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?"

Comments

Defensive?

[kid-noodle]

One would hope they've done this defensively, to stop some (other?) evil corporation patenting it first and banjaxing things?

I said hope.

The Framers Had It Right

[Dark Paladin]

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.

Re:The Framers Had It Right

[Auckerman]

Inventions. An actual item that can be built in the real world.

Computers that fit a specific task fall in this category. By extension, so does software (which do real world tasks). That is essentially why I'm not totally against software patents. As long as they solve real world problems in a non-obvious way, they are fair game.

Re:Wow.

[dillon_rinker]

Putting it in the public domain means no one else can patent it. It doesn't dissolve the patent.

Re:Note to Recent Grads

[eln]

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.