring, rather than granting license to use, is worse because it means they may change their minds at some point when the technology's already running enterprise servers throughout the world, at which point they pull a Rambus. In some ways it's worse than enforcing right away; at least if they enforce right away there's less damage to existing codebases.)
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Though..
If somebody sues you, you change the algorithm or you just hire a hit-man to whack the stupid git.
There should be a better way in putting the thought across. Being someone who is listened to whenever he opens his mouth, there should have been better words to put his idea across. After all, isnt this the same attitude that got Open Source / Linux advocates isolated from the rest of the world ? Do we need to do this again ?
Yes, Patents are stupid. Yes, the world deserves better. No, this was not his best words.
I guess he was just pissed.
Rapid Nirvana
Actually, we can, and I will.
I do not look up any patents on _principle_, because (a) it's a horrible
waste of time and (b) I don't want to know.
The fact is, technical people are better off not looking at patents. If
you don't know what they cover and where they are, you won't be knowingly
infringing on them. If somebody sues you, you change the algorithm or you
just hire a hit-man to whack the stupid git.
Linus
I tend to agree that you probably shouldn't go looking for trouble. But "just hire a hit-man to whack the stupid git." ? I had no idea Linus was so violent.
Software patents and closed file formats make it too easy for companies to reduce their competition. Some ideas are just plain obvious, and just because someone was the first to write to the patent office shouldn't mean that anyone else who wants to implement an obvious idea should require their permission. The guy who was sueing everybody for the windowing technique for solving the y2k issue comes to mind. I had thought up that idea long before I ever heard about his patent. It seemed pretty obvious to me. It's too bad more companies don't have the guts to let their software sell itself based on its quality. If Microsoft, for example, opened the Word format, they'd most likely still hold most of the office software market, and nobody could accuse them of using the formats to unfairly stifle competition. Patents are even worse, because at least file formats can possibly be reverse engineered. Removing software patents may hurt a few companies in the short run, but it would be good for consumers because the industry itself would mature at a faster rate, and companies couldn't fix prices just because nobody else has a right to sell a similar product.
Linux is a super bright guy, but ignoring patents is just handing M$, SGI, Sun, etc. very effective weapons. Where will we be when M$ files an injunction against Allan Cox keeping him from releasing any code until he can prove that he's not infringing on anyone. Corporations are VERY good at keeping people tied up in the courts.
Each country has its own patents and patent laws. Do you sue Linus in the US or Finland? Do you sue Alan in England? The actual developer who wrote the code wherever they happen to be? Do you sue all the mirrors for contributing to the infringement?
:-)
I love OSS
"The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance." -Thomas Jefferson
Whats to stop some programmer who lives in a Free country (where software patents are recognised by law as being stupid) violating said patent.
"The fact is, technical people are better off not looking at patents. If
you don't know what they cover and where they are, you won't be knowingly
infringing on them. If somebody sues you, you change the algorithm or you
just hire a hit-man to whack the stupid git.
"
very subtle, Linus. I'm not sure what you are trying to say.
Seriously though, this makes sense. People have a finite amount of time, why waste it figuring out what not to do. Sure it might cost you some time later, but probably not.
It is a much better use of time to just do your best work and then if you happen to use an algorithm or something that you find out later is patented, then just figure out what makes sense to do then.
And just because you might be using a patented algorithm doesn't mean that you have to stop or even that it will cost money and eventually the patent will expire.
Bad Idea. Very Bad Idea. Play nice or go sit in a corner.
No, the developer may be sued by the patent holder.
His freely available illegal implementation decreased the market value of the legal version, and can be held responsible from the patent publication date, not from the date he is notified of infringement.
This also assumes that the patented algorithms were released publicly before the patent was filed. Also you can't ignore a known patent infringement for many years. Like trademark infringement, you must act when you gain knowledge of infringement.
IANAL, this is my understanding of patent law in the US.
...SGI is bound to become aware of it. You think that the company that is now charging for their barely-tweaked recompile of Samba is going to ignore the chance to get a few more dollars? Er, wait. On second thought, they probably couldn't afford the lawyers at this point.
Its morally wrong to respect an immoral law.
frankly patents is going to bite the U.S. in the arse
why because simply put you dont think that there are people out their violating the GPL now ?
(e.g. Microsoft may have changed parts of linux kernel and I dont see those changes published )
people clone hardware all the time
(company did some Set top Box work did well until it sent a few to east and low and behold clones apear)
frankly all the real development will be done in china and to hell with the WIPO
(and you would think biotech is differant 150 grand and synth any protein you like sod the patents )
regards
John Jones
As a matter of principle. First, many Linux developers are not from the US, and software patents don't apply there (in many places). Second, ignoring them on a high-profile and highly respected project as the Linux kernel is an excellent way to show lawmakers how damaging and morally wrong these patents are. It is much clearer than whining and avoiding them, which has already been proven to be ineffective.
It would be great if, maybe in a year, with many businesses already depending on Linux (including many jobs), suddenly it turns out that Linux is heavily infringing on a number of software patents. What do you think would happen: would the US ban Linux from the US (it would remain legal in lots of other countries). That would really look good and be a huge catalyst for a public debate on this issue (it has failed to get the public's attention up to now).
And no matter what they try, noone can stop the volunteer developers all over the world. Only US businesses would be hit.
Why bother developing a new VM when BSD already has a perfectly fine stable VM? Does the term Not Invented Here mean anything to these people? They're setting back the state of computing by 10 years!
Help me to understand this for a second...
Let's say someone gets a patent on a method of doing something in an OS, for instance thread scheduling. I don't know anything about this "someone", their method of schedulting threads or their patent. They get a patent on say... any genetic algorithm for discovering optimal thread schedules.
In the course of trying to make my OS better, I decide to rewrite my thread scheduling to get better performance. Let's pretend that I build a genetic tester to optimize my thread scheduling.
Now I have, through the natural evolution of thought, come accross a logical proof: I can get the best scheduling algorithm from a genetic sequence. Would I be in violation of a patent just for building on my past expierences to formulate a solution to a problem? Can people patent logical conclusions?
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
.. the specific ones in question will probably have to replaced, or they are _knowingly_ infringing.
Then they can take this stand:
"We don't include code that infringes upon patents we know about, but we do not have time to check up on patents so obvious that we implemented it without knowing about the patent."
(sorry if you get this twice, I keep hitting "formkey" errors when submitting)
:), but how could somebody tell for a closed source kernel?
This topic is interesting to me. I'm a Unix kernel developer, and engineers at
my company occasionally take out patents on similar things (kernel data structures, algorithms, etc).
What I've always wondered is, how on earth are these enforced? Linux might be the easiest to spot, since its source is open and people post on slashdot whenever they violate a patent
Do large companies have engineers sitting with their attorneys, constantly analyzing the behavior of other's kernels? Seems like it would take a bit of work to undeniably prove that a given algorithm is being used, and someone with the talent to do that might be more useful in other assignments.
Well, the whole thread is kinda of interesting, if it ever goes to trial, it will be slam dunk for the side for "willful violation". I mean, they are actively talking about ignoring the patents, as if they don't exisit.
Well, IANAL, but I think Linus's whole point was that by being plum ignorant about whether or not any patents exist in a given area, then no one has a leg to stand on to say that you willfully violated their patent, whereas if you knew it existed then they could claim that you did.
The problem with software patents is that the more you look for, the more you will find; lots of basic techniques have been patented (often two or three times). If you look for and find these things, you either have to work around (very difficult or impossible in some cases), sue to invalidate the patent (expensive), or be subject to penalties for willful infringement. If you don't look, the patentholders have to slog through YOUR code looking for reasons to sue (and no willful infringement penalties). Why do their work for them?
(OK, maybe Linus wasn't right about the hit man thing. A hit man might be cheaper than an IP lawyer, but murder really IS unethical, and besides, you'd have to wipe out the whole corporation, and that gets almost as expensive as a lawsuit. But I assume Linus was speaking tongue-in-cheek there)
Both redhat and debian ship freetype packages with the bytecode intrepreter enabled.
