Maybe Software Patents Won't Kill FOSS After All

Roblimo writes "Lawrence Rosen, attorney for the Open Source Initiative, doesn't seem to be as worried about software patents' effects on open source development as some Slashdot readers. In this article he says, 'Don't be too paranoid about the patent problem. It's a real problem, but not a catastrophe. Any patent owner that tries to assert its patents against open source software has many hurdles to leap before the royalty checks start to arrive.'"

Comments

It's not about the royalty checks

[One Louder]

When the Great Patent War commences next year, it won't be about getting checks - it will be about scaring people away from Open Source solutions to problems previously solved by proprietary products. The companies that will asserting the patents don't need and don't want the money - they want the products dead and customers scared off.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[gcaseye6677]

Sadly, I think you're right. Just look at what SCO has been doing. I don't even think they were stupid enough to believe that every Linux user would write them a check. Surely someone told Darl that any infringing code could be replaced. They were just spreading FUD for their sponsor (MS) who was paying the bills that would allow them to run their stock scam. At this point, it seems likely that Microsoft, who has the most to lose from open source, will find another SCO-like partner to use as a FUD agent. And this one probably won't be so incompetent.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Anonymous Coward]

my advice - RTFA

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[pongo000]

What recourse does a company asserting a patent have against an end user? The end user isn't violating the patent in question -- the alleged violation was committed by the creator of the work. I simply don't see how patents can be used to "scare people away from Open Source solutions."

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[oogoliegoogolie]

That is a possibility, but it could as easily backfire for the company initiating the litigation. SCO certainly hasn't stopped linux adoption.

Companies when confronted with alleged patent violations often roll over and pay up. For them it is a business decision. Pay $x million now for the right to use the technology, or pay $x million + $y million for laywers if they fight and lose. Sometimes it's better to pay $x and be done with it than pay $x+$y.

Open source is a different story. When open source gets attacked it's as like when a bear tries to get into the beehive-it's personal! The opensource bees get riled up and come out to protect the open source honey.

One bee against a bear in no match, but thousands will eventually come out, attack, and drive off the bear. If the bear gets stung too many times, it leaves the bees alone and wanders off to look for something else. The bees are smarter, more alert, and more wary, and notice sooner when a bear approaches. They know the bear wants their honey and work harder to protect it.

Now the bear thinks twice about trying to get the open source honey. Other bears that heard what happened stay away from the honey because they know how bad the first bear got stung and realize it isn't worth it. And all other creatures who know nothing about the open source honey hear of this bear and think of the bear as foolish, deparate, and a big bully and want nothing to do with the bear.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[einer]

I agree that it has nothing to do with the end user.

At my previous place of employment, management was scared away from Open Source Software. We had a "consultant" audit our shop. Apparently, Samba has the potential to create "future legal headaches." The SCO debacle was also brought up and used to scare management into purging open source software from every server and workstation. "Future interoperability concerns" were cited as well, since the world stops spinning without Microsoft, and Microsoft doesn't endorse our practice of using OSS.

I didn't find any actual out and out lies in the review. It's true that in the future, there is a potential for "legal headaches." It's not likely, and I imagine I'm probably more likely to be struck by lightning, while being eaten by a shark, while also holding the winning Powerball ticket.

Clearly, this is an example of terminal rectal-cranial-inversion, but I doubt it's an isolated case. Suits listen to suits, not to programmers.

It's not patents per se, but the uncertain (by whose standards I couldn't say) legal water that OSS exists in. The danger exists in the fostering of legal uncertainty.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Anonymous Coward]

"One bee against a bear in no match, but thousands will eventually come out, attack, and drive off the bear. If the bear gets stung too many times, it leaves the bees alone and wanders off to look for something else. The bees are smarter, more alert, and more wary, and notice sooner when a bear approaches. They know the bear wants their honey and work harder to protect it."

Most bears are immune to bee stings and even electricity. Their coats protect them from both. Sorry but your analogy is either right on and it is hopeless or perhaps your approach to the analogy is flawed. Perhaps you meant to tackle the bears like we do in the real world. One sets up cheap electric fences and baits them with honey and meat. The bears can just break through the cheap fences but they instead lick and smell getting shocked. Now that you know how one actually goes about detering a bear, care to fix your strategy?

pingmeep

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Anonymous Coward]

That is such a stupid analogy I don't know where to start.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[hgolden]

pongo, patents allow the patent holder to prevent the end user from using the patented invention. It is a violation to use a patented invention without a license from the patent holder.

Note that this is different from how copyrights work. Once you have a copy of a copyrighted work, you have (at least in the United States) certain "fair use" rights.

So, in theory at least, a patent holder can sue an end user to prevent him/her from using the patented invention without a license, and the patent holder can obtain an injunction from a court to forbid use of the patented invention by an unlicensed end user.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Pieroxy]

Microsoft, who has the most to lose from open source

It seems to me that Sun already lost (almost) all of its assets to Linux.

Microsoft isn't the only player, even if it's a big one.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Tony-A]

they want the products dead and customers scared off.

Kinda like a county whose county seat scared off the railroads when the railroads were expanding across the American west.

This isn't about shooting yourself in the foot. It's about cutting off the industry's air supply. To whose benefit?

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, perhaps not the "end user", but the "customer" of the software is at risk. But note that using proprietary software doesn't help you in this regard. In the bottom of The Fine Article is a very interesting comment of Cognos getting nailed for almost two million dollars just because Microsoft infringed on some patents.

Don't assume that you are safer using Microsoft (Score:2)
By NZheretic (504) <{heretic} {at} {ihug.co.nz}> on 2004.07.26 9:55 (#96153)
Developers and users of proprietary software also face a similar risk from the patent threat.

An example of this is Microsoft's licensing of patented technology for only itself without granting the right for end users and developers to use the same patented technology. Microsoft licensed Database/Datawarehouse technology from Timeline Inc, but unlike Oracle and other database vendors, Microsoft chose a license that did not grant Microsoft's customers the right to fully use that technology [theregister.co.uk]. Timeline has extended it's patent claims to cover many featured widely used by developers [winnetmag.com], both ISV and in house.

Timeline Inc has won a US Washington Court of Appeal judgment against Microsoft [tmln.com] for the right to sue Microsoft's customers, and subsequently sued Cognos. On February 13, 2004, Cognos settled at cost to Cognos totaling $1.75 million [timeline.com].

In a lot of ways you are better with GPL licensed techology [newsforge.com], which effectively grants all downstream users the right to use the patents from upstream developers under the terms of the GPL [gnu.org].

Software Patent are bad but are also pushing interesting trend

At least with open source you could look into what you're getting into. With proprietary software you never can be sure.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[tonyr60]

There is likely a higher statistical probability that the use of Microsoft products would create "future legal headaches."

Two reasons, first from the historical perspective Microsoft has taken action against end users.

Second, Microsoft is actively auditing end user organisations and causing no end of headaches.

The Open Source community (and Samba) has shown no indication of taking such action. While SCO has blustered about couty action agaist some Open Source users, it has not actually won a case yet.

On that basis, Open Source software is safer than Microsoft software.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[PCM2]

When the Great Patent War commences next year, it won't be about getting checks - it will be about scaring people away from Open Source solutions to problems previously solved by proprietary products.

But we can count on "our side" those companies who stand to profit immensely from open source, rather than relying solely upon their own R&D investments to further their products. There's some big names in there, including IBM, Novell, HP, Sun, etc.

And remember, no product can succeed that stands still. It's the very nature of marketing to create demand in the minds of (potential) consumers. For every vendor that tells you a problem has been solved long ago, there's going to be another vendor telling you that it's hasn't been, or spinning a different message to cast the problem in a new light.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Anonymous Coward]

In a lot of ways you are better with GPL licensed techology, which effectively grants all downstream users the right to use the patents from upstream developers

Only in the extremely rare case when the GPL developers invented the technologies rather than just copying it.

Furthermore, there's numerous counter-examples. LAME is GPL. You still violate patents by using it.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Tony-A]

Most bears are immune to bee stings and even electricity. Their coats protect them from both.

But these are Open Source bees.
Massive stings inside the nasal cavities and multiple stings to the eyeballs are likely to make the bears rather uncomfortable.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[peeping_Thomist]

One bee against a bear in no match, but thousands will eventually come out, attack, and drive off the bear.

I'd like to think you're right, but I'm not sure you are. Do we really have any evidence that community efforts such as Groklaw have had any effect on SCO? So far as I can tell, they are losing solely on the merits.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Anonymous Coward]

The end user isn't violating the patent in question -- the alleged violation was committed by the creator of the work. I simply don't see how patents can be used to "scare people away from Open Source solutions."

That is because you are blind. If I am the creator of an allegedly patent-infringing OSS work and am threatened by a company (which claims to be the patent-holder) with lawsuits then I would be very scared to continue to develop and distribute my work. Once that happens there won't be any need to scare end users. I guess the correct wording should have been "scare people away from developing Open Source solutions."

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[eraserewind]

Can a software developer say patents don't apply to him, only to those users who use the developer's (highly detailed) copyrighted "instructions" on how to use an (existing) computer to do something.

Well, I know he can say it, but is it in any way valid?

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Anonymous Coward]

They know the bear wants their honey

Actually, I thought the bears were after the protein-ilishous baby bees, not the honey. Same reason they and monkeys eat grubs, IIRC.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[smclean]

So far as I can tell, they are losing solely on the merits.

You could attribute the apparent lack of action to just that; the fact that we know SCO is going down. There is not much for the average Linux user to do to speed this up except for the things which have been done -- detailed analysis of SCO's claims (which I'm sure IBMs people have found helpful), (often successful) attempts to soil SCO's PR, support for vendors being sued by SCO (there was a movement for OSS folk to buy something from AutoZone after the suit against them was announced). If there was something else the community could do, it would do it.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[crucini]

Nice fable, but I don't buy it. Suppose Microsoft alleges patent infringement in Linux, and demands that Linux distribution stop. You think hundreds of angry geeks are going to sue Microsoft? What would be the basis of their lawsuit? If the lawsuits are baseless, and merely a "legal DOS", they would be dismissed and the plaintiffs would be subject to penalties.

What other kind of sting do you have in mind?

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[killjoe]

MS just recently paid Sun a gob of money for "intellectual property". You can bet your ass sun will use it to attack open source.

Sun the next SCO. Another MS puppet attacking open source.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[einhverfr]

On that basis, Open Source software is safer than Microsoft software.

Agreed. However, you have another problem.

I talk with a lot of businesses about open source. My big push has recently been Mozilla, and most of my customers are really impressed by it. That being said, you have two groups of customers.

The first sees open source as the "cheap alternative for those who don't want to spend money." They tend to see open source as too informal to be a safe bet. For good reason, I might add-- most open source projects, like most commercial software, never gets off the ground. The difference is that the prereleases or early versions are still publically available. A patent infringement suit would make these people think "I told you so" and go back into their hole.

The second type sees open source as a low-budget solution which has strategic and legal benefits to offer their organization. These folks are likely to be more interested in control over their infrastructure, standards compliance, modularity of infrastructure than they are over license fees, though these may come into it at some point. I think that these people would probably NOT be scared away from using open source by a patent suit.

My father, a non-technical physician who has been following the recent fiaSCO said to me the other day, "SCO is giving people a really good reason to use open source software."

So, such an infringement suit would likely deepen the existing divisions in the business world, as, I think, the SCO suits (both types) are.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Anonymous Coward]

LOSE = opposite of win
LOOSE = your mom's cunt
any questions?

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Anonymous Coward]

A community such as Groklaw can prevent, debunk or at least air out any problems with fud that SCO could present to hide the (lack of) merits of their case.

