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IBM Patents Method For Paying Open Source Workers
Frequanaut writes "Oh, the bitter, bitter irony. According to The Inquirer, in a strange move, IBM has patented a method for paying open source volunteers.
By the way, if the future of software development is open source, how will anyone get paid when only IBM can do it?" The Inquirer quizzically notes, with regard to this patent: "It may be an ingenious way of paying open source developers and volunteers, Big Blue, but can it really be described as an invention?"
So if you want to get paid for developing free software you should move to Europe where methods are not patentable (yet).
One would hope they've done this defensively, to stop some (other?) evil corporation patenting it first and banjaxing things?
I said hope.
fortune -o
I am not a constitutional lawyer or any great expert in history, so if I get any details right or wrong I'll apologize in advance.
I personally don't have an issue with IBM or any other number of companies applying for patents in principle. After all, a lot of that is what I would call "defensive patents" which I have a whole separate issue with and won't go into here.
I do have one major problem with a lot of the patents I've been seeing lately on "business processes". I believe that the Founding Fathers had a basic idea about patents:
It was for inventions. Something you could build and use. If you couldn't build it, then details blueprints on how the "repeater rifle" was going to look at the end or "the automatic banana peeler".
Not a wish or a dream or some vague concept on how something is going to work, or a method of how to go from A to B by sticking your thumb up your ass turning in a circle and singing "I can fly". Not for the genetic code of a field mouse that Nature kicked up and you discovered the genetic sequence - though you could probably patent the gel used to discover the genetic markers. That's fair game.
Inventions. An actual item that can be built in the real world. And it seems that for whatever reason, our members of congress or the senate or whichever slick son of a bitch (or daughter, whatever) who seems to exist only to bend over and get reamed by the latest lobbyist promising that patenting "business procedures is good for the economy!" is not doing their job by the Founding Fathers.
Who, if they saw what patents are being used for today, would probably use a big old switch on the idiots allowing patents like this to go through. Lord knows, they didn't invent the "willow tree supple butt-swacker switch", but they probably knew how to use it when people acted like asses.
Of course, this is just my opinion. I could be wrong.
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They might want to patent this just to simply hold the patent. They could let anyone who wants to use it, to use it for free, or donate it to the FSF. Maybe they just wanted to get it before another company with more devious plans got it. Think what Microsoft would do with this. They would kill Open Source, or do their damndest to do it, with the new tool.
I just think there might be a chance IBM has some pure intentions here.
Th
But overall, we must admit, that patents generally are a good thing.
... hmmm ... software algorithms) is an absurd perversion of the intended purposes of the patent system. If the suits who think this kind of thing is a good idea had their way, we'd have one enormously rich company that had a patent on "a method of selling goods at a higher cost than that involved in producing said goods in order to realize a profit," and everyone else would starve.
Overall, we must admit no such thing -- when it comes to "business method" patents, anyway. I'm all for patenting actual, physical, mechanical inventions; and I'm willing to let chemical (including drug) patents slide by on the edges. But patenting ways of doing things (which includes forms of payment and also
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
IBM holds zillions of patents they don't enforce. Take a look at some of the lame ones they pulled out in reference to the SCO case. Really, it's just fodder for when you really piss them off.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
As opposed to Microsoft (who has never enforced any patents, so some people even think they don't have any), IBM has in the past enforced their patents and squeezed a great deal of money from others by doing so. Plus, IBM has 10x the patent portfolio that Microsoft has.
No, it could be likely a defensive measure, so that others don't hammer them.
Too, if you're a hardware vendor, stuff like this and OSDL make a truckload of sense.
Particularly if you have received a Massive Stab wound in your back Over Something, Too.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
There is no point in applying for a patent if you are going to put it in the public domain. Doing that dissolves the patent. On the other hand, making it available under a free license might make sense. They control who gets it, but basically opens it up. That would probably work.
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Good for you.
Sometimes swallowing your pride is the best thing to do in the long term.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
Method Patents have to be the biggest nightmare going. But they are here, and it has to be dealt with (until laws can be changed). IBM and Bell Labs (Lucent/Avaya) hold the largest number of patents going. Almost all of them are junk and are rarely used. But when somebody comes along and starts a law suit, then they pull out the patent portfolio.
IBM may be doing us a favor by getting it. This blocks hostile companies from aquiring them. The real question is what will IBM do with them. While I have no doubt that IBM will not use them against us today, if they have a CEO change, they could elect to hit us with them. Hopefully, IBM will turn them over to EFF or GNU.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Putting it in the public domain means no one else can patent it. It doesn't dissolve the patent.
IBM didn't patent "Paying Open Source Developers." You can still pay people to develop open source software.
They patented a method of attracting and paying volunteers for their effort while providing incentive for others to volunteer and contribute to an open source project.
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!
Not to get you down or anything, but it's really not wise to describe something as your "dream job" until you've been there for at least a couple of years. A "dream" job can quickly become a nightmare.
I've seen many, many people get jobs they thought would be their dream jobs, only to become quickly disillusioned and depressed when the job did not live up to the high standards they had set for it in their own mind.
Anyway, congratulations on the new job, and I hope it ends up being as good as you hope.