Apparently apple doesn't think it's worth the money the court case would cost to prevent a bunch of open source hackers fron having good fonts. Although, even with the bytecode interpreter enabled, I never have fonts that look as good as the redhat 8 beta. Using the b&h or the urw TT fonts, they just look great in their beta.
hyperpoem.net
On Sun, 11 Aug 2002, Larry McVoy wrote:
>
> This issue is more complicated than you might think.
No, it's not. You miss the point.
> Big companies with
> big pockets are very nervous about being too closely associated with
> Linux because of this problem.
The point being that that is _their_ problem, and at a level that has
nothing to do with technology.
I'm saying that technical people shouldn't care. I certainly don't. The
people who _should_ care are patent attourneys etc, since they actually
get paid for it, and can better judge the matter anyway.
Everybody in the whole software industry knows that any non-trivial
program (and probably most trivial programs too, for that matter) will
infringe on _some_ patent. Ask anybody. It's apparently an accepted fact,
or at least a saying that I've heard too many times.
I just don't care. Clearly, if all significant programs infringe on
something, the issue is no longer "do we infringe", but "is it an issue"?
And that's _exactly_ why technical people shouldn't care. The "is it an
issue" is not something a technical guy can answer, since the answer
depends on totally non-technical things.
Ask your legal counsel, and I strongly suspect that if he is any good, he
will tell you the same thing. Namely that it's _his_ problem, and that
your engineers should not waste their time trying to find existing
patents.
Linus
god n. : the Supreme Being, indistinguishable from a good random number generator.
"Sigma's stealing XVID's IP!" Those sons 'a bitches!
"Linus(x) is stealing SGI's IP!" shh... I'll pretend I didn't hear you.
Isn't this the whole point of developing software for hobby purposes, without charge? This is the principle upside of giving your time away -- you don't have to stress, right?
Who will be sued? The developers are not making money, RedHat is not manufacturing a product, they are redistributing it. RedHat can get stop ordered, but can they get sued?
This hurts those who want to squeeze the maximum dollar out of the "open source" model, but now the people who think open source is a "business model" start tripping over their own feet. Maybe you should just write and sell old fashioned shrink wrapped software when you want to make money. You know, that "you can't have two masters" thing.
Actually, we can, and I will.
;)
I do not look up any patents on _principle_, because (a) it's a horrible
waste of time and (b) I don't want to know.
The fact is, technical people are better off not looking at patents. If
you don't know what they cover and where they are, you won't be knowingly
infringing on them. If somebody sues you, you change the algorithm or you
just hire a hit-man to whack the stupid git. (emphasis mine)
Quality choice of words; now not only are we evil copyright violaters, we're murderous villains as well.
Although, I must admit, my already tremendous amount of respect for Linus just went up a notch.
Assume that you are an organization ( corporate or educational) that has the source code for Microsoft OSs under the shared source program. As you go thru it you find that they have violated patents/licenses. What are your obligations as to the reporting of this to legal authorities, and if you do , then are you protected under any whistle-blower acts, or are held criminally responsible under nda or shared source license. I am really curious about this.
There is a simple solution to this, or maybe not so simple. When you submit anything to the kernel that might be patented/copyrighted/whatever, you must also submit a workaround, or a functional equvalent that is not copyrighted. It doesn't have to be very good, complete, or as fast, but it needs to work. That way, if a large corporate entity decides to sue, or get an injunction against you, there is a quick way out. Imagine if a fundamental part of the kernel needed to be removed in, oh, say, an hour. How pissed would you be if linux no longer worked, or could be downloaded for the 2 weeks it took for a team to valiantly push out a fix? I would be livid. Worse yet, if I was a CIO, I wouldn't touch linux with a 10 foot (~3.3m) pole ever again.
If there was a nearly complete workaround that could be put into place quickly, then the 'we'll ignore it until we get a piece of paper with lots of lawyers names at the top' strategy might work. I could live with a 'patch this for a 25% speed reduction coupled with a 100% lawyer reduction a lot more than a 'stop it now' for a month, and then only a 5% speed reduction. The key is to keep things working while corrections are being made.
For the trolls out there, I know you can keep using the binaries you allready have, and there will probably be MORE mirrors after a lawsuit, but I really want to keep things legal, as I am sure most readers here do. Corporations HAVE to. A good backup plan is worth more than a little grey area now and again.
-Charlie
I don't think it makes much difference in most countries if you infringe a patent deliberately or negliently (or because of ignorance).
Isn't there a clause in patent law that allows for independent discovery? If one person, unrelated to any patent, recreates the patented item without any outside aid, shouldn't that be excused?
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
It's people distributing the kernel in places where the patents are valid who could get bitten by this. It matters not where the code was written.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
A piece of the profit from what the developers charge for the Linux kernel. I think 80% of the take would loosen any patent holder's grip.
Having the respect of the generic person is very important in our society. Such respect can, for instance, win you admiring glances while you are parked at an intersection waiting for a red light. Or it can shower you with the joy of hearing murmurs of excitement as you are being seated at a restaurant.
just hire a hit-man to whack the stupid git.
Hire a hitman? No way. Assassination wants to be free!
"FDA staff reviewers expressed concern about the number of patients who were left out of the study because they died."
</joke type="acronym">
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
It is obvious that the article/message/email posted is a troll generated by a someone who gained access to Linus' account.
I do not believe that Linus would say such things, especially when we know that wacking someone can be as expensive as fighting it out in court.
The day will reveal this message to be a hoax!
This message is about as true as going to goatse.cx to see what's coming down the pipe!
Tournament Management Online &
Comment removed based on user account deletion
How about this:
1. If the kernal maintainers think that a patent is not defensible (prior-art, obviousness, etc.) then they should go ahead and violate it.
2. We use community peer pressure (no really) to force the commercial linux distributors to set up a linux patent infringement legal defense fund supported by a small fixed percentage of the purchase price of the distribution.
3. And make it clear to all the tech companies that we'll spend every penny in the fund on lawyers to attempt to overturn any patents that they try to enforce against the kernel.
IBM, SUn, Red Hat, Caldera...
Anyone with assets in the US who distributes Linux.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
I wonder if those paging algorithms are used in windows ;-)
That being said, it would be hard to argue that the improved VM code of linux lowered the selling price or sold volume of Irix.
By improving the quality of Linux's VM, it created less of an incentive for commercial renderhouses to use IRIX, and consequently SGI's hardware. Why buy an expensive SGI box when you can put together a cheap little Linux renderfarm on commodity hardware? For example, see this.
Depending on how important the patented bits of code are (and from the looks of it, they're quite important), I'd say that on the surface SGI could make quite a case that the infringement of its patents has had an appreciable affect on its bottom line.
The big hope here, clearly, is for Linux developers to go ahead and do the obvious, and if some poor fool tries to sue over his VM idea being used in Linux, then Tux's Uncle IBM will drop mention of the umpty-three bajillion silly IBM patents they're violating, and the whole thing will go away.
Bonus question: if I attempt to enforce a patent used in GPLed code, what happens? Do I lose my rights to use/distribute that GPL code? Is the copyright and GPL on that code unenforcable?
I mean, be realistic.
I think what he is meaning by that, is the fact that patents are de facto validated in court and not by the USPTO, as the latter grants nearly every stupid and insignificant patent that comes by.
:)
In fact nowadays you can't write a single line of code without a chance of having a stupid patent somewhere which forbid it ! this is just slightly exaggerated.
So when and (if) someone dare to sue a Linux hacker about some stupid patent, considering all the interests now in stack, you will probably have someone with deep pockets (or a big defensive patent portfolio, can you say IBM) who will jump to defend it.