In that way it's significant and helpful, but it's a "Defense" not an "Offense" for the OSS movement. They take away an advantage of the adversary(I don't want to use weapon terminology in this context), they are not themselves an advantage(except in the enemy of the enemy is my friend.

That SCO had a case or not, GrokLaw is still an open forum, where you may defend your ideas, and get verifiable information about a case that conerns you. If the table was reversed, would you find the same freedom of expression at SCO's forum in their crusade against OSS?

I didn't think so.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[michael_cain]

When the Great Patent War commences next year, it won't be about getting checks... they want the products dead and customers scared off.

They don't even need to scare the customers in order to kill the product. It's as simple as saying "You don't have permission to use my patent -- cease and desist immediately." Unless the patent is trivially invalid, the courts will tend to side with the patent holder and issue the necessary orders to make the infringer halt while the case is decided. There are no requirements that patents be licensed in any way that makes sense. There's no equivalent to fair use. Reverse engineering is illegal (and unnecessary in the case of a reasonable patent application, since the applicant must reveal all the secret stuff in order to get a patent).

To choose an example, Microsoft holds at least one patent that covers reading .wmv files. ANY software without a license from MS that reads such a file on a computer in the US infringes. And yes, MS has threatened at least one non-MS project with legal action for writing such a reader. Using such software (even if you wrote your own implementation and are doing so in private) is infringing. Downloading it from overseas (from somewhere that does not allow software patents, say) is almost certainly an illegal "importing" of the infringing product.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[sumdumass]

i would agree to an extent. Fortunatly i tend to try and use opensource solutions for much the same reasons. I can pretty much guarente i will be at the minimum consulted on anythign done to my servers i have in place.

I recently had a law firm set a windows 2003 server in place and upgraded all the workstations to new dells running windows XP. I was against the move but didn't have mmuch say in the matter because they used another consultant that was recomended by a vender trying to sell them some software (he sold them on the same basic story but added how much more reliable it was). After about 3 days somethign went wrong with the domain controler (still unknown what after 2 months) and the 2 backup domain controlers wouldn't step in when the main server went off line. I thru a baremetal linux box together and loaded up the last backups i had availible went onsite and had them running the same day.

This set up cost them over $128,000 to start and added cost keep rising. after the same thing happend on another ocasion, i now have two servers back on site running backups of thier windows domains and if ever needed all they have to do is log onto a second domain and they can continue working with minimal diferences. Things like the exchange servers shared calendering don't work and a few others minor inconvieninces but they don't use any of that anyways.

Of couse now my fee is a little more and i lease them the 2 server that replaced the 3 dell poweredge quad proccesor machines that they can't seem to keep going strait for only 30 workstations. I over heard one of the partners saying somethign to the extent they should have just spent the money for the upgrades on some rental property instead. At least then they would know how much they would have to spend and how much they would be making from the investments. I assumme they will get everythign working right soon but i have a feeling the linux boxes will stay for a while. The strange thing is they didn't need anythign but a few workstations that were around 1-1.5 gig pentium 4 with only 256 ram and maybe a couple win98 boxes instead of the win2000 workstations they had.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to agree with the grandparent. Groklaw seems great when tearing up SCO's bogus claims and whatever BS PR Crazy Darl has invented lately.

But in a situation where an Open Source project was getting its ass kicked in court, it would cese to be so much "fun" to do a bunch of free legal research on how guilty they are.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Anonymous Coward]

no, it's not as stupid as you think. The bear represents soviet russia, and the beehive is the state of utah, and... well i'm not quite sure of the details, but darl is from utah, and there are a lot of "in soviet russia" jokes on slashdot, or there were until all the SCO stories killed them off. there were still lots of these jokes when the first SCO story hit, but now you hardly see them any more. so it's really a perfect analogy when you think about it.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[fanatic]

There is likely a higher statistical probability that the use of Microsoft products would create "future legal headaches."

3 words: Timeline v. Microssoft.

A real case where a real court found that real users were infringing Timeline's copyrights and/or licenses because they used code they recieved from Microsoft the way Microsoft told them to. Not bulls*** like the SCO "cases".

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[rtb61]

Linux users are customers. The extent of Linux support is gaining as businesses and governments are picking up on the benefits of an open source operating system.

No matter how powerfull a company thinks it is, annoy enough real customers (not the general user they buy what their told to buy but real customers who make choices) and the company will fail. All laws can be changed, especially laws that would disadvantage a country in a global technology enviroment.

Could you imagine the US stuck on windows (with the cost implications - not just buying it but with the real costs of attempting to use it) while the rest of the world forges ahead on Linux.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Sanity]

What recourse does a company asserting a patent have against an end user?

IANAL but IIRC patent rights can be applied against the user of the patented item, not just the creator of the infringing product.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Groote Ka]

I wouldn't react that pessimistic if I were you. More and more large companies rely on open source as it provides a cheap alternative compared to e.g. Microsoft for e.g. video recorders and set-top boxes.
Among those, there are companies with enormous patent portfolios.

Only one note: they provide their proprietary knowlegde in another way than they provide the open source (and let it run in a different way). One example is IBM.

Please keep in mind that a lot of those big patent companies are not interested in the open source community. They are only interested in the royalty check and will only sue larger companies for infringement, as this makes royalty collection easier. There's only a few software companies that may pose a patent threat to OS as it currently is.

Trust me, I've been there (I am there) (not with MS!).

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[HogynCymraeg]

Audit review of Company X It has come to the attention of our experts that you are currently running many copies of Microsoft software on your systems. Whilst Microsoft have been a favoured software vendor over the last decade, there is the potential for legal headaches in the future. They have been suspected of patenting software methods and techniques which have already been identified as prior art. This will cause much legal uncertainty. We also have identified that you are using Microsoft Office. This gives us a concern regarding "Future interoperability concerns". It has been identified that some software written to take advantage of Microsofts COM technology in creating interoperability with Microsoft Office is not compatible with later versions of Office. This is a situation which will likely not be resolved in the near future. No doubt you will have to upgrade to a newer version when it arrives. Microsoft will also be releasing 64bit windows shortly. It has come to our attention that there could be compatibility issues with using this new operating system, but unfortunately, it is the only operating system that will run your previously mentioned upgraded software. This leads to the possibility that other software components that you use will have to be upgraded. Come 2006, Microsoft will be releasing Longhorn, another operating system. But you will have to pay us again to come and audit your systems nearer the time. Because we'll need to change the title of this document, the date at the top and give you a printout of it again. Kind Regards, Bill Gat^H^H^HWithers

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[vdoogs]

What other kind of sting do you have in mind?

All your IIS boxen are belong to us. Move every SCO. For great justice.

Somebody set me up the mod.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Anonymous Coward]

Why in the HELL is the parent modded as insightful?

35 U.S.C. 271 clearly states that the manufacture, use, sale or offer for sale of a patented device is an act of infringement. A closer reading will show that importing a patented device is also an act of infringement.

But surely, the end user isn't USING the software! Nevermind copying/installing the software, which could be argued to be manufacturing the software, or bittorrenting the software, which is offering for sale and/or selling the software (to the pedant who is alreay itching to click reply: you distribute it under a license, you form a contract even if there's no money exchanged, and Bob's your uncle, it's a sale under the law).

Now let the mocking of the lawyer begin.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that it has little to do with the end user, but not nothing to do with the end user. The use of a patented invention is an act of patent infringement. You could be sued by the patent owner. End of story.

The problem is that your legal counsel is not quantifying the risk, and your management is not quantifying the benefit. This is probably compounded when knowledgable employees don't bother to try to educate their management.

Quiz point #1
The damages for patent infringement are
A. A reasonable royalty
B. The patent owner's lost profits
C. 1 billion dollars! (pinky at side of mouth)
D. A week with Gilbert Gottfried

Quiz point #2
If you've willfuly infringed a patent (which requires actual notice that a patent exists) you might end up having to pay (or settle for)
A. The answer to point #1
B. Up to three times the answer to point #1
C. Up to three times the answer to point #1 plus the implementation costs for the patent owner's solution
D. A surgeon to extract your fingers from your ears after Gilbert Gottfried has left the building

Now let's review. Unless you're famous or the size of DaimlerChrysler, the odds of being sued as an end user are remote but non-zero. If you're sued and you're a lot smaller than DaimlerChrysler, you're probably going to settle. If you settle, you're going to settle for something less than Answer A & B to quiz point #1, and if you're very unlucky, Answer B to quiz point #2. How much money is that, and how much money do you spend on metaphorical lottery tickets in your line of business?

BTW: If you've answered C or D to any of the quiz questions, then I want to offer my services as your IP counsel. I'll charge a very reasonable retainer of one million dollars! (pinky at side of mouth)

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Anonymous Coward]

there's numerous counter-examples

"there're".

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Secrity]

If SCO is any example of this, it appears that although SCO's actions may have some small amount of a chilling effect on OSS, SCO is losing this battle.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[fymidos]

>demands that Linux distribution stop
they cannot demand that linux stop, they can demand that their patended technology on let's say "little pets fooling around on your desktop" is not included in linux, which is just fine, you will just have to live without it. It's up to the companies distributing linux to decide what patents they care to sue, license or forget about.

A patent attack by microsoft is not the end of the world, it won't even distract customers thath much. the publicity alone will be a great thing for linux and open software.

However a patent war cannot happen: MS simply cannot attack linux in such a large scale - they have to play it nice as the whole world is already out to get them ...

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[fymidos]

>There's some big names in there, including IBM,
>Novell, HP, Sun, etc.

Sun is definetely not in there (any more) but about every other hardware, software and media company in the world is ...

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[CrimsonAvenger]

it's as like when a bear tries to get into the beehive

This might not be such a good analogy - when a bear opens a beehive, he eats honey until he's full, then leaves. The bees don't even annoy him much, since he can eat them too., if they land somewhere delicate (eyes closed, that leaves inside the mouth)...

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Oligonicella]

Oh, good. You're actually arguing that there isn't much to worry about.

Indeed, LOOK at SCO. A pathethic loud-mouth that really isn't accomplishing anything against open source.

It wasn't that SCO was incompetent. It was that there is no real attack point. SCO's continued dancing proved that. No one else will have the foot-hold required either.

It just doesn't exist.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems to me that Roblimo have not read one line of the European Parliament directive. What if it becomes law? Would that not solve the problem?

"Member States shall ensure that the production, handling, processing, distribution and publication of information, in whatever form, can never constitute direct or indirect infringement of a patent, even when a technical apparatus is used for that purpose.

"Member states shall ensure that data processing is not considered to be a field of technology in the sense of patent law, and that innovations in the field of data processing are not considered to be inventions in the sense of patent law."

http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/europarl0309/

No need for big checks, just some homework on what goes on in the world.

AC

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Phisbut]

From Despair inc.

Consulting : If you're not part of the solution, there's good money to be made in prolonging the problem.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[dasmegabyte]

And why shouldn't they?

Some of these companies have put millions of dollars into research and development of their programs which do useful things. All it takes to destroy the marketability and the return on that investment is a handful of OSS developers who decide they don't want to pay a lot for that muffler and clone the interface.

It's happened -- already -- to iTunes with Linspire's clone. It took Apple years to build a really great jukebox utility, one that's driving the sales of their most profitable ventures. And it took Linspire a couple months to rip it off. Fair? No. That's why patents were invented!

The Open Source community seems to think that because they CAN do a thing, that they should be legally justified in DOING that thing. This is bullshit. A development philosophy does not give you the right to ruin peoples' businesses through unfair anti-competetive practices, nor does it give you the right to use other peoples ideas just because you want to. Sharing of code and ideas is great -- when they're your ideas and your code. The sharing of OTHER people's IP is, and always will be, wrong. Isn't that why the GPL is viral -- to prevent people from stealing your ideas without giving something back?

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Anonymous Coward]

"But these are Open Source bees."

lol

You think these are your average bears?

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right. The actual law that makes patent infringment illegal is this one:

Title 35 United States Code Section 271: Infringement of patent

(a) Except as otherwise provided in this title, whoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention, within the United States or imports into the United States any patented invention during the term of the patent therefor, infringes the patent.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[myc_holmes]

In the process, a lot of bees die. If too much time is spent fighting the bear and insufficient time on collecting resources for the hive, the hive dies. Everyone loses.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Anonymous Coward]

SCO is asserting copyright violations Not patent infringement. But I did notice the cheer in the open source 'community' when IBM counterclaimed against sco with its massive patent portfolio.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Thomas Shaddack]

You think these are your average bears?

Good question. These ones are the "Bores", also known as "Suits".

For the most effective effective sting, it's advised to employ "bees" with 7.62 mm diameter.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Thomas Shaddack]

Using such software (even if you wrote your own implementation and are doing so in private) is infringing. Downloading it from overseas (from somewhere that does not allow software patents, say) is almost certainly an illegal "importing" of the infringing product.

The keyword here is effective enforcement. If you make the infrastructure easy enough to modify, "illegal" patches appear sooner or later on P2P or the mentioned overseas servers. You then don't have to supply them yourself, and your hands can stay clear, while your users will still be able to get the benefits of eg. the WMV compatibility. Given that "illegal" devices typically don't advertise their capabilities (or does your Freevo/MythTV call home and reports its software revisions?) to the world, the patent enforcers may have as much ammo as they can wish for, but that's worthless when there are no targets to aim at. Not a panacea, but in many cases may be a good situation improvement.

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[Anonymous Coward]

does msft indemnify it's customers, though?

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[digitalarena]

Too right, it's not about the royalty checks, it's about killing the competition.

Take "Lindows" for example. Microsoft had 2 reasons for wanting to clean them out:

1. They are Linux
2. Their brand "Lindows" sounded too much like "Windows"

So Microsoft take them to court in the USA over the brand name, and "Lindows" wins. So instead of gracefully accepting defeat, Microsoft take "Lindows" to court in a bunch of other countries, and due to lack of funds to pay lawyers for so many cases "Lindows" has no choice but to give in - they won the case in the US, but can't afford to defend their position against one of the richest coorporations in the world. You will now find "Lindows" under the new name "Linspire". Can this tactic work for other things...?

Re:It's not about the royalty checks

[nitrocloud]

I called SCO once, to cost them money, since it's a toll free call... Let us all phone spam them.

OMG!

[NaCh0]

A voice of sanity on slashdot. I knew it was a slow day.

Re:OMG!

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoever modded that insightful really has a slow day...

Hey mods, hear here: "I agree with the article". Can I be modded up too now?

Re:OMG!

[bri_n33]

"Don't be too paranoid about the patent problem"

What? Paranoid Slashdot readers? Never!
Where's my tinfoil hat....

Re:OMG!

[pod]

Well, some of the fear comes from unfamiliarity with the legal system. There's the general idea that anyone can sue anyone for any reason, and that IS largely true in the US. I don't know, I think all it would take to send me into a heart attack is a single legalese letter, no matter how difficult it may be for the company to follow through. I'd just fold after seeing the bill from my lawyer for his first 10 hours, which, if the lawsuit has any merit, is easily achievable.

Re:OMG!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah! Microsoft makes great products, Software patents preserve innovation, DRM is great for artists, and DMCA protect technology. Btw Linux is not desktop ready and OpenSource must understand that paying is not Evil(tm).

Sorry, I needed my daily karma ;)

No money issue?

[chrispyman]

So the main reason it's not likely that an open source project will get sued is simply because they don't have any money. Unfortunately what would likely happen if they did sue is that it would cripple or kill that project. Fortunately I'd suspect that if some open source project had a big company (say Sun or IBM) backing it, I doubt this whole thing would be a problem.

Re:No money issue?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

So the main reason it's not likely that an open source project will get sued is simply because they don't have any money.

Don't tell it to Caldera^H^H^H^H^H^HSCO, they think they can make $5BN by suing IBM, RH and Novell over Linux.

Re:No money issue?

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>Fortunately I'd suspect that if some open source project had a big company (say Sun or IBM) backing it, I doubt this whole thing would be a problem.

But if IBM settles with $PLAINTIFF by a cross-licensing deal, independent developers are left out in the cold and $PLAINTIFF can still shut them down.

Re:No money issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lawrence Rosen also appears ambivalant about free software, period. He's just another open source opportunist, riding the free software bandwagen when it suits his purpose, and otherwise quite happy to espouse whatever licensing philosophy pulls his pursestrings, under the unoriginal guise of being "pragmatic".

Re:No money issue?

[nlago]

But if IBM settles with $PLAINTIFF by a cross-licensing deal, independent developers are left out in the cold and $PLAINTIFF can still shut them down.

In this case, IBM cannot legally distribute the work under the GPL; other licenses, of course, may be different.

Royalties

[phorm]

Any patent owner that tries to assert its patents against open source software has many hurdles to leap before the royalty checks start to arrive.

Except much of the concern is not only paying out royalties, but being dragged through useless court proceeding after court proceeding by companies that find it much more to their benefit to drag OSS through the mud, and strike fear of legal action into the hearts of OS proponents.

There comes a point where it doesn't really matter if you win in court, particular if one hsa gone through a costly multi-year court battle just to be proclaimed "innocent" of any wrongdoing.

Re:Royalties

[andrel]

From Rosen's viewpoint, remember he's a lawyer, having free software developers be dragged into court is a win, for they are likely to hire him as counsel.

How open source should deal with sofware patents

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

killall -9 software_patents

its not the royalties

[jrexilius]

Its the fear factor to stop adoption (stop market loss not profit). I dont think MS wants royalties from OpenOffice, they want people to be too afraid to use it.

Re:its not the royalties

[Halfbaked Plan]

Until OpenOffice matures a little more, people *should* be afraid to use it.

I can run Word 2000 and Excel 2000 on a 486-100 laptop with 32 megs of RAM.

OpenOffice KILLS the machine.

Is this an issue?

[LivinFree]

Excuse my ignorance, but is this really an issue?

If the OSS community comes up with an idea first, they can claim prior art, no? Otherwise, the idea (or implementation) rightfully belongs to the person or corporation that comes up with it.

Proving prior art is a major nusaince, but if it happens enough, will companies place their patents under more scrutiny rather than figting for something they'll likely lose?

--
http://acostas.org

Re:Is this an issue?

[jrexilius]

It depends on how loosely you term "an idea" and how likely the USPTO is to recognize the prior art. After a petent is awraded to a company, no matter how ridiculous (one-click purchase?), if an OS package comes along that emulates the same general idea people can be sued for using it. The company doesnt even need to win, just to scare and sue people to keep end-users locked in to their solution.

Re:Is this an issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, the US patent system doesn't really care if you have prior art. It has been seen plenty of times, with all these ridiculous patents getting through. Or perhaps they do care, but with companies filing huge amounts of patents (if Microsoft alone files 10 patents a day) they quite possibly don't have the time or resources to check every one of them.

I believe it would actually be possible to patent breathing - or perhaps "a way to gather oxygen from the air by using organs located in the chest" - if somebody actually decided to try that..

Re:Is this an issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Proving prior art takes time and money. Both of which might be in very short supply for most OSS projects.

What would the odds have been if SCO had first gone after a small OSS project instead of IBM?

Re:Is this an issue?

[LivinFree]

I see your point, but if there is no prior art on something as simple as One Click purchase, all anyone else can do is kick themselves for not coming up with the idea of patenting it.

In many cases, patents are stupid, but they're still necessary in the long run. Otherwise, anyone could copy your idea for a widget, and produce it at a cost less than yours - after all, they didn't have the R&D costs of developing a prototype of the idea.

Re:Is this an issue?

[BillyBlaze]

The real problem is software patents protect the wrong thing. Ideas are worthless, but in software, the real investment is in implementation. And copyright is perfect for protecting software implementations. Besides that, having the exclusive right to an idea, and not just an implementation of it, works against the goals of having computers work together smoothly and having them be user friendly. If you can patent ideas, then the lock-in problem becomes insurmountable. If you can patent user interfaces, then there will be so many other interfaces to circumvent the patent that nobody will be able to figure out how to use the damn thing.

And as a seperate problem, no, you can't "just" claim prior art. You have to be dragged into court, comply with C&D letters for several months, and give huge amounts of money to lawyers. Individuals simply can't afford this - for any project smaller than Linux itself, the maintainers would likely give up for financial reasons. Our legal system is too bloated and ineffective to rely on it as a safety valve for the chilling effects of patents.

Re:Is this an issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is, you might "invent" something as you write your code, but somebody already invented it and patented it.

Example: when I was a kid on the apple II I discovered that you could make animations by using XOR to erase and redraw. Did you know that's patented?

Re:Is this an issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF? You, sir, are insane. INSANE. Let's see, um, nobody has yet used 18-click purchase, so I guess I can patent that, huh? And if anyone ever used it, I could sue them? And that would be reasonable WHY!!??

You aren't supposed to be able to patent obvious ideas. Even ideas no one has never implemented are often obvious. Even ideas that no one has ever happened to think of are often obvious.

Re:Is this an issue?

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>And as a seperate problem, no, you can't "just" claim prior art.

Exactly. The article mentions that overturning a patent requires "clear and convincing" evidence. Good luck making something clear and convincing to a non-technical lawyer (the judge) while the plaintiff's lawyers work day and night to make it unclear and unconvincing.

Re:Is this an issue?

[BillyBlaze]

Otherwise, anyone could copy your idea for a widget, and produce it at a cost less than yours - after all, they didn't have the R&D costs of developing a prototype of the idea.

What's wrong with that? In the software industry, the implementation is what costs money.

Fig. 1: A button where, when you click it, you buy something.

+------+
| Buy! |
+------+

void button::onClick() { /* TODO: make it buy stuff */ }

See - it's took me 30 seconds to prototype that. The actual investment would have been filling in that comment. And if someone else can do that part cheaper, then let them - everyone gets cheaper widgets, and the company's real investment, the implementation, remains protected by copyright law. This also gives them an incentive to improve their implementation, whereas if they patented it, not only would they not need to improve it, they could keep others from improving it.

Re:Is this an issue?

[QuantumG]

Copyright is the best way to protect software? What planet are you living on?

Re:Is this an issue?

[LivinFree]

Don't get me wrong - I do agree with you on most points, but it does ask the qeustion - "If this was so simple and straight-forward, why didn't someone else patent it?" I sure wish I had.

Both fortunately and unfortunately, we live in a more-or-less capitalist society. I am definitely a caplitalist, although I see the socialist side of this, in a capitalist kind of way. While I do oppose the idea of "patenting ideas" (maybe I should patent that), I do see the benefit of patents, even in software (like a poster below says, protect the implementation, not the idea.) I think it's fair to patent the One-Click, even though it doesn't benefit the community. But it's OK to benefit the first person with enough balls to patent something that the rest of us think is stupid.

I suppose I'm playing devil's advocate more than anything, but if I came up with an interesting new idea (and put the work into implementing it), I don't want someone to come in, undercut me (you can't argue with free), and make off with my idea as their own.