I think this is the best strategy, as Linux is probably already infringing hundreds of patents, and nobody can review all the thousands patents that may apply every time he writes a single line of code, and this why patents are bad and impractical
Anyway experience has shown that 95% of the time, Linus always does the right thing , (well this is just bit exaggerated to, but not far from the truth)
(e.g. Microsoft may have changed parts of linux kernel and I dont see those changes published )
Umm... They don't have to release the changes unless they release the kernel binaries... So how did they violate the GPL? They didn't. Only if you distribute something you need to provide the source.
And, FYI, I am a proud member of the Canadian States of America.
A lot of the companies who are throwing around patent-infringement lawsuits seem to be in it for the money. "Duhhh", you say, but it might mean that Linux hackers not needing to be very concerned: since they don't have much money, for SGI or others to sue them would not be very profitable.
That said, anyone who makes money off of Linux (Lindows resellers, Red Hat, etc.) might find a patent infringement lawsuit on their doorsteps. One very interesting patent case that is still in progress is the Lemelson "machine vision" patent action against anyone who uses bar code scanning (i.e. your local supermarket). What's interesting about the Lemelson case is that the Lemelson Foundation sues companies that USE or SELL barcode scanners, not those that MAKE barcode scanners. The common opinion on this strategy is that they avoid the manufacturers because (1) manufacturers can afford GOOD lawyers, whereas the little guys prefer to roll over, and (2) Lemelson WANTS the manufacturing of scanners to continue, because everyone who buys a scanner is a new victim for a patent infringement action.
By the way, Lemelson patents are also an excellent example of the "submarine" strategy. Lemelson filed a very general "machine vision" patent back in 1956, but it wasn't issued then; he proceeded to "update" its claims and clauses for thirty years as the technology progressed, before finally receiving a patent with a 1956 invention priority date that was tailor-made to match the technology of the day. Boom! Everyone's an infringer!
Info on Lemelson patents
Good article on the "submarine" patent fiasco
In the long run the Linux Kernel, is probably Ok, much as the *BSD kernels are probably ok. While SGI might hold a patent, in general if one can prove that their implimentation was developed without knowledge of the or assitance from the patented stuff...its OK. Thats why we have the PC environement we have today. In general replicating function is OK, its the outright theft of code thats NOT ok. We have record in the LKML that the rmap stuff has been developed based on ideas in the *BSD kernels if I remeber correctly. I think that Puts the Linux Kernel in the clear.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
see here.
Infringement starts at publication, not notification of infringement.
Lets say I infringe on your patent today.
The USPTO publishes in 6 months, that is the date that matters. If it takes you 6 more months to notify me of my infringement is irrelevant, the patent is already published, upon it being granted I am liable for damages from the published date.
IANAL, this is my understanding.
What worse (if you want to get alarmist) is that Linus advocates using violence against patent enforcers, thereby establishing very plainly the possibility that he could cause harm.
Even though he declaims it later, how hard would it be for a well-paid lawyer to get the jury to overlook the disclaimer?
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
Incidentally, in what countries are software patents still not recognized? (i.e., "where is the future of Linux and free software development?")
How can software patents be applied in the EU when at the moment there are no such things as software patents in the EU.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
If I am not mistaken, the president cannot enact laws, only congress.
So in the extremely unlikely case that Nader ever gets elected, it will still not affect patent law.
So if we vote for Ralph Nader, it adds a few percent to what the Democrat candidate must get to win.
"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." -- Albert Einstein
It's just some companies don't publish their source code and so it's hard to tell if they are violating any!!!
You are completely exposed to this liability and to the courts, it's a clear cut as if you went and robbed someone with 10 witnesses plus video tape. What if Microsoft bought the patents, and then sued Linus? This would be a perfect way of killing off Linux as we know it.
Unless you moved yourself and the code back to Europe where I believe there are no patents on software (yet...) I believe that you MUST follow the rules for US patent law.
Actually, this might be a good case for why Europe should not adopt software patents. If Linus were to publicize the problems that he encountered because of software patents and especially American software patents, maybe that would stop the Europeans from implementing them. This is because Americans have had a leg-up on the Europeans due to the already-patented software patents, and could use all the patents they currently have to block European software development, much like Linux kernel development is being blocked by patents. Maybe this is just the thing we need!
what if the linux project DOES just ignore it. 10 years down the line, whenever SGI and whoever else decides to sue, linux (if it continues this insane growth) will be so huge, there won't be much they can do. just look at .jpg, that company recently saying they owned the rights, and .gif, compuserv (i think) has owned the rights to that forever, but they're EVERYWHERE, they can't sue everyone. keep in mind that i'm not lawyer, and i could be totally wrong, but you never know.
I don't think the question is whether
programmers will start to ignore the GPL
if Linus likes putting patented stuff in
the kernel, but rather,
Will the application of the GPL to the
Linux kernel be invalid if it contains
private intellectual property?
is why Linus is the man, and you people are just chumps.
there shouldn't be a problem. The code just documents the method of the patent which is not infringing. Private users and educational institutions should also have no problems, that's what patents are for.
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
If anybody sues over 'patent infrigements' in the kernel I'm sure IBM, which has quite an investement in Linux, will likely be more than pleased to have a nice little "lets see how many of my patents you violate" discussion with them.
As for the 'insightful' individual who equated copyright violation with patent infrigement.... gads, if you can't tell the difference between copying somebody else's work and implementing an idea which possibly might be covered by a patent, then obviously you are clueless. So let me explain it to you.
Copyright: you can't sell a copy of this work I've written-- the work belongs to me.
Patent: nobody else can use this idea because I own it.
Knuth was incredibly insightful in his warnings to the patent office regarding the problems software patents would cause. I dearly hope software patent terms are drastically shortened in the immediate future because this concept of owning algorithms is going to stifle software innovation to a creeping snail's pace.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
Slashdot frustrates the hell out of me.
It's just the same argument over and over again, why doesn't *anyone* read the post/comments before making one of their own?
It's been said over and over, copyright and patent is completely different. If you're caught using someone's patented idea you can just stop using it and nobody gets sued, voila. Stop making this into something it's not.
If so, then the target of lawsuits would be
1. linux distributors ? Red Hat, etc.
2. commercial linux users
IBM is putting big money behind Linux and OpenSource in general right? A threat to the Kernel is a threat to IBM.
I wouldn't want to go toe-to-toe in a tit-for-tat on patents with Big Blue, no siree.
I would suggest that the loosely knit "coallition" (or whatever they're called now )of Linux developers will probably not be sued personally over this. After all, many of these people are hobbyist programmers who don't program professionally; I'm going way out on a limb here. I'm suggesting that they probably don't have a lot of resources to sue for.
I think that it may be possible, if it is determined in an American court of law, that future versions of Linux infringe on patents, then the patent holders may demand that large corporations ( deep pockets ) pay royalties for the use of such intellectual property even though the software they are using ( Linux ) is supposed to be free.
It makes perfect sense to me to suppose that if company A has a patent on algorithm A', and company B uses algorithm A' without getting a license for it, company A would be completely within its legal rights to demand that company B pay them royalties for their intellectual property. Does anyone else here have any ideas on this?
The normal way for a large company to deal with these is "defensive patents". Bill Gates emails Steve Jobs and says "hey, you are infringing on 20 of my patents", Jobs replies and says "yeah, well you are infringing on at least 20 of my patents, go away" - deal done. Now IBM has more software patents than anyone else, and they have a vested interest in keeping Linux around and healthy, so perhaps they could use their patent portfolio defensively to protect against attacks on Linux or its developers.
On Mon, 12 Aug 2002, Daniel Phillips wrote:
>
> It goes on in this vein. I suggest all vm hackers have a close look at
> this. Yes, it's stupid, but we can't just ignore it.
Actually, we can, and I will.
I do not look up any patents on _principle_, because (a) it's a horrible
waste of time and (b) I don't want to know.
The fact is, technical people are better off not looking at patents. If
you don't know what they cover and where they are, you won't be knowingly
infringing on them. If somebody sues you, you change the algorithm or you just hire a hit-man to whack the stupid git.
Linus
And so... brave hit-man goes on quest for Linus....
A stupid patent Bill is lurking here...
Stupid patent Bill's windows devestates you...
You bash the stupid Bill...
Stupid bill hits you with an IP lawyer...
** YOU are STUNNED ***
** You are about to die ***
** You have no money left in the bank ***
** A small GNU comes and carries you off on its back ***
** You are dead ***
** Your soul has been sacrificed for Linus, you are reincarnated as Alan Cox's Beard mite ***
It's annoying, but it's a pretty solid and very common practice for anyone involved in software development. Dont Look At The Patents.
Patents have become such a complete minefield that if you spent time researching software patents while programming you might just as well quit the buisness. You cant develop anything beyond 'hello world' without risking running afoul of software patents. They're overly broad, they have decades of prior art, they're trivial and should never have been awarded in the first place, but they're there. And it will cost to get them overturned.
What it comes down to is that basically you have three choices. Either you dont know about them, or you know about them and violate them or you quit developing software.
And out of those choices not knowing about them is the least painful and/or dangerous one.
I don't think it makes much difference in most countries if you infringe a patent deliberately or negliently (or because of ignorance).
Actually it does. In the US if you *willfully* infringe, you are liable for treble damages from the moment you first knew of the patent. If you did know of the patent, you are obly liable form the moment you found out about the patent.
Once most people find out about a potential infringement, they will obtain a noninfringement opinion from a law firm. This way they can rely on the law firm's opinon that they dont infringe until a court says otherwise.
SGI must have done this in the late 80s or early 90s. Haven't they expired.
And his post is right strategically. If you don't know about it, you're not copying it, then you're doing "clean room" development, which I recall several companies doing to bypass active patents.
Hey, I'm just your average shit and piss factory.
Legally, a grant of patent by the PTO gives a presumption that the patent is valid. We know that this is dumb, given PTO actions, but it *is* the law.
The Linux problem is only the tip of the iceberg. It is true what you say that you can hardly write a single line of code without violating a patent. This is going to have much bigger impact on most slashdotters than all the stupid DMCA and other anticopying things put together!
As a software professional, I know that my it won't be long before I will have to either work for a big company (that can cross license patents) or quit. Fortunately, by then I will probably be able to retire, as I am an OF.
The only good weather is bad weather.
If Linus (et al) are publishing source code, isn't this code protected by the first amendment no matter what patent law says? I mean, by sending out the source code, aren't they simply giving a description of *how* a patented thing works, not an implementation of that thing actually working? And since the patent requires that the patented thing be fully described, isn't source code simply a different way of saying something that is already public knowledge?
Couldn't a developer who is being sued for patent infringement simply say, "I'm just exercising first amendments rights.. and besides I'm not saying anything more than you've already said in your patent filing. I'm just saying it in a different language than you."
?
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
Has anyone else noticed the Microsoft Visual Studio .NET adds popping up on the patent discussion?
/.
I found this quite amusing for
Or maybe a good one.
:p
You see, if Linus had suggested we not hire hit-men, and just whack stupid gits ourselves, then we'd be thieves and murders.
And anal linguists would breath a sigh of relief - for we truly would be 'pirates'.
ARR!
is one of the defining characteristics of a valid patent.
if someone, or several someones, without knowledge of said patent, come up with the same solution to the same problem, then it clearly fails the non-obvious test, and as such is not a valid patent.
seems like these patents would get thrown out on that basis.
The difference between Theory and Practice is greater in Practice than in Theory.
While source code may be a gray area, distributing working binaries implementing a patented mechanism is a clear violation. So the easiest target would be the distros -- Red Hat, Mandrake, Debian, etc. And really, this is all they'd need to go after. If the Linux kernel has major features that none of the major distributions are legally allowed to distribute, it will seriously impede things -- either the Linux kernel team will have to back out those features, or the distributions will have to back them out themselves, leading to every distribution having its own heavily-customized kernel, at the expense of lots of wasted development effort.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Very good. As of now I am no longer recognizing the GPL. I'll pretend it doesn't exist until it causes trouble.
You can't have it both ways. If you want others to follow your rules, you have to follow them too.
It should be noted that Mrs. Torvalds is a karate champion (a fact he frequently trumpets in his autobiography). This may be more than just idle talk from Mr. Torvalds.
evanchik.net
IANAL, but a friend is, and she told me that in a scenario where it can be shown that you were aware you were infringing on patents and chose to ignore it, that you are liable for triple the damages that you'd be responsible for if you honestly didn't know about the infringement.
The fact that Linus knows about a possible infringement, and is choosing not to research to determine if it violates, and that fact is now archived and available to discovery, might make him personally liable.
Given that SGI is a very ACTIVE contributor to the Linux kernel development, I would suspect that SGI patented these ideas in self defense, and will grant license to use them in the Linux kernel. It's probably more a case of "hey, this is a good idea - let's make sure certain parties don't steal it..."
www.eFax.com are spammers
Not that anyone here really cares about reality, but... The avg cost of taking a patent infringement suit to trial is $2 million PER SIDE. And at trial 1/3 of patents are held to be invalid by the jury/judge. When push comes to shove a patent holder has to know that he/she will be able to recoup this money. And has to make sure the risk of an invalid patent is worth it.
Too lazy to find the hyperlink, but the cite is:
Judges, Juries & Patent Cases: An Empirical Peek Inside the Black Box, 98 Mich. L. Rev. 365 (2000), reprinted at 11 Fed. Cir. B.J. 209 (2001)by Kim Moore
The solution? DESIGN AROUND! Every patent has a limited scope. There are numerous ways of achieving the same result in non-infringing ways for most functionality. There are relatively few patents that "occupy the field" for important functionality. Get competent legal advice for your design-around efforts.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
No, it says that by as a matter of principle never checking for patent infringement for solutions you've come up with independently, you are protecting yourself from the possible charge of infringement. This is really a case where ignorance is, if not bliss, the basis of a good case against a bad patent.
This statement is just not true. You don't have to know about a patent to violate it. Copyright is different - you DO have to know about a copyrighted material to infringe, and often demonstrating an infringer knew of the material is critical in court.
I always find it amusing when /. posts stuff that involves legal questions. I am a lawyer, and though I don't practice intellectual property law, I know enough about it to know what I don't know. Apparently, the vast majority of the posters here not so lucky. Certainly, there's value in discussing what the law *should* be, but how useful is that when you don't know what the law is now?
Let's turn this around -- if you go to a board for lawyers, would you take any programming advice you found there seriously? I'm not talking about posts that discuss legal issues relating to coding, I'm talking about posts that assert programming expertise and that advocate a particlar course of action...
Programming well is difficult. Good programmers are generally smart (I'm excluding "rain man" types of individuals, since they are the exception, not the rule). Just because you're smart, however, doesn't mean you're an expert in other fields besides your own, regardless of whether you respect that field of endeavor or not.
Laugh. It's funny.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
No - he's not saying that he doesn't *read* patents, but rather that as a matter of policy he doesn't bother to check whether patents even may *exist*. He's not talking about ignoring known patents, but rather about not putting himself in a position where it could be claimed that he had.
Is it just me or is it everytime patent law/copyright law/IP law becomes an active topic on this forum, there are numerous interpretations of who is liable and to what degree? I have seens posts ranging from the linux developers getting sued to commercial developers getting sued to it being of no consequence to anyone.
The fact is, the same way judges and law makers don't understand technology appropriately, this community doesn't take the time to properly understand the legal aspects of what we do. The biggest risk to FS/OSS is not that it is being legally challenged, it's that we as a community don't know how to defend ourselves. While the attitude that "I do this because I want to, not because I have to" may produce some wonderful projects, it's not necessarily enough to ensure the safety and continuation of those projects.
No legal entity can ever prevent the development of FS/OSS. But unless we take up the attitude that understanding the law is almost as important as understanding how to code...well, then the revolution will not be televised.
"Watch your cornhole, bud."
First Linus tells us that developers should do what they want and ignore users, now he pops off with this gem. I'm beginning to think Linus is a cyborg agent run from Redmond....
There are so many bullshit patents out there that its impossible to write a program without running into them.
Programmers would never get anything done if they worried about the billion possible patent issues before writing code. They'd spend more time reading through the annals of patents than coding.
Deal with the situation when it arises. There is no "willful patent violation". That's pure nonsense. Most patent issues come up because programmers write something off the top of their head that happens to bring up patent issues. They didn't go and look for a patent dealing with the problem their facing and then just use that. Rather, they solved the problem and then realized that someone owned a patent on it. I see nothing what-so-ever wrong with this.
Furthermore, patent owners aren't likely to waste time suing the FSF and Linux developers for patent infringement. They only sue targets with large pockets who could be profitable to sue.
This is a prime example of why patents are so assinite. They are so broad that people violate them as a matter of course just by normal programming. For many of the solutions you think of to a problem, there's a patent out there. There's probably a patent on "hello world" with some assinite asshole behind it who's trying to sue every college in the US for infringing on his patent.
Besides, by publicly talking about parts of Linux which could infringe upon patents, one only draws the attention of greedy patent owners, who'll try to find a Linux vendor to sue.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Funny, the Constitution says (Art. I, Sect. 8)
There is nothing there that says the "discovery" needs to be a machine and not an algorithm.Thomas Jefferson thought patents should be just for machines, but he was not the king of the U.S., and others thought differently. The Patent Act of 1793 states that the inventor of
is entitled to a patent. Note that "arts," not just machines, are entitled to patents. The 1952 Patent Act revised this to read,Again, not just machines, but processes were elegible according to the letter of the law to be patented. Algorithms and business plans seem to me to be processes and hence, are not automatically excluded from the wording of the historical patent laws.
when it's easier to go after a corporation that choses to install Linux, over say, a competing MS product? This gives MS (and others) a way to fight Linux w/o taking it on on its merits as an OS. A patent claim would be enough to convince companies to avoid Linux simply to avoid a potential lawsuit. What company wants to waste time and money in a lawsuit, when they can simply license an existing product - something they may have to do anyway, if they would lose a patent suit.
Business, in the end, is about winning and losing - any doubt MS would use patents to hurt Linux?
OTH, IBM, with its embracing Linux, has the resources to fight MA as well as a stable of patents to use as weapons (everybody, everywhere, is probably using an IBM patent without a license). That would make an interetsing marketing ploy - "Why yes, you can buy Linux from redhat, since they use the same source as us, be sure to ask if they have the resources to fight a patent suit. bTW, here's our number in case you decide to go with us..."
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
By not knowing whether any given algorithm or method has been patented (and chances are most any real project has some 'infringing' methods) you not only protect yourself against accusations of willful violations, and against negligence for failing to find *all* violations, but you also weaken the patent itself, since by *policy* you didn't refer to the original claim and thus definitely came up with your solution by yourself.
Linus's remark "kill the git" will harm Linux, *nix, Free/Open source and the like, more than Microsoft or any Microsoft has done or will do.
You would have thought, that Linus, being the public figure of a movement trying to get credibility and market share, that he is, would have chosen his words more carefuly. Sure, I bet Gates and everybody else had had similar reactions to potential problems and they were expressed privately. Not in public.
*Sigh*, yes people are that stupid. And that refers to both Linus and the people who are going to cry wolf about his comments...
/. Where the truth
i dont want the perfect linux world that it is now to change, i feel so helpless and innocent!
"They're setting back the state of computing by 10 years!"
Like Microsoft, and unlike Apple.
This is the stuff that gets our community looked down upon. We have to acknowledge certain undeniable facts:
1 - Windows owns the desktop market.
2 - The US governmnet will patent anything.
3 - People are stupid, usually.
We must deal with these problems head-on. Avoiding them and making inflammatory statements does no good whatsoever.
I think his meaning was more that lets not look for trouble.
If one is violated, deal with it if the owners complain.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Can something you give away for free, as a literary work (i.e. source code) infringe a patent? There's no device, there's no product, there's no sale. There's just a literary work, which as I understand it is protected anyway under your first ammendment.
I think there must be at least plenty of room for very considerable legal doubt and manouvreing in there. Does anyone really know?
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
While I respect your opinion, I have to flatly disagree and ask what it is you're smoking.
Patents on hyperlinks? Patents the parent poster mentioned? Patents on chat bots. Come on -- all it would take is one guy with a BS in comp. sci. and 5 minutes with Google to evaluate any of those.
This is the government we're talking about here. If any 24 year old comp. sci. major can figure that out, shouldn't we expect the same of a government body which regulates patents that result in high dollar lawsuits?
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
I'm not a lawyer, but my assumption is that
patents only become infringed if those ideas are
used in commercial software, which Linux is not.
Using patented algorithms in Linux is just like
using patented algorithms in some code you wrote
up at home. If anything, companies such as RedHat
are infringing on the patent, but even that's iffy.
What's the obvious thing to do here? Ignore the problem. I'm absolutely serious.
Either you ignore the patents or you stop coding. There is no other solution. You can't be a patent lawyer and a coder at the same time. You don't have enough time to do both. And unless you're a patent lawyer, you will never reasonably know that you haven't infringed on something.
I strongly suspect, to the point of certain belief, that 99% of the patents in question are bogus and that Linus and Co. would win a court case. But again, there's not enough time in the world to both go to court and to code. Of the remaining 1%, you don't know which ones they are. The only way to avoid them is to remove all suspect code. You can't simply recode it in another algorithm, because that other algorithm may be patented as well. So you remove the code and are left with nothing more than a README file.
There are times when you must ignore the law of man and obey the law of God. And the law of God says that you only have 24 hours in a day. If you're going to be a coder, you have to ignore patents.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
I am neither a patent lawyer nor a programmer, but I have obtained several patents for my company. It has always been my understanding that patent violation only occurs when one uses the patented technology commercially. For example, if a widget is patented (but not copyrighted!!!), somebody can make their own and use it in their own lab/office/home, and even make multiple copies and give them away to their friends, without getting a license or paying royalties. They just can't *sell* the widgets, or *sell* items that use the widgets as components. That seems to make the situation different for Linux and other open source software than for run of the mill proprietary software. Linux is given away for free. Isn't it true that the companies that are "selling" Linux aren't really selling Linux at all, they are just selling packaging, manuals, and technical support? If that is the case wouldn't they be safe from lawsuits? Or does the fact that they are making a profit indirectly from patented algorithms make them liable? What about companies that are *using* Linux for things like running the servers for their online business. They are using patented algorithms in a profit making activity, even if they are not selling it, so would they be liable for violating someone's patent? Are there any patent lawyers on this thread who know the answers to this?
Yeah, just look at copyrighted music and the RIAA. They can't sue everyone either, but they can introduce laws to make new technology illegal!
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
"Screw that. Write the code, let the lawyers sort it out later. Most of these patents are shit anyway. Now that IBM needs linux to make money, I'm sure if someone comes forward with a patent on an algorithm, I'm sure they could take it to court and kill the patent."
There's one problem with depending on "Big Daddy" corps. to defend the OSS movement. Remember the same big corps. depend on patents to make money and for defense. Why would a company undermine themselves for the sake of OSS?
Linus' approach makes a lot of sense. In the case of patents (not copyrights) it's the patent owner's job to defend its IP, you are not required to take steps to avoid infringing on patents you're unaware of.
Ignorance is bliss......
for you asseration that patent holders can't ignore infringement.
Patents are NOT trademark like.
In some legal senses trademarks are not owned. One merely retains the *temporary* right to associate one's business with a particular mark. That right is maintained only so long as in the opinion of the *public* that business is uniquely identified with the mark. That's very important. It is the *public* that determines the validity of a mark. I cases where a mark is called into question in the courts the court only rules whether or not a particular mark uniquely identifies a business in the *public* mind. He does NOT assign *ownership,* only the rights for USE. One *registers* one's use of a mark to show that it was in use by you at a particular time. One does not have *title* to it. Thus for a mark to remain current the courts have ruled that one must defend it's association with one's business vigorously and a mark abandoned becomes once again available or even in the public domain.
A patent is completely different. It is considered true property, like your house, and like your house you can allow people to use it as you will, even to the point of ignoring neighbor's children using it as if it were their own while 'capriciously and discriminatorially' prosecuting another neighbor for trespass. One is given *title* to a patent, just as one is given title to a house, and many of the same legal principles apply. Evidence of this is as near as the headlines, as nearly every day some company discovers they own title to some patent that they didn't even know they had and begins enforcing it, often times against only one or two specific 'people' while continuing to allow all others to freely ignore it.
Kind of like allowing one neighbor to use your lawnmower without asking. It doesn't cease to be your property and you retain the right to, at any time, deny him it's use, or to prosecute a burgler for stealing it.
All perfectly proper, legal, and within the general philosophical framework that governs all property law.
Chances are that like most patents recently filed the ones in question are junk. The best move is probably to form the Linux Expeditionary Legal Team - LELT? - to proactively get these patents derecognized.
I'd appreciate it if people would actually read my post, follow the links to the patents, and see if they agree with me that SGI is essentially claiming to own the whole concept of reverse mapping. (Reverse mapping is where each physical page of memory has a list of pointers back to the page table entries that point to it.)
Surely, around the time SGI applied for this patent, the technique was already in widespread use. Details anybody?
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
no.
Actually I agree with you ...
...
Linus read the email and in it was a discription of the IP that is being broken. Then he goes on to say he doesn't look them up on principle
Thats all well and good but there is proof that he does indeed know about the infrindgement and basically doesn't care.
I don't disagree with him but to turn a blind eye after you've seen something isn't going to save you....
All these years and still no stable vm which can handle load. All along, linux has been unstable under load, despite all the false fanatic propaganda about how stable linux is. Now the truth comes out. Soon, people will realize how bad and unsafe ext2fs is too, hence the need for ext3fs. What a waste of human effort on such a crappy os
Developer: (click-click), "#!/usr/bin/python"
Paper Clip: "Hi! It appears as if you are violating a patent! Would you like to:
Of course that would be violating a patent too
This attitude about intellectual property is exactly what is keeping Linux and other open source tools out of major corporations. If open source is ever going to be mainstream in the corporate world, the patent process and rights will have to be recognized and some sort of indemnification provided. Otherwise the legal departments will nix any use of tools that leave the corporation as the "deep pockets" in a law suit.
You have to come to an agreement with the patent owner!
If he doesn't want to come to an agreement, you post their contact info on Slashdot so they can be driven crazy by anti-patent nazis.
Software patents are so bad that even Bill Gates and M$ don't like them.
In "The Future of Ideas," Lessig quotes Gates as saying something like, "had software patents had the scope 20 years ago that they had today, many fundamental software technologies would not have been developed".
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Here:3 7.shtml ?tid=117
http://slashdot.org/articles/02/08/22/1932
Here's an easy (if somewhat evil) solution:
Amend the GPL to add a blacklist; individuals, companies, or organizations that are not allowed to use GPL'd software in any form. As part of the accepting the GPL, you'd have to committ to cease use and destroy all copies of said software upon being notified that you were added to the blacklist.
Then blacklist any company that brings patent infringement suits against (or even sends a cease and desist to) open source developers of distributors , and remove them from the blacklist only when they grant all GPL'd software a license to the patent in question.
Just *how* many copies of Linux do you think are in use somewhere in SGI? How about GCC? How about...
Cheers
-b
But you do have to know about it to be willfully infringing, which means they can't hit you as hard. In fact, I think mostly all they can do in that case is tell you to stop, though I'm not sure. If you don't stop, or in some way already know you're infringing on the patent, THEN they can stick it to you, but not until then. Of course I could be totally wrong.
The only reason to keep them is fear of change. Throw out the patents and simply stop people from outright copying code, which copyright handles nicely (and without needing any DMCA crapulence). When patent and copyright merged into "IP", everything started going downhill.
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
I see that Linus has adopt the thinking, or I should say 'feeling' that has made Enron popular in the media.
If somebody sues you, you change the algorithm or you just hire a hit-man to whack the stupid git.
You go, Linus! Teach 'em who's boss! Send Guido and Boris to have a discussion with the patent holder's kneecaps!
Personally I would argue that if we were unaware of the patent (See point 1) and came up with the idea on our own, it must be blatantly obvious. Not that I would want to argue that in court...
I've got Deep Dish in Moscow; it's great.
Slashdot, come for the goatse, stay for the trolls.
Agreed. Right now patent examiners are paid by how many patents they approve. I think that's a great motivater for management, but they should be fined/punished for every patent that gets overturned.
In short, create a Karma system for the patent office and tie bonus/raises to it.
SGI must have done this in the late 80s or early 90s. Haven't they expired.
Utility patents granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office last for twenty years. Patents on a device that controls access to a copyrighted work fall under copyright law, rather than patent law, and last for the life of the inventor plus 70 years.
Patents are subject to various limited extensions if extension is necessary to get regulatory approval from the FDA or some other agency before selling the product.
If you don't know about it
Then you're still liable for injunction and damages in a patent infringement case. You're just not liable for triple damages and attorney's fees.
Will I retire or break 10K?
If you use Linux then you should not be worried about the Linux developers using your IP or a derivative of it.
We're all sharing here remember? Stone soup ya know?
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
Here's how it works: if you read a patent and decide it doesn't apply, and then you get sued and lose, your liability automatically triples because you violated it flagrantly. If you didn't read it, the violation was incidental. Many big companies have policies forbidding their engineering staff from reading patents, for just that reason.
(Those of you who notice a similarity with the Catholic notion of mortal and venal sins may feel smug.)
As a software professional, I know that my it won't be long before I will have to either work for a big company (that can cross license patents) or quit.
Not really. People would have to aggressively disassemble code to figure out if it constituted a violation. And yet most source code is in house, private, locked up, and not subject to scrutiny.
C//
C'mon..
Ever read his mails? He was just joking, unfortunately his humor seems to be too harsh for some half-wits here..
V.
Something like this would make an excellent test case.
If IP is to be treated as real property, a the MPAA, RIAA, and SPA, etc., all want, then I can establish a Prescriptive Lien through Adverse Use, now can't I? It's a fundamental Common Law principle.
Because I parked my car in front of your house for years, and you didn't stop me, I now have a *right* to park my car in front of your house.
Because I used your VM algorithm in my software for years, and you didn't stop mem I now have a *right* to use your VM algorithm in my software.
Bob: "What's that big ``#if 0'' block?"
Tom: "Oh, that's package XXX, which makes my code a derivative work which grandfathers it under the prescriptive lien package XXX has for use of patent QRS. Pretty cool, huh?"
-- Terry
IANAL, but in Canada there is a legal idea called willful blindness which makes willfully denying yourself information that would reveal to you whether or not what you're doing is legal to be just as bad as knowing what you're doing is illegal. The establishment of willful blindness essentially provides the proper mens rea to convict someone of the crime in question. So it seems that Linus' strategy of 'see no evil' is a poor one from a legal standpoint.
?-|||-----x<*))))><
A method of introducing those starting to learn a computer programming language or method to the basic constructs and syntax of said language or method by causing said learner to write, compile and run a simplistic but functionally complete program that outputs to a text console the message "Hello, World!"
That should just about cover the last known sanctuary of freedom in programming. I'd probably get the patent too.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
did you know that in not so distant future farmers in europe will have to pay for the seed of their crops that are patented by pharmaceudical industry every year, and for every little seed. if they _don't_ buy those crops, they will never be given access too it again.
go free mindware! go! fight the patent pedantry and slavery of the next century!
That's why we should all release any questionable code anonymously. Just uploade it a few places from your local internet cafe and let the net do the rest. If there's no target for the suits, the patent becomes uninforcable, just like trying to sue everyone who downloads an copyrighted MP3. Free the Information, Man!
But in a court of law your defense would be that you are not a patent attorney, and that it really takes a patent attorney to assess infringement. And, this actually is standard practice in patent law. So, practically, there is no such thing as willful infringement until the patent licensor sends you a note telling you that you are infringing and that you should stop.
Besides, that is general practice anyway. You patent something, then develop a working model. Lots of people copy it once it is working, and THEN the patent is granted, and then you let them know it was patented and they have to stop or license.
Then, if you fail to stop, and you lose in court, you are gonna get reamed.
How in earth this PoS get modded up to 5!?
This is utter crap, the knowledge of patents requires that the owner of the patent has specifically warned you about your infrigment or you can otherwise proof that you had the specific knowledge. The mere fact that you have stated somethere that you do not follow the patent databases most certainly does not cause this. Not in EU, not in USA. IMA(IP)L
V.
Doh.
SGI doesn't have to defend its patents, this is not a trademark-case. As other writers in this tread have already pointed out, SGI has been very helpful to the kernel-development even it has in practice hurted their busines.
V.
That's the evil of patents. Anyone who gets to patent idea first, will own a piece of your brain (and anybody else's). If you have an idea, or if you're going to have an idea sometime in the future, chances are somebody already owns it. And by that they own your brain. Because it's an idea in your mind and you'll never get rid of it.
Jean-Loup Gailly, the author of gzip, tried to be both. He writes:
I have probably spent more time studying data compression patents than actually implementing data compression algorithms. I maintain a list of several hundred patents on lossless data compression algorithms, and I made sure that gzip isn't covered by any of them. In particular, the --fast option of gzip is not as fast it could, precisely to avoid a patented technique.
(from the gzip faq)
He also notes that the US patent office not only accepts "obvious" patents, but also obviously wrong patents -- see his analysis of two complete non-sense patents on data compression.
What you seem to be saying, though, and correctly, that if you legally (copyright-wise) copy someone's idea into your product you still infringe on someone's patent if the original code did.
VKh
Can some body tell me what kind of simple code would be infringing a patent?
...
FFourier Transform?
Quick Sort?
Bubble sort????
A example, please?
I have a different idea about this patent issue. Suppose that a new version of Linux is published which becomes the subject of a patent lawsuit. Now suppose that the kernel developers admit that they willfully ignored the patents in violation of the law. Suppose further, that the court awards civil damages against the kernel developers to the companies that own the patents.
It is not unimaginable to me that in such a situation, since the company still owns the rights to part of Linux ( something that is supposed to be free ), they could force corporations who use Linux for profit on a large scale to pay them royalties for the use of their intellectual property. I would imagine that such royalties would be far greater than what they could ever force the kernel developers to pay to them.
Could this happen, or is this far-fetched?
When thinking about the effect of this discussion think ~distributors~. If distributing the linux kernel is contributing to patent infringement then distributors will vanish. The contributory and vicarious copyright infringement that sunk Napster was imported from patent law after all.
...needs to look at the European software patent horror gallery. Scary stuff.
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts...
When the system hinders, rather than promotes, progress, something is wrong.
So, even according to the Constitution, the system is clearly broken, and needs to be fixed. The simplest and most obvious way to fix it is to change the policy back again, and disallow software patents.
Poor Linux VM Developers, now it's too late too ignore it and pretend a particular patent does not exists.
You have talked about it, you have made searches on it...and now you are being watched.
Too late.
The other problem is twenty years ago you could not get a patent on software.
Almost. The case allowing software to be patented in the USA was in 1981. Twenty years ago was August 1982.
Will I retire or break 10K?
If someone writes a language from raw binary or from a language they already have a patent on then software patents make sence. How can you create an algorithm out of someone elses building blocks and call it your own?
Whats next, Patents on lego structures?
As long as the input, manipulation, or output phase differs from the patented process, the patent shouldn't apply. Of course other variables come into play too.
Quite often one word in a patent can make a huge difference to what it covers and how it applies. Look at the recent BT case -- the court's decision is very insightful.
Forge on ahead with some ingenuity to produce other technologies and ways of doing things in the Linux kernel. Then nobody in the future can claim patents on it because it is prior art.
Amazon's one-click shopping, and pop-under browser window ads, are both patented. And the patent holder for the pop-under ads wasn't even a browser maker.
Well, unfortunately humor does not come across in email because we don't have the social context and physical cues that are present in the real world.
Hey, you know he's kidding. I know he's kidding (well, actually, I don't give a shit - anything he does is his problem). But with that message in the hands of the right lawyer, how will a jury know he's kidding?
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
yes, i agree.
Linus's policy not to check for patents on things he independently develops is correct.
however, given that a patent has been brought to his attention in this case, he now needs to deal with it, even though it sounds like it is a bogus patent. for example, someone should find and take note of prior art somewhere.
First of all, let me say this.
No one will ever be able to rid the world of Linux simply by declaring it illegal. There are far too many copies and they are virtually untraceable. Not to mention that it would push the Internet back 10 years in functionality (maybe not 10, but several) making many government web sites unusable. FYI, the federal government DOES use Linux for much of their Internet presence. It would behoove them to support Linux, not make stupid decisions that would kill it.
That said, IANAL, but I'd be willing to bet that most software patents are contrary to patent law. Many of you may have heard of prior art, but in addition to that, a patent can not (well, with the recent state of the USPTO, more like SHOULD not) be obtained on anything that would be derived be a normal thought/research process. This covers many software patents because many of them could be derived by any average programmer during the normal course of software development.
What needs to happen is for a company (or individual) with enough monetary might to take one of these patens into court and set a precedent for all such patents, essentially nullifying every last one of them.
Unfortunately, it's been my personal experience with the LKML group, and it seems to me, that most on that list (and I include major kernel and module contributors) would rather sit back and bitch about the various legal problems posed by laws in various countries, let Linux development become more and more hampered, and hope that someone else will take up the cause and bail them out.
At least a few like Alan and Linus seem to care enough to try and do something. People like me just get booted from the list without warning for trying.
PGA
The Wright Brothers were precisely the amateurs you mention. They did patent their invention and spent the next ten years fighting off other competing companies for exclusive rights to this body of work. They prevailed in court and yet completely failed to prevent rivals such as Glenn Curtiss from building airplanes. Moreover, they wasted years of useful energy and a tremendous fortune in the process. Most importantly, Curtiss' wing design was superior to theirs, and the movable surfaces which replaced the Wrights wing-warping system is the basis for the ailerons of virtually all aircraft built since.
-Hope
Damn it. I was distracted so much by my kids, that I let an annoying grammaticle error get by me, not to mention a spelling error (and I'm wondering how the spell checker missed it!). I hate that! :)
PGA
There was an exhibit recently at the college were the local lug meets. It had a bunch of patent prototype model copies with information about each one. Strange not a single software patent was displayed there.
prisoner# msce18xxxxx. Currently planning my escape.
Linus Torvalds thinks they should ignore these patents and pretend they don't exist until they cause troubles
does linus think he's god? that he's above patent laws? WoW! I can't wait till he's slapped with a billion dollar lawsuit.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
You know, I really don't like the laws that say I have to pay taxes. I think I'm not going to.
And you know, those silly rules about not stealing someone's car... I don't agree with them either, think I'll go get myself a Jag.
Come to think of it, my idiot neighbor has been getting on my nerves, and that dumb, anti-social law forbidding murder... I disagree with that too. Think I'll ignore it until someone bitches and get rid of my neighbor.
This is the fucking moron so many of you admire, look up to and emulate the world over?
Anyone think this is just civil disobedience? No, it's not. Well, I take that back... it is until someone sues him.
Just because you don't agree with a law doesn't mean you get to ignore it (even if you intend to comply when someone calls you on it). You get to try and get the law revoked, in fact, it's your civil duty to do so if the laws are unfair and unjust. But saying in a public forum that you are going to ignore laws just because you think they are stupid. Buddy, it's not the law that's stupid, it's you!
(I don't know this, but is Linus a US citizen at this point? This makes some difference of course, ignoring another country's laws is somewhat less dumb than ignoring your own country's laws, but still).
(Also, I'm assuming Linus really did post that message. Part of me believes he didn't, and if not than obviously you can ignore everything I've said! But if he DID write it, let me close by saying LINUS IS A MAJOR FUCKING ASSHOLE AND I'LL LAUGH MY ASS OFF IF HE WINDS UP ROTING IN A JAIL CELL SOMEWHERE, OR IF ANYONE STUPID ENOUGH TO FOLLOW HIS LEAD ENDS UP ROTING IN A JAIL CELL. See, that's the problem with raising a human being to the level of minor deity, which is what so many of you seem to do with him... he's still human, which translated to flawed in any language).
If a pion (n-) collides with a proton in the woods & noone is there to hear it, does lamdba decay into the source pa
The advice from Linus Torvalds is correct. You're best bet is to ignore U.S. patents unless a patent owner notifies you about the patent and accuses you of infringement -- in which case you should contact a patent lawyer right away.
If someone sues you for patent infringment, you are usually better off if you have never seen the patent.
With a software patent, the claims are often written in such a way that the patent owner would be suing you for "indirect infringement" -- claiming that you are encouraging others to infringe the patent when they use your code. Under U.S. law, to be liable for "indirect infringment," you must first have "knowledge" of the patent.
Also, if you have read the patent and then develop the code, the patent owner is in a better position to claim that you "copied" the invention, making it more likely that you would be found a willful infringer and also more likely that the patent would be found valid (nonobvious).
If you are worried that a company is going to sue you for patent infringement, then you should not be reading that company's patents. If the company sends you a letter notifying you about a patent, contact a patent lawyer.
Wait a second... I put ``slashdot'' in the subject line and it gets past the spam filter?!?
There are reasons why democracy does not work nearly as well as capitalism.
-- David D. Friedman
As a very very amatuer developer, I can only speak for the quality of Linux as a low-wattage geek; but I believe that the robustness of Linux in general and of the Open Source community in general has a lot to do with people like Linus and particularly their _irreverence_ toward the established order of things.
So I think his off-the-cuff comment is the most helpful one in this discussion: You are probably going to have a better product in the long run if you do the work yourself and stay largely ignorant of patents. Ignoranced IS some defense, at least in this situation.
And a better product is what we're all after, yes? Isn't that what the movement is about? Something that all of us own, that we are proud of and that no faceless behemoth can claim?
- Pat
- - 'Go ahead, make my tea.' - Doow Tsae T'nilc -
I do believe that Linus' point just might be that a patent is supposedly for a "non-obvious" idea. If you or he can come up with an idea without benefit of digging it out of someone else's patent, the idea can not have been as obscure and "original" as the jackass that patented the idea thought, or the over-worked, under endowed patent office clerk assumed. The fact that some mediocre mind has a brain cramp and actually has an idea, doesn't mean that many others, more nimble minded had not already devised,would not,or could not devise the self-same idea independently at need, because to them it was and always had been and would always be obvious. Far too many of the mentally lame file patents these days shrilly proclaiming their invention of the obvious. Worse, they turn about and sell their patents to the unscrupulous, who then display all the worst behaviour of parasites.
In fact, I suspect that many creative minds don't bother patenting ideas, while those who do, do so because of the fear that they may never again experience the rare event of a creative thought.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
Linus has PART of the right idea. You are making a better OS, or at least a viable alternative to Microsoft's 800LB gorilla. I propose that not only do you ignore the issue, but you bypass it entirely by anonymous coding. It's all public, and people with name recognition can "attest to the soundness of the code". Hey, Mr. Government Agent, I didn't write it; nobody knows who actually wrote it; I just looked at the code and told others on public forums that it looked good.
And the Great Conspiracy of business and politics can just suck our 5h1t. Render unto the king what is his -- authorization, recognition, compensation. These are the seductive and evil tools of the very worst that modern capitalism has to offer. We can be better than that.
Volunteerism and gifts aren't illegal yet. Yet.
There's a little problem here, because most companies that just ignore patents do have a huge number of them to counterattack the suer (probably a big competitor). And while they are firing back, the tend to put a massive amount of lawers to make sure they do win both trials.
So they just reach an agreement. And thus, they tend to not really care much about patents: the are well armed for counterattack and have huge resources to buy defense.
If you don't have any money and any patents and produce a highly visible product that infringes thouthans of patents, it gets worst.
As Linus said, there's nothing you can do about it. Just hope IBM will pay for your lawers and help with their own patents for conterattack or buy Linux a license to use it (if everything fails), but that's more a hope than a real fact. We'll have to see what happens.
Things get worst because these products are all open source, so it's trivial to prove if a patent is beign abused. If you have a closed source product, how would a patent owner know if the closed product is using their reverse mapping patents?
I am pretty sure gnumeric, abiword and many open source packages suffer the patents infringement problem. It hasn't been a problem until now, but does doesn't mean the problem is not there (like a virus, it may be sleeping, but can awake at any time...usually when the most harm can be done)...
unfinished: (adj.)
First of all, how about contacting SGI asking if the Linux project can get it in writing that they can use these techniques (they might even get code from SGI). No point in bashing SGI before this point. In fact, being unnice will diminish the chances. Besides, SGI has given away software to linux (etc) before.
Second of all, it would be a good idea to make a point of software patents making it harder to stay competitive in a very hard to survive in market. Putting it into terms that are not dripping with radical ideology, but in terms of stifling the progress and the market, reducing innovation and profit.
What about the distros ? RedHat for example distributes rpm binaries of the kernel, so according to the above theory RedHat could face lawsuits over patent infringement.
UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things
Anybody that used Linux in the US could get sued, including any business, individual, university, or government organization. Suing IBM would be a logical first step. This would cause IBM to stop promoting Linux. Universities in the US would be barred from using Linux in their courses. Linux would never again be considered more than just a hobbist OS.
Do you know how expensive lawyers can make jokes look like in court?
Consider Keith Henson, who was granted political asylum by Canada after being found guilty of terrorist threats against the Church of Scientology in the US.
He was joking about sending "Tom Cruise missiles" (referring of course to the fact that Tom Cruise is a CoS cult-member).
Point taken that patents are a tool to avoid recreating the DARK AGES. Patents were created to prevent the locking away of knowledge that you mentioned, BUT the timeframes for the age of mechanical reproduction are not valid in a digital age. I fully support copyright for software, but not patents of software!
If governments want to create innovation in software design, BAN CLOSED SOURCE! As for ignoring special America's choice, let America stifle itself. Live in a country that values people over corporate profit.
No warranty of any kind is offered as to the quality of this post.
Kentucky Fried Chicken
Secrets are not secrets for long and the secret holder cannot sue if you discover the secret (or reverse engineer it)
With copyright and patents on the other hand, the patent holders are lobbying everyone they can to extend their monopolies as much as they can, effectively hindering progress.
No sig for the moment.
Well, I also propose to create similar concepts
to GPL and LGPL for patents.
For example, let us say that I patent the use of
logarithms. Then I give userA the right to use
the logarithms, on the condition that userA also
gives everyone the same rights for all patents
userA may have.
This would put pressure to M$ to reconsider their
patents.
"How long before kernel developers have to worry about patents?"
Now that you've posted it on slashdot, I'm certain there's a lot of lawyers getting ready to file suit. You don't really think Linux geeks are the only people who read this site, do you?
Really, I don't mean to sound rude or obnoxious, but publicizing the problem like this doesn't help any of us.
--
I have no sig.
Why US wants Europe to recognize software patents?
Software patents, no thanks. NO A LAS PATENTES DE SOFTWARE EN ESPAÑA.