On the other hand, I benefit from free software (and other ideas / products) every day, and I'm grateful for that. I think it's great to innovate, and release for the common good (the microchip, case in point). The point of patents is not to stifle innovation, but to prevent unfair competition. Do you think that a single person, or group of people undercutting a product that was innovated by another person is fair? I don't. We all had our chance to do it first.

In the end, I still have mixed feelings about patents. They require a level of objectivity that's hard to find in a beaurocratic position. On one hand, they're necessary to protect yourself, and on the other hand, the details can cause true innovation to suffer.

--
http://acostas.org

Re:Is this an issue?

[LivinFree]

This does beg the question: "Why is a copyright not the best way to protect software?"

I take the stance that another poster does: patenting ideas is a cop-out. Patent the implementation. But a patent should be able to fall on any product, such as a new innovation on a car, a super-duper toothbrush, or, yes, a piece of software.

--
http://acostas.org

Re:Is this an issue?

[d_jedi]

Software functionality should not be patentable (ex. One-Click shopping carts.), but software algorithms should be patentable.

No, that doesn't mean someone can go and patent the bubble sort (as if anyone would want to?). But let's take, for instance, the circuit CAD design companies. They invest huge amounts of money in developing proprietary heuristic algorithms to optimize circuits (for speed, power consumption, size, etc.). Copyrights are insufficient to protect such algorithms, because copyrights only protect the implementation (ie. the code) and not the logic (ie. the algorithm).

So the revolutionary way your company has found to do X that just blows the competition away is completely lost if someone explains how it works..

Re:Is this an issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

So the revolutionary way your company has found to do X that just blows the competition away is completely lost if someone explains how it works..

Ahh! No, if you've figured how to do X, please tell! The latency & throughput to an X-Term over 100Mb/s ethernet is just too slow!

(It's a joke. Laugh)

-AC

Re:Is this an issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

So the revolutionary way your company has found to do X that just blows the competition away is completely lost if someone explains how it works..

That's the reason why Non-Disclosure Agreements (or "trade secrets") are reckoned to be part of the ever-expanding "intellectual property" family.

Good luck implementing Intel's most secret chip-designing algorithms from Cliff Notes, btw.

Re:Is this an issue?

[red floyd]

"If this was so simple and straight-forward, why didn't someone else patent it?"

Because most sane people figured it was too obvious, and wouldn't be patentable?

Re:Is this an issue?

[ScrewMaster]

It probably would not be an issue in the U.S. if our Patent and Trademark Office had even a semblance of a clue. The problem is that once a patent is granted, however ridiculous, it takes a lot of money and time to invalidate it. By issuing thousands upon thousands of trivial (or simply duplicative) patents, the USPTO has made it very easy to sue anyone into submission over really stupid things.

Re:Is this an issue?

[jrexilius]

Certainly that holds true for many software patents, but still not all. I do think, however, that patents can have a positive effect on invention and innovation. The problem is finding the balance and the structure of the USPTO and the laws are not positioned well to strike that balance with software patents.

Re:Is this an issue?

[ScrewMaster]

You're absolutely correct, however maintaining the pace of technological progress will simply involve all innovative development work being done in other countries. It's already happening: it began with our stupid encryption laws forcing development in that area to be done overseas. Now the Feds seem to have decided that since technology has advanced as far as it needs to here in the U.S., there's really no point in mollycoddling our technical people anymore. They may not think of it that way, but that is the net result of their actions. Our government doesn't seem to grasp the simple, inescapable fact that other nations have some pretty smart people too. Really damn smart in some cases. Limiting our own progress by hamstringing our best and brightest with software patents and extended copyright can have only one outcome: the complete and total loss of America's remaining technological competitiveness. What little is left after thirty-odd years of corporate malfeasance and general short-sightedness, so maybe it's not so great a loss after all.

But this is just symptomatic of undue corporate influence at the highest levels of government ... Congress isn't smart enough to have come up with such a detestable concept as "software patent" all on its own. No, some very influential individuals in the private sector pulled this off, with pretty much zero input from those who benefited most from the system the way it used to be. And the Congressional restructuring of the Patent Office's fee system and funding has resulted in such a flood of truly bad patents that I find it hard to believe that that is entirely accidental either. The very idea of requiring inventors to pay maintenance fees on their patents, or lose all rights to their inventions is just anathema to me. Such has the American Republic become.

Re:Is this an issue?

[BillyBlaze]

The answer to "If it's so obvious, why didn't someone else patent it" is pretty straightforward - maybe they didn't have the resources to, or maybe they put their effort into implementing it instead, or maybe they were in a different country, etc. Prior art helps here, but again, even the possibility of a lawsuit has chilling effects. And I think more often than not, at least with software patents, the patent holder wasn't the first to think of it.

That raises another question - why does the first one to think of something get the exclusive right, and the second one get nothing, even if he thought of it independantly of the first? To me, that's the height of unfairness - I could have an idea, write software, and years later get sued because someone I've never heard of who didn't implement it thought of it a week before I did. Or what if I thought of it first, but he patented it before my implementation was published? And what if both inventors are moving at .9C relative to the USPTO - whose sequence of events do we trust? The law ought to recognize that we both did the same thing, and it's not fair to arbitrarily screw one of us. Copyright doesn't have this problem because it's almost impossible for two authors to write the exact same thing, and even if they come close, the law only punishes an author if he copied the other's work - if he can show he came up with it independantly, he's clear.

As for the economics, I don't think it's fair to imply that no software patents is somehow communist. Is not owning air communist? No, it's just that it doesn't make sense to declare some things, like air, and I think like broad ideas about software, to be property.

You don't want someone else to take your idea and undercut you? Of course - nobody wants to be undercut, but that doesn't make it wrong. It's a very competitive world out there, and that's a good thing. But you say they "made off with your idea as their own." No they didn't, it's just that they implemented it better (where "goodness" includes cost).

You can tell that I subscribe to the notion that copyrights and patents are incentives for sharing innovation, and thus should be balanced, as opposed to the notion that they follow from some theory of natural property rights and thus should be as strong as possible. And I'll admit that some patents are great - for example, the microchip patents you mention. Microchip designs would never be published if not for patents, and it's impossible to reverse engineer them. There, the patent system served it's purpose - the designer gets a limited monopoly, and we get the blueprints. But that's a different industry. In the software industry, the only good patents are very narrow ones.

Instead of trusting the USPTO to keep out the general patents (which they've botched so far), we could simply broaden copyright somewhat. For example, if you invent some great new audio compression method, just publish the copyrighted code. If I then write some audio compression software, you could sue me saying that I merely reverse engineered it. But if I came up with it on my own, or if mine was sufficiently different that I couldn't have just copied it, I'd be fine. I think that broadening the scope of derivative works in that way would be much better than the current situation with software patents.

Re:Is this an issue?

[LivinFree]

BillyBlaze - I do have to say that you presented the facts and arguments very well. Hats off to you for that. It is nice to see a serious discussion in this forum.

Also, from looking at your SF project, I can definitely see your point. Although you have obviously made something that some schlub like me can use, some other conglomeration may have already called this idea theirs, albeit not a product I could readily find, let alone afford.

Again, I see both sides of the argument, and you have placed yours very well.

I wish you the best of luck with your project. Note: my iTunes has a similar feature. Just for grins and giggles, I'd like to see who did it first - you may have a nice case on your hands :)

--
http://acostas.org

Re:Is this an issue?

[Dan Ost]

but software algorithms should be patentable

Math isn't patentable.
Algorithms are math.

Why is this so complicated?

Re:Is this an issue?

[SpectralOne]

Patents do not protect abstract ideas. Again, do some homework before spewing an invective. Patents protect a process, composition of material or apparatus. Most awarded software patents show apparatus and/or process, and if they don't, a challenge will usually crush them.

Re:Is this an issue?

[Halo1]

The problem is that in case of software, the product is simply another way of stating the description. It's similar to saying that you don't want to allow patents on stories, but you do want patents on printed books, because a book is a product.

And then you get patent descriptions like "an information carrier characterised in that it contains a story involving a boy and a girl who both have an affair, whereby ...". It's not all that different from how program claims in software patents look.

In the end, one could even start arguing for patents on patent descriptions themselves: just like a computer program contains instructions that tell you what to do, a patent description for any physical invention also contains a description of such steps.

Patents on information entities simply don't work, because then the system deadlocks: patents are supposed to encourage sharing of information, but software patents forbid that same sharing if you use a particular class languages (programming languages) to express it. And the reason is simply that the information is the product.

That's also exactly why we have copyright and why it's appropriate for the protection of computer programs: there the way how you express something is what matters and what is monopolised, and not what you express.

Re:Is this an issue?

[Halo1]

Patents do not protect abstract ideas.

That's indeed the theory.

Patents protect a process, composition of material or apparatus. Most awarded software patents show apparatus and/or process, and if they don't, a challenge will usually crush them.

First of all, I doubt that all program claims can be easily crushed when challenged. Unless of course you take a wording as "a computer program product, characterised in that when loaded in a programmable device a process according to claim X is executed" as a description of a composition of material (the program could be on a CD) a process (although the claim that program claim refers to is the actual process claim).

Next, such a challenge easily costs US$1.5-2 million.

Finally, it is quite trivial to word abstract software ideas in a way that they become a process executed by a computer (after all, that's the only useful thing you can do with a computer program). So that's not really a limitation to what you can patent.

Re:Is this an issue?

[bit01]

But it's OK to benefit the first person with enough balls to patent something that the rest of us think is stupid.

You are ignoring the fact that many (most?) patents are for ideas whose time has come. Many people/companies independently invent the same thing in a short space of time. One person/company gets a sometimes multi-million dollar advantage and everybody else loses. That's not right and is also why lack of prior art is no evidence of inventiveness.

---

It's wrong that an intellectual property creator should not be rewarded for their work.
It's equally wrong that an IP creator should be rewarded too many times for the one piece of work, for exactly the same reasons.
Reform IP law and stop the M$/RIAA abuse.

Re:Is this an issue?

[16K Ram Pack]

Exactly.

It's why people deserve patents for things like the biro, the paper clip and others, and not for most software/business process things.

To me, those inventions were about applying a non-direct approach to a problem. Software patents are about getting something down before someone else does.

Re:Is this an issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

This also gives them an incentive to improve their implementation, whereas if they patented it, not only would they not need to improve it, they could keep others from improving it.

Umm, no. You are missing the point of the patent system. If you publicy disclose how an invention of yours works and allow others to improve it you get a guarantee from the government that you, during a limited time, will be granted exclusive rights on your invention.

Re:Is this an issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

Many things are obvious in hindsight.
For example, someone came up with the idea of combining a caulking gun mechanism and a bar clamp ("cramp" to you Brits), and thus was invented the "Quick-grip" (or "Quick-clamp" or whatever).
He patented it and made lots of money licensing the patent.
Almost anybody looking at a Quick-grip will say, "Well, that's obvious.", but if that's the case, how come nobody thought of it before?

So things that are obvious once you know about them may not have been so obvious beforehand.

The difference between the "Quick-clamp" and the "one-click shopping button" is that the "Quick-clamp" was invented in a long-established field (where innovations are relatively uncommon), whereas the whole Internet thing is relatively recent (where innovation is relatively common).
In other words, if the inventor of the "Quick-clamp" had not invented it, would would likely not have been invented for some time.
Is it likely that "one-click shopping" would have been invented by several other people relatively quickly, had not Amazon invented it first?
I don't know, but my guess is that it would have.

That said, I am against software patents, at least, most of them, because I feel that most of them aren't so much inventions as they are minor "tweaks" to existing information/procedures.
This is a failure of the USPTO.

Re:Is this an issue?

[henrygb]

That raises another question - why does the first one to think of something get the exclusive right, and the second one get nothing, even if he thought of it independantly of the first?

It encourages an innovation race, which should mean more innovation more quickly. But if somebody else is likely to come up with the same idea independently and soon then it should fail the unobvious test.

Since the majority of software patents seem to be invalid on one ground or another, should the existence of a patent prejudice the court against the patent holder?

Re:Is this an issue?

[Halo1]

It encourages an innovation race, which should mean more innovation more quickly.

It doesn't work that way in software (or even computer hardware for a large part). Take for example this testimony (Word document) of Robert Barr (Vice President, Worldwide Patent Counsel, Cisco Systems) at the FTC hearings on the effects of patents on competition in 2002:

My observation is that patents have not been a positive force in stimulating innovation at Cisco. Competition has been the motivator; bringing new products to market in a timely manner is critical. Everything we have done to create new products would have been done even if we could not obtain patents on the innovations and inventions contained in these products. I know this because no one has ever asked me 'can we patent this?' before deciding whether to invest time and resources into product development.

Re:Is this an issue?

[tepples]

Math isn't patentable.

Could you back up this assertion with statute and case law?

Re:Is this an issue?

[BillyBlaze]

Thanks. I didn't know iTunes had a similar feature, and I wonder how it works. When I started, there were many "compressors", but they didn't have lookahead - maybe iTunes is like this? VLevel's first public release was in April 2003, and I probably had the idea some time before that - no idea how that compares to iTunes. And I certainly didn't copy it - basically I wrote it to stop my dad's complaining about the dynamic range of classical music, and I wasn't aware of anything else like it at the time. Anyway, yeah, I'd prefer not to be sued over it, so I'll probably return the favor by not suing iTunes.

Re:Is this an issue?

[d_jedi]

Compuserve patented the GIF compression algorithm, didn't they?

Its not the royalty check that is the problem

[nurb432]

Its the cease and desist letters that come along first...

You cant get blood out of a turnip, but you can make the turnip's life miserable...

The real OSS enemy has time and money

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the average patent-holder has many hurdles which may prevent it to sue OSS developers, but the real enemy (read, Micro$oft), has time and money and lawyers and the will to harm us.

Re:The real OSS enemy has time and money

[johannesg]

One ray of hope is that Microsoft is a convicted monopolist. They may hold all the patents in the world, but any _overt_ action to take out a competitor (no matter if patents are involved or not) will quickly get them back into court.

Re:The real OSS enemy has time and money

[Jesus_666]

One ray of hope is that Microsoft is a convicted monopolist. They may hold all the patents in the world, but any _overt_ action to take out a competitor (no matter if patents are involved or not) will quickly get them back into court.

So? Either they get a fine which they will appeal against until no one cares about it anymore. Or they get a punishment that actually hurts them, at which point they can simply say that they'll move everything out of the USA and set up a new HQ in $BACKWATER_COUNTRY, thus creating a huge economical lossage for the States. The threat alone should be enough to effectively stop any legal action.

I think that MS is too wealthy to be hurt by fines and too big to be hurt in any other way, except for widespread adoption of non-MS software.

Security matters

[gmuslera]

At least in security you must assume your enemy have a lot of resources and is even smarter than you. With software patents, and you project being in risk because some essential portion is patented by someone else, people could doubt in wasting time if even when sucessful all could fall because the owner of the patent succeed in making trouble.

And if well could be difficult for individuals holding patents, what about patent trading? If my project puts in the way of i.e. some Microsoft commercial program and starts to be viewed as a threath or at least a cause of not so high profits they could have the resources and the will to probably end my entire project.

It's not just about royalties

[linuxhansl]

There's also opportunity costs that an "inventator" can claim.
The claim would be that the "inventor" is losing money, because the "invention" is illegally available for free as open source.

However we twist and turn it, patents are there to get a lock on an idea to make money of said idea. Any way to limit the possibility of making money can be prosecuted. Hence Software patents still are bad.

Re:It's not just about royalties

[ScrewMaster]

Actually, no. Patents are there to get a lock on an implementation of an idea. Well, that's what Jefferson and the rest of the Founders intended. I grant that Congress has screwed with that concept to the point where patents (software or otherwise) have become fundamentally useless for their intended purpose.

My own feeling is that we are headed for serious economic trouble over this. Serious. Other nations are moving ahead full-steam, picking up the pace of technological development, while we are putting shackles on those who just might invent us out of the bad times ahead.

I guess this is what happens when you put a few hundred lawyers in charge of your country.

Corporate bullies

[MoonBuggy]

While the points in the article show that patents aren't easy to use in order to scrub out OSS projects, I know plenty of people would simply fold when faced with the prospect of a long expensive legal battle with a team of lawyers who have funding that is, for all realistic purposes, limitless even if the leader of the open source project knew they were in the right.

If you write something that [big company] doesn't like, they sue and you have to either drop the project that's taking up time anyway or fight and risk a chunk of your own money then you are quite likely to pick the path that doesn't potentially leave you in the gutter, particularly if you have a family depending on your income and the program was just a little 'spare time' project.

The true legalities may not be too bad, but the big corporations have yet another way to threaten the little guy and I wish we could count on them to do the right thing and not abuse there cash reserves by draining people dry, but past experience shows that companies often don't have this kind of common decency.

Re:Corporate bullies

[ScrewMaster]

It's worse than that ... if you've been selling your OSS then you are potentially liable for damages even if you drop the project. That is the real chilling effect. And if you released your source in good GPL fashion, you may have just opened yourself up to charges of facilitating copyright/patent infringement and all that crap. And if you're operating as a group of private citizens ... well guess what: each individual can be personally liable for any damages, etc. Frankly, I think that any OSS development group, if it's based in the U.S., had better get a good lawyer and incorporate.

Re:Corporate bullies

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually its to late when their lawyers have contacted you. From the moment you get served, you are a walking dead man, and you have lost everything you have. You will lose your job (you can't work if you are always off at the fed courthouse instead of at work) and you will have to sell everything you have to pay for even an incompetent just barely passed the bar last week lawyer.

There is no cure. Perhaps just consider being served as notice of Lawyer Season and go hunting.

Re:Corporate bullies

[Anonymous Coward]

there cash reserves

"their".

Re:But they will allow

[Anonymous Coward]

I already did the patent will be mine! BTW Grandparent owes me 0.50 cents

A question I've always had...

[pongo000]

...and one I was hoping Mr. Rosen had an answer for: Exactly who does one sue for patent infringement when it comes to OSS? Once OSS has been "released", you can't call it back. In many cases, alleged infringers are given the opportunity to either license the patented technology, or to no longer use the technology.

Although IANAL, I maintain that patents pose no real threat to OSS development, since authorship of OSS is a "moving target" (especially where derivative works come into play). Most OSS author are not likely to agree to royalty payments, so exactly what recourse does the accuser have at that point?

Re:A question I've always had...

[dirk]

While you are correctly ou can't "call it back", they can make it illegal to use. If I release software X, that infringes on a patent Y, person or company Z (remember, not all patents are held by big companies) can sure me over my software. If they win, it was essentially illegal for me to release my software, since I didn't have the rights to patent Y. So at that point, the software I wrote is no longer under the GPL, as I didn't have the rights to release it. So it essential null and void. It would be like stealing the source of Windows and releasing it under the GPL. You can't stop people from trading it, but it still isn't legal, since you didn't have the right to distribute it in the first place.

Re:A question I've always had...

[Halfbaked Plan]

Anybody who distributes the OSS will be sued.

Sure, you can use Freenet to distribute it.

That's not gonna win any commercial IT penetration.

Re:A question I've always had...

[BillyBlaze]

It is true that many projects could be continued elsewhere - look at Myth, formerly PlayFair, which moved overseas in response to legal theats. But driving useful software underground and overseas is still a bad thing - and good luck convincing your boss to let the company run software hosted in Elbonia for legal reasons.

Re:A question I've always had...

[dmaxwell]

They'll sue and harass anyone who tries to publically maintain a project. They'll also sue and harrass distributions and mirror sites.

Re:A question I've always had...

[Anonymous Coward]

If the company will outsource to India or elsewhere, why would they balk at running software remotely to get around patent laws?

Re:A question I've always had...

[thisissilly]

While you are correct you can't "call it back", they can make it illegal to use.

Clarification: They can make it illegal to use in certain countries where that patent is valid. Now you know one reason that some companies are pushing so hard for software patents in the EU. Without it, development and use continue in Europe and the rest of the world (and with users in the US who are willing to violate the patent).

Re:A question I've always had...

[SpectralOne]

> Although IANAL, I maintain that patents pose no real threat to OSS development, since authorship of OSS is a "moving target" (especially where derivative works come into play). Are we all anarchists now? This is like saying it's OK to kill people as long as you keep running and don't get caught. The OSS that infringes a patent, however difficult to catch, would always be in violation, and the spirit of the work would be illegal.

Re:How open source should deal with sofware patent

[Anonymous Coward]

Address the problem at its root:
killall -9 software_patent_holders

I'm afraid I can't assist, too many things to do.

*nods*

[JamesTRexx]

Indeed, it's hard to sue someone for money if they don't make any from the open source software they write. It would at most only halt the development until there's an alternative to that part that's patented.
But I think it's more likely there's more prior art to debunk the patent and drop any case in court.

Mixed message

[Artifakt]

The article points out some good reasons for not panicing. To explain them, it then mentions Giant Asteroid Impacts and Mutually Assured Distruction as for a massive nuclear war. These are not the best metaphors to choose in explaining why things are not really all that bad.

Re:Mixed message

[julesh]

Actually, MAD seems like a good metaphor. It points out that the patent war might be avertable -- if the OSS community can acquire allies with enough patents to dissuade an attack, then the attack will probably never come. The question is: how far will IBM et al go to support OSS? Would they openly fight Microsoft?

Constitutional solution

[Thinkit4]

Section 8, Clause 8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries

Amendment 1: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment 1 strikes down section 8, clause 8. Patents and copyrights are unconstitutional.

Re:Constitutional solution

[BillyBlaze]

Sig says it all. The Supreme Court has said that copyright law is compatible with the first ammendment only because of fair use. I'm cool with that (except that life plus seventy isn't limited in my book). But code is speech, not a machine. Patent law never stops you from communicating with someone, so it shouldn't be able to stop you from distributing your code - those actions are one and the same.

Re:Constitutional solution

[black mariah]

What the fuck are you talking about, idiot?

Re:Constitutional solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Worst IANAL ever.

Re:Constitutional solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, tell me how the US Constitution is unconstitutional.

Re:GPL is incompatible with patnets

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

The GPL makes it illegal to distribute GPL software that violates patents.

You Sir are quite a poor troll.

Think before you do a patent search

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

There's a bug in the idea of doing patent searches.

To reproduce this bug, go through the following steps:
1. Look for patents in the area where you're working.
2. Find a patent which is related but not identical to what you're doing.
3. Continue what you're doing.
4. Get sued for infringement by the patent owner.

Expected:
Someone gives you credit for due diligence.
Actual:
Owner of related but not identical patent asks for triple damages for "willful infringement" using your knowledge of their patent as evidence. The threat of paying out three times as much forces you to settle unfavorably.

Re:Think before you do a patent search

[throbber]

This is easy to avoid. ... get someone else to look for you. It might be expensive though.

Re:Think before you do a patent search

[julesh]

There's a bug in the idea of doing patent searches.

To reproduce this bug, go through the following steps:
1. Look for patents in the area where you're working.
2. Find a patent which is related but not identical to what you're doing.
3. Continue what you're doing.
4. Get sued for infringement by the patent owner.

Expected:
Someone gives you credit for due diligence.
Actual:
Owner of related but not identical patent asks for triple damages for "willful infringement" using your knowledge of their patent as evidence. The threat of paying out three times as much forces you to settle unfavorably.

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
Comments: User error. Stage 3 of the process described above is considered an illegal operation, and as such we don't make any guarantees about the results of performing it.

Re:Think before you do a patent search

[Thomas Shaddack]

Or avoid leaving evidence it was *you* who looked. Dynamic IPs, shared computers, libraries, and proxies are friends.

Re:GPL is incompatible with patnets

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Hmm sorry, my bad, I read "The GPL makes it legal...". Nevermind...

disagree, this will become a war against FOSS

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr. Rosen is a smart guy who knows about open source. (And I appreciate his "summary" at the end of the article, for those of us who never RTFA ;-). But I find his recommendations a little hard to swallow.

1. Don't be too paranoid about the patent problem

The guys with the patents only have two hurdle to cross: writing the cease and desist letter, and writing the FUD press release ("Linux stole are technology"). This *first* step in patent litigition can kill an open source project, never mind the *last* step (getting the royalty checks).

Sure, maybe Mozilla and Apache will survive a patent attack. But what about a smaller open source project? The "guy in mom's basement". These guys will just pull their projects, regardless of the merits of the case.

2. Don't try to out-invent the big guys.

Don't try to out-code them either, right? Wrong!

If open source can produce a product that competes with a multi-billion dollar company's product, it can pool its resources to generate patents. We should find a way to achieve this goal.

I bet many clever open source programmers can find all kinds of stuff to patent in their code.. do you use a checksum to save some computation? Use a clever algorithm to distribute work among nodes? Transfer data out-of-order to exploit some optimizable properties of data? Look in your code, start thinking in terms of patents. Keep your bar LOW. Even the simplest thing is patentable, as we have seen time and time again.

Take software licenses as an example: before the GPL, software licenses were an afterthought.. you just wanted to make sure you got credit. But the GPL is a tactical weapon that opened people's eyes to the issue of software licensing and the world of draconian EULAs we now deal with. Even if you don't like the GPL you must agree that licensing is almost as important as the quality of the code itself.

We need to have the same eye-opener when it comes to patents. Maybe one of the big guys like FSF or Apache should take the first step and start applying for patents. Start a "patent fund" to research and file the patents.

3. Conduct a reasonably diligent search for patents we might infringe.

Why? What do we do when we find a patented technology that has no substitute (like "1-click ordering", the best you can do is make it "2 clicks")? Might as well ignore them until the C&D comes. Let *their* legal departments do the work.

Design around patented technology wherever possible.

What if it's not possible? What if the patent depends on, say, some part of a public spec? Either violate the patent, violate the spec, or go home. But generally this is good advice. If you know you are violating a patent, come up with something better, if you can..

5. Identify allies who can defend us with their patent shields.

This is good advice. Find a company with a "patent promise" that they won't litigate patents offensively.

6. Withhold our software from those who sue us for patent infringement.

Uh, okay, that'll show em. Hey microsoft! Your license to distribute Linux has just expired! TAKE THAT! And how will "the guy in the basement" enforce this anyway???

Make no mistake, the bigco's (microsoft in particular) are salivating at the thought of destroying open source and painting them as "IP theives" all in one blow.

If the sky isn't falling yet, it will be someday.

I would add a #7 to his list:

Make sure the business world understands the value proposition of open source and software freedom. It's not about altruism or people sitting at home saying "I'd like to write a content management system today, for free". It's about talented people solving real business problems for their own benefit. It works in the free market because it *is* the free market. It's not anti-competitive, it *is* competition: you're as good as your code, and no better.

When microsoft tr

Re:disagree, this will become a war against FOSS

[Anonymous Coward]

the "open source community"... can never generate the number of patents obtained by the big patent powerhouse companies. Filing patent applications simply takes too much time and costs too much money

This sounds all very much like:

The open source community can never generate the amount of software created by the big powerhouse companies. Requirements, design, coding, and testing simply take too much time and cost too much money.

Re:disagree, this will become a war against FOSS

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Just a thought. While MS doesn't distribute Linux (the kernel) they did use to distribute Cygwin as a Unix compatibility layer under their own brand. Would they lose that right? Do they still use Cygwin, or did they ever clean room the GNU tools?

Re:disagree, this will become a war against FOSS

[Ogerman]

If open source can produce a product that competes with a multi-billion dollar company's product, it can pool its resources to generate patents. We should find a way to achieve this goal.

It's not that we couldn't, but it would be against our values. Software patents are plainly wrong and it is very reasonable to think them unconstitutional. If the Open Source community started grabbing for patents, we'd be legitimizing software patents and might even help to encourage their adoption outside the US!

Re:disagree, this will become a war against FOSS

[Anonymous Coward]

"Linux stole are technology"

"our".

Re:disagree, this will become a war against FOSS

[fymidos]

>what about a smaller open source project?
>The "guy in mom's basement".

forget about it, nobody is going to sue "the guy in mom's basement" there is nothing to gain from it, only a lot of bad press: "Convicted Monopoly sues 16-year-old kde hacker over Klipper"

>Start a "patent fund" to research and file the
>patents

There is no need for that as at the moment it's out there it's prior act. You only need patents if you want to sue and make money of them.

>SCO is just a sideshow compared to what is
>possible

Indeed, no, SCO had the absolute best chance of doing anything, there is nothing more anyone can do. A patent war against OSS is never going to happen, this is just FUD with great emphasis on the F part.
MS would never attack OSS this way: Imagine a counter attack against their patents. Sure some of them are valid, but my guess is that easily 80% would be dropped in a court.

Re:disagree, this will become a war against FOSS

[infolib]

You only need patents if you want to sue and make money of them.

What? Larry Rosen made that mistake in the article, and it's been blasted in, like, 300 comments and now you make it again? Besides, the Open Source community might like to have patents to force others to cross-licence. That's a very common practice among large companies, but you can only join if you bring something to the table.

Re:disagree, this will become a war against FOSS

[fymidos]

I am not making a mistake:
OS community will never *force* others to cross license, nor will it apply for patents.
If this is a common practise, then redhat/suse/ibm etc might go ahead and do it.

You don't have to play a game if you don't like the rules. It's that simple.

Re:disagree, this will become a war against FOSS

[infolib]

I am not making a mistake

Well you did say:

You only need patents if you want to sue and make money of them.

Well, in case $HUGECORP sends you a C&D to stop publishing your OS program because of patent infringement what do you do? If you have no patents of your own you'll have to either fight or fold, and fighting's too expensive. The alternative will be for you to threaten a countersuit, in case you or your friends have a patent. Did you ever intend to make money from your patent? No. Did you ever plan to sue anyone? No. But you want the patent anyway - just like a nuclear bomb you never want to use, but need to have because the other guy does.

OS community will never *force* others to cross license, nor will it apply for patents. If this is a common practise, then redhat/suse/ibm etc might go ahead and do it.

That's an awful lot of prediction of the future. You may be right, but I'd like to know how you know.

You don't have to play a game if you don't like the rules. It's that simple.

I deeply wish it was that way. Unfortunately you can't write software without infringing on patents, so in this case staying out of the game means "don't publish software". Are you really planning to stay out of that game?

Faulty premises

[Anita Coney]

Part of Rosen's argument is based on the fact that patent suits are hard to win in court. The other part of Rosen's argument assumes that anyone using patents against open source is looking for money, i.e., royalty payments.

Both of those arguments fail when applied to Microsoft. Microsoft would never use its software patents to collect royalties. It would use them to make companies afraid to use open source and compel them to use Microsoft's products.

Thus, it does not matter if Microsoft's patents are valid or not, when a company gets sued, Microsoft will offer a deal similar to this: Stop using open source and buy our products.

The money monkeys in charge of the companies will fold because it will be more cost effective to simply buy Microsoft's products rather than risk losing at trial. After Micrsoft wins a few of these "settlements" open source will begin to look unattractive to anyone else considering it.

Re:Faulty premises

[kiwirob]

Yes Microsoft could pull the old "Stop using open source or we will sue" if you use our patents. But this action would most likely be seen as anti-competitive behaviour by a convicted monopolist.

If they tried this sort of thing I think they would end up in a world of trouble. Will they try? Probably!!

Re:Faulty premises

[Anonymous Coward]

"Thus, it does not matter if Microsoft's patents are valid or not, when a company gets sued, Microsoft will offer a deal similar to this: Stop using open source and buy our products."

See you are wrong because this is a case of antitrust. Microsoft attacks via proxy. In addition Microsoft does not have to say boo, those adverse to risk will realize all on their own that Open Source is a risky propisition all on their own. Microsoft can just let it slide that so and so opensource product is in their opinion in violation of their IP. They will vigerously protect themselves from many things but the carrot will be used far more than the stick. MS patents are for those who can pay and leverage against others who would wage war on them in the courts.

Microsoft has been using FUD for years, why should they change when it works so well? The other thing they are great at is embrace and extend, something that Open Source advocates should worry more about than patents.

Re:Faulty premises

[Anonymous Coward]

If they tried this sort of thing I think they would end up in a world of trouble. Will they try? Probably!!

Which they will easily buy their way out. The DOJ is a worthless and spineless of crap.

Re:Faulty premises

[killjoe]

LOL. And who will punish them? The DOJ? What a joke.

Re:Faulty premises

[m00nun1t]

Can you give an example of Microsoft taking legal action to enforce a patent infringement?

(Hint: I've asked this question on /. 3 or 4 times, if you find a case you'll be the first).

Re:Faulty premises

[Halo1]

Microsoft only recently hired Marshall Phelps, the man that made IBM the largest patent owner in the entire world and who designed their patent license income strategy.

Microsoft was late to hop on the software patent bandwagon, but this is changing now.

Re:Faulty premises

[Anita Coney]

I guess I didn't make myself clear. Microsoft would NEVER have to even file a lawsuit. It would simply use its patents in sales negotiations.

Imagine a relatively poor school district considering using OpenOffice. Of course Microsoft would send sales people to the school to change their minds.

Microsoft would talk about the "real" price of open source, e.g., the cost of re-training. Microsoft would talk about have better support. Microsoft would offer pretty good deals.

And lastly, Microsoft would make a threat, "By the way, we have quite a few patents that OpenOffice is violating. We know your district is low on money and we'd really hate to see it caught up in extremely expensive patent litigation. So why don't you just sign right here."

Re:Faulty premises

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't answer the question about your first lot of FUD, so you create a second lot of FUD. Basically, you just make up stuff that makes microsoft sound evil despite them never having done it or anything like it.

Who spreads the FUD again....

Re:Faulty premises

[Anita Coney]

You're right, I made stuff up. It's called a thinking.

Lawrence Rosen created hypothetical situations to show how open source has nothing to fear from software patents. I created different hypothetical situations to show how he's wrong.

People have been thinking for years, and I think it's about time you try it for yourself.

Re:Faulty premises

[Alioth]

You forget that IBM is now a large stake holder in Linux. IBM can quite easily mete out devastating patent retaliation against Microsoft if Microsoft try to threaten an important business strategy of IBM. Microsoft is almost guaranteed to be violating large numbers of IBM's patents.

Re:Faulty premises

[russotto]

Why would they take legal action when FUD is so much cheaper? How much have they gotten from digital camera manufacturers on their bogus (obvious, expired, and/or submarine) FAT patents, for instance?

Re:Faulty premises

[Anonymous Coward]

But this whole thread is in itself FUD. Pot, meet ketttle.

Re:How open source should deal with sofware patent

[Anonymous Coward]

why not the software patent registrars? software patent laws? software patent lawmakers? software patent lawmaker constituencies? YOU?

Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would people be scared to use it?

Microsoft: Hey, I've got patents on all the stuff OpenOffice.org does, so you guys can't use it anymore!

Rest of the world: Put it where the sun don't shine Microsoft, we don't care.

Microsoft: Right. I'm gonna get ya! Hmm, who to target first... Wait, how am I supposed to target a whole community with a lawsuit? Ahhhhh *explodes*

And there was much rejoicing.

(Yayyyy)

Re:Hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, how am I supposed to target a whole community with a lawsuit?

1) Sue Sun
2) Sue RedHat
3) Sue Novell
4) Finish decapitating the 'whole community'

(you know 4 and 5)

Re:Hmm

[jrexilius]

It is two fold, corporate support and adoption is very easily chilled with a few law suits, and once that is dropped then sue a few OSS developers, and then a few end users a la RIAA. Its a bit of an exageration, perhaps, but quite plausible.

Let's think about this...

[maztuhblastah]

1) SCO goes on a crusade, accuses anyone/everyone associated with Linux. IBM steps up to the plate and pours tons of time and money into defending Linux. Result? SCO f*ck's their relationship with Baystar, Chrysler, and McDonald's to hell and back and watches their stock go swimming in Wall Street's crapper.

2) Microsoft patents anything and everything in an attempt to both block open source competition and pave the way for Longhorn's release. Result? Apple upstages MS with the demonstration of Longhorn's features in working form in Tiger. Microsoft shits their pants as they realise that those features were implimented not only more efficiently than they were able to, but also without violating any patents. The open source community continues to work (almost) uninterrupted.

3) Microsoft throws a fit, heats up the presses, and launches a massive wave of FUD at the public. Results? Just that...the IT world looks at the FUD, looks back at the results, and continues to depend on Linux/BSD/etc. for servers...

4) ...you can contribute to this one...


Somehow I doubt that patent sprees will ever have a major effect on the open source movement...

Re:Let's think about this...

[Anonymous Coward]

2) Apple and Microsoft cross-license each others' patents, so this doesn't affect Open Source at all.

2a) Who's to say that Apple won't sue Linux developers for infinging their patents? Apple is much more legally agressive than Microsoft.

Re:Let's think about this...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, Slashdotters tend to think that only SCO and MS are after open source, and of Apple as a "good company" that doesn't harm open source.

Though I don't think Apple would want to ruin it's reputation. MS has nothing to lose anymore, as Linux geeks hate it nevertheless and true Linux geeks don't use it (and the "Joe Average" doesn't care), homewer Apple users are more like Linux users, they care a bit of what's going on. So a bit of litigation could well have a serious effect on Apple's business.

Re:Let's think about this...

[Duhavid]

RE: point 3,

Microsoft have been doing things in the marketplace with lockin and such that I would think that IT would look at and say "I want no part of that" for many years now. I think that exactly this is why so many of us dont like MS all that much.

The IT response, in the main, has been to continue to purchase MS.

I realize that there is backlash against this, that there has been some, and that it is growing. I am just not as sure as you are about where that balance point will be. I think that MS's current tactics will lose them some customers, but I am thinking that these tactics will enable them to keep the vast majority.

I hope and pray that I am wrong and you are right.

Remember the cotton gin

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

Eli Whitney had a patent, but he couldn't sue the thousands who made their own. Also, lawyers will only go after the deep pockets, so if you are an infringer living in your parent's basement, they can't justify any action that loses them money.

Re:Remember the cotton gin

[BillyBlaze]

If Eli Whittney had the resources Microsoft has, and the basement infringers were undercutting their main product, you can bet the industrial revolution would have sucked. And if he patented interchangeable parts, it never would have happened.

Re:Remember the cotton gin

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical misinformed slashbot. Most Industrial Revolution inventors did successfully enforce their patents, in fact the Industrial Revolution is considered a triumph of the patent system.

Re:Remember the cotton gin

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

Is the computer revolution somehow NOT sucking?

Re:Remember the cotton gin

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, lawyers will only go after the deep pockets, so if you are an infringer living in your parent's basement, they can't justify any action that loses them money.

Very wrong. Lawyers will sue as long as they are paid. If M$ has $55 in bank then their lawyers won't have to worry about their own paychecks.

Not impressed

[Anonymous Coward]

Can the open source community create its own patents?

The people commonly referred to as the "open source community" - in this instance meaning the hackers and developers who write much open source software -- can never generate the number of patents obtained by the big patent powerhouse companies. Filing patent applications simply takes too much time and costs too much money.

I'm less than impressed with this guy's reasoning. The fact that we can't generate the same volume of low quality patents as a Microsoft is beside the issue. Quality can beat quantity. A few key patents could exert enormous leverage, particularly if they were closely linked to widely accepted standards that even a Microsoft has to respect.

The writer also does not realize that an open source group could accept donated patents, and (in the U.S.) return some of their value to the inventor (or corporate owner) in the form of a tax-deduction. The donor would be a double winner. His idea would be widely adopted and, if he/it has taxable income, he/it would get a tax deduction.

And while it is true that those patents would offer no protection to a patent-holding company with no other business (no patent can), it would offer some protection against a SCO or a Microsoft. And that's where the real danger lies.

--Mike Perry, Inkling blog , Seattle

Re:Not impressed

[Anonymous Coward]

His idea would be widely adopted and, if he/it has taxable income, he/it would get a tax deduction.

What, females don't enter the picture, only males and organizations?

Tax break equality for women!

Seriously, if you're going to do the whole he/she/it/whatsem thing, you have to go all the way. Otherwise, just pick 'he' or 'she' and leave it at that.

Patents as a double edged sword?

[earthforce_1]

I have been sort of thinking about this, and how patents are used in industry. Perhaps the intent can be reversed, as are done with software licences under copyleft.

Can we devise something analogous to GPL for a software or hardware patent, so that if you use it in your product or design, then you must provide full source code and/or schematics and/or ensure that all other patents used in the product or software are available under the same terms. Then all open source advocates have to do, is create their own patent portfolio, as long as we can find lawyers willing to help with the filing. We can fight fire with fire, the next time somebody tries to embrace and extend, they will have serious trouble if the interface is protected by a public patent.

Hello, RMS - are you out there? Wanna bite?

Re:Patents as a double edged sword?

[Aim Here]

Trouble is, all the GNU Free Patent Licenses in the world won't help you a jot, if Microsoft or whoever sets up a sock puppet company which makes nothing, sells nothing, and owns nothing but a few lawyers, some capital borrowed from the likes of Baystar, and some patents bought from Microsoft, and direct orders from Bill to clobber [your favourite Free/Open Source Software project].

That pretty much renders it invulnerable to a strategy based on defensive patents (or, as in the original article, wording your copyright license to withdraw permission to use your software from patent-abusing shitheads)

You're better off saving your money and just documenting everything as prior art.

Re:Patents as a double edged sword?

[Anonymous Coward]

Then all open source advocates have to do, is create their own patent portfolio, as long as we can find lawyers willing to help with the filing.
You clearly have no idea how many thousands of dollars and years of time it takes to get a patent filed and approved. If it had been that easy to file patents then OSS developers would have done it. Instead they do what they can do best: write code.

Then do what Linus suggested..

[zoloto]

simply don't look them up
don't care to know of them.

create your work, and enjoy it.

[my step]
if it steps on someone's toe (which is doubtful) then ignore him until you have positive proof presented that you did in fact do what you did with willful intent to violate his patent... in that case, he can't

Re:How open source should deal with sofware patent

[the_mad_poster]

The irony in using a command that started in the proprietary IRIX system to show "how open source should deal with software patents" is something I fear shall be forever lost on most Slashdotters...

Patents are already annoying!

[Blymie]

Yeah, right.

And with messages like these in programs:

http://etrade.malformed.org/Screenshot.png

Things aren't going to get any better! Damn patents.

Big company, little company

[rumblin'rabbit]

It's an article of faith that big corporations are greedy and nasty and the root of all evil. Heretic that I am, I don't buy it.

Although big corporations have very deep pockets, they also have something called a reputation that they value greatly. Attracting the wrath of IT managers throughout the world is no small matter to them. For this reason, their claws often remained sheathed.

Might I suggest that it's a new breed of company, small or mid-sized ones, whose very raison d'etre is to collect valuable intellectual property, that we have the most to fear from. They've got everything to win, little to lose, and they don't give rat's ass about their reputation.

One example - SCO. A near worthless organization (about $10 million in market capitalization) until they discovered they "owned" Linux. They have been accused of ties with Microsoft (there is some evidence through BlueStar), but I'm not convinced. The Justice Department is ever watchful these days.

A second example - Teleshuttle Technologies, subject of a recent post ( http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/21/15 39205&tid=155 ).

Expect to see more of them as time goes by.

Re:Big company, little company

[killjoe]

"It's an article of faith that big corporations are greedy and nasty and the root of all evil. Heretic that I am, I don't buy it."

Corporations are amoral. they are soul-less immortal beings whose purpose is to make money and nothing else. Yes that's greedy. Yes that's nasty. And yes if you believe in the bible and jesus it's the root of all evil.

"Although big corporations have very deep pockets, they also have something called a reputation that they value greatly."

Bullshit. As evidence I point you to Microsoft, MCI/Worldcom, global crossing, tyson, firestone, martha stewart living, proctor and gamble, et al.

"Might I suggest that it's a new breed of company, small or mid-sized ones, whose very raison d'etre is to collect valuable intellectual property, that we have the most to fear from."

Or how about a huge company with a history of acting in the most sleazy and unethical way possible gathering up intellectual property like there is no tommorow. Should we be scared of them too? Or maybe you think Bill gates suddenly found religion and wants to run an ethical company?

Re:Big company, little company

[0x0d0a]

One example - SCO. A near worthless organization (about $10 million in market capitalization) until they discovered they "owned" Linux. They have been accused of ties with Microsoft (there is some evidence through BlueStar), but I'm not convinced. The Justice Department is ever watchful these days.

Personally, I'd see it as a counterargument to your claim -- a large company fighting a proxy war using a small medium-sized company.

Re:Big company, little company

[Halo1]

Do you hear about IBM threatening small companies all the time using (software) patents? No. Does that mean they don't do that? Hell, no!

Re:How open source should deal with sofware patent

[BillyBlaze]

In most cases, the large patent holders are busy bribing lawmakers to perpetuate the current system, so they do deserve a significant portion of the blame.

Just my two cents

[ogl_codemonkey]

Yes, software patents are evil - yes, copyight is great for protecting an implementation, yet allowing precious operability.

However, isn't it the case that one of the major problems with protecting, by patent or otherwise, your (or your team's/company's/whatever's) software is a matter of juristiction? For software contributed to by dozens of programmers across the Intaarweb, and hosted on probably whatever cheap, offshore server will take it - who has juristiction? The country of origin of the project mantainer?

If GNUXyz, hosted in Brazil, mantained by a Hungarian hacker, infringes a US patent, whom do you sue? Can you extradite them? Seize their host's servers?

I don't know. Up with globalization under communisim!

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot over?

[Cid Highwind]

Are you really trying to pimp a porn site (and one hosted on geocities, at that!) by linking to screenshots of spam mail, in a slashdot comment about something totally unrelated to porn or spam? Can internet marketing possibly sink any lower?

Or was that meant to link to a different image?

Can't Design Around

[HardYakka]

The only patent I can think of that couldn't be designed around would be the case where a standard is patented i.e. MP3 encoding.

Can anyone think of any other case were a patent could not be designed around? If so, would the author still be liable if the patent was designed around after they were informed of the infringment?

Re:Can't Design Around

[Anonymous Coward]

How about amazon one-click?

Royalties is not the problem

[Fuzzums]

The real problem is the money that is involved in lawsuits.

I'm Chicken Little I guess . . .

[Eric Damron]

It is my sincerest hopes that Lawrence is correct; that some in the open source community are over stating the danger of patent litigation. He does NOT however state that there is no risk. I must have the "Chicken Little" syndrome that he talks about. Let me share my reasoning:

From the article...

"Does the dramatic increase in the number of software patents portend a catastrophe for open source software?

Some argue that the threat of patents is vastly overstated. They point out that, while there are from time to time serious assertions of software patents, patent litigation is in practice very rare. This reflects both the high cost of such litigation and the difficulty of winning. "

Although patent litigation has so far been rare, it is my belief that Microsoft sees the writing on the wall and will either directly or indirectly though the use of SCO-Like actions fund law suites in an effort to destroy any open source project that it feels is on its turf. Just because patent litigation has been rare in the past is no assurance that it will remain so. How many copyright litigation cases have been levied against the open source community? Microsoft helped SCO fund it's current litigation and I believe that it is a signal that they intend to use the law as a new anti-competitive tool.

Litigation against a well funded corporation like IBM would be incredibly expensive but for smaller groups like the SAMBA team it wouldn't. Microsoft wouldn't have to win. All they would have to do is drain the open source company's coffers dry. Unless we all stick together, of course. Will we? Would there be a white knight corporation out there willing to swoop in and save the small open source developer? I don't know the answer to that.

I believe that Microsoft's strategy is to ensure that Linux cannot be compatible with their next version of Windows. They have been filing ten or more patents every day related to Longhorn. The idea is simple. Find standards that you feel will become important and then patent as much technology as close to those standards as possible.

Remember that Microsoft doesn't want to allow Linux to talk to it's monopoly OS. If they succeed in their strategy Linux, they hope, will wither on the vine. Look for Microsoft try to patent new protocols and force them to become "the standard." If they can control the way in which computers talk to each other via their monopoly and patent the way computers talk to each other then Linux as we know it could be toast.

Re:I'm Chicken Little I guess . . .

[ogl_codemonkey]

Not toasted yet - it's still quite possible it'll be accepted as its own little beastie; free from the *need* to conform... unlikely, but possible. ... we can live in hope. Personally, I'd kind of like to see the day when the Tech support guys from my telco ask what OS I'm runing, not what Windows version...

Re:I'm Chicken Little I guess . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone seems to be ignoring the fact that this is a market Microsoft is competing in, monopoly or not.

Litigation against a well funded corporation like IBM would be incredibly expensive but for smaller groups like the SAMBA team it wouldn't. Microsoft wouldn't have to win. All they would have to do is drain the open source company's coffers dry... Would there be a white knight corporation out there willing to swoop in and save the small open source developer?

You know, Microsoft themselves will be funding that "white knight". In an effort to squeeze more revenue out of an almost-saturated market, Microsoft has already been increasing "licensing fees" (for it turns out they were never really selling anything) and bleeding their customers out of more money. What they will end up doing is picking on an open-source project with one customer that saves so much money using it instead of paying the Microsoft tax that any court costs, no matter how outrageous, will be worth it! Microsoft might become the bleeder.

I believe that Microsoft's strategy is to ensure that Linux cannot be compatible with their next version of Windows. They have been filing ten or more patents every day related to Longhorn.

And, frankly, if being compatible means having to live with the security holes and stability issues, I don't want compatibility with their next version of Windows!

I firmly believe that many of the problems in Microsoft code stem from piss-poor design, not just bad implementation. To fix that, a major redesign like Longhorn is supposed to be may be necessary. But when was the last time that Microsoft released a new version of the OS that didn't create dozen new problems while fixing all of the existing problems? That's a trick question!

Remember that Microsoft doesn't want to allow Linux to talk to it's monopoly OS. If they succeed in their strategy Linux, they hope, will wither on the vine.

Yeah, but that sword cuts both ways: if they stumble and a new major vulnerability is discovered within the first few weeks (and it will be, Microsoft hasn't learned yet) or customers rebel (the big three automakers are on record as saying that designed-in incompatibilties and proprietary standards will be reasons NOT to upgrade to Longhgorn), then who withers?

Re:I'm Chicken Little I guess . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

"Remember that Microsoft doesn't want to allow Linux to talk to it's monopoly OS. If they succeed in their strategy Linux, they hope, will wither on the vine. Look for Microsoft try to patent new protocols and force them to become "the standard." If they can control the way in which computers talk to each other via their monopoly and patent the way computers talk to each other then Linux as we know it could be toast."

Surely that is a blatant abuse of their monopoly? The DOJ will spot that (hopefully).

Re:I'm Chicken Little I guess . . .

[fymidos]

So, does this ingenius strategy reminds anyone else of ibm's MCA?

(Maybe IBM has a patent on it so everything will be ok :) )

>Would there be a white knight corporation out here
>willing to swoop in and save the small open source
>developer?

Developers have nothing to worry about, MS would never *ever* do anything to annoy *them*.

Better Blackmail!!

[logicnazi]

The linked paper seems to suggest that the open source community doesn't have a sufficently threatening way of counterattack. However, he only considers liscensces that terminate rights to that *particular* piece of code. What if the GPL revoked the rights to *all* other code liscensced under the GPL in the case of a patent or copyright suit.

Especially if this strong liscenscing clause revoked the right even to *use* the software in this case the FSF would have a very strong position. Almost any large software company probably uses GPLed software somewhere, even if it is only in binary form in drivers or software tools. Microsoft, especially makes use of GPLed software in it's SFU package and so forth.

The only problem I see is that this might be *too* powerfull/severe. A disaffected employee could contribute company code to a GPLed software knowing that any patent claim the company submited would bring down the wrath of these liscensces. Also are such provisions even legal? Perhaps if we restricted the backlash provision only to instances the FSF board verifies weren't copied.

Re:Better Blackmail!!

[spitzak]

Such a change to the GPL is not possible, as the GPL is simply a license that allows you to violate the copyright on the code if you obey certain conditions. Since it is only a license and not a contract, it cannot restrict you from doing things that you can normally legally do, such as run the software.

Re:Better Blackmail!!

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but it could restrict you from any further copying. Basically, each GPL author would have to release their software under a new GPL, which restricts its copyability if the terms of the license are violated in regards to that piece of software or any other software under the same liscense. In other words, the author of the software could not force you to stop copying other software, but could restrict you from copying their own.

It's about shutting down small projects too

[EmbeddedJanitor]

The parent is right. It isn't about the royalty checks. It's about the threat to both the development and uptake of OSS.

Who wants to work on a project that, if it looks successful is going to end up being beaten up and shut down by the patent holder. Since OSS has no revenue stream, even a small royalty can kill it.

Big biz backers of OSS (IBM, Novell,...) could perceive a threat of big royalties or civil cases if they assist OSS projects. For example, the patent owners could make a case that apart from direct infringement, by assisting OSS IBM and others could be charged with assisting others to violate patents. In short, could get messy.

Re:It's about shutting down small projects too

[ScrewMaster]

Yes, it's the old "facilitation" argument that was used to kill Napster.

Re:It's about shutting down small projects too

[gujo-odori]

It would be difficult to do that to Novell or (especially) IBM because of all the patents they hold. IBM is one of the largest - perhaps the largest - patent holders in the world, and anyone - even Microsoft - who brought suit against IBM on patent infringement grounds would almost certainly be open to the same from IBM. This is the MAD approach to preventing infringement lawsuits which is discussed in the article.

Now, IBM and Novell both have so much invested in Linux that it would not be easy to extricate themselves. They have hitched their wagons very firmly to the Linux star, and if anyone tries to make them unhitch those wagons, they have no choice but to fight. IBM, as it has clearly shown in the SCO case, is ready, willing, and able to do so. IBM could easily have bought SCO and made this whole thing go away. It's obvious that Darl believed they would do exactly that. Instead, IBM told him "See you in court" and is going for case law instead. With a convincing win behind them and case law in hand, it is unlikely that anyone will ever dare try going after them again.

If someone - Microsoft or Sun, for instance - were to go after Linux on patent grounds, IBM would have little choice bet to step up and fight. They have bet to much of their future on Linux not to do so. Even if you believe that IBM is not in any way altruistic about FOSS (and it's quite possible they are not), they will still have to defend Linux out of narrow self-interest. IBM, Novell, and other companies that have committed themselves firmly to Linux as a linchpin of their business could simply not afford to let it be taken down, and would have to defend it.

To recall the bear Vs. bees analogy, it is true that bees have a difficult time keeping a bear out of the honey. However, not all the bears are hostile. There are some very large and powerful bears to whom the bees give free access to the honey. These bears have a strong vested interest in seeing that no hostile bear makes a successful attack on the hive. They have big teeth and long claws, and are quite willing to use them to ensure the safety and stability of their honey supply. Just ask Darl.

Article owner misses point....

[russotto]

And slashdot posters by and large get it right. Now there's something that doesn't occur every day.

A few points both have missed so far, though. One is that a methodical patent search is impossible; patents use such opaque and obfuscatory language (often deliberately) that there's no way you can search for a patent on any given technique you've been using. Further, it may be a submarine patent.

Prior art is largely irrelevant because the patent system is broken; the patent office doesn't seem to check it, even when the prior art is other patents (see, e.g. the LZW patent mess). Part of this is because patents (as I mentioned above) are essentially unsearchable. Prior art works when you've got deep pockets and the lawyers to overcome the assumption of validity. When you're Joe Open Source Programmer, you're screwed as soon as they file a lawsuit (assuming you had the nerve to ignore the C&D), regardless of how much prior art there is.

So, on his recommendations --

1) is good. Not because the patent problem isn't serious, but because there's nothing you can actually do about it. Like Global Thermonuclear War, you just have to plan for it not coming.

2) is pointless. Our own prior art won't prevent the patents from being issued

3) is a mistake. Each patent you discover is more work you have to do to avoid it, if that's even possible, and more chance of getting nailed for willfull infringement. Doing a patent search under these circumstances is like searching for mines with a metal probe.

4) is good -- if you happen to know about the patent, you should avoid it.

5) is fine, if you have allies you can trust. You probably don't.

6) Pointless again. So you terminate their right to use their software. They're either a litigation company which does nothing, a single-product company which is trying to force the world to use their product, or a giant megacorporation. The first two won't use your software anyway, and the last has the lawyers to spit on your termination agreement -- not to mention the programmers to replace your software if necessary. Terminating the rights of patent-users is a feel-good measure only.

The solution direction is clear...

[3seas]

.... if a patent application is written using the right lingo making it sound complicated and NOT fitting the classifications of what CANNOT be patented then even swinging sideways in a swing will get patent granted ..... SOOOOO...

Using this exact lingo technique but in describing something in terms fitting the classifications of what cannot be patented..... .... go figure....

Time to study what qualities cannot be patented and why....

Re:The solution direction is clear...

[ogl_codemonkey]

The solution is clear? wt... ohhh.... a beowulf cluster of IP lawyers... OF COURSE!!!

Re:The real OSS enemy are lawyers

[EmbeddedJanitor]

The real enemies, apart from M$, are the lawyers.

Many patent holders would not go make a case against OSS, but there are a certain breed of scumbags out there who make it their biz to go search for patents and potential violators. They then contact the patent holder and ask for the right to go chace the infringer at no cost to the patent holder, except for a slice of the action.

Once the lawyer bastard has a "percentage ownership", the patent holder loses a lot of their rights as to whom they will pursue or not. Even if the patent holder is a nice guy, the whole business is reduced to lawyer level (ie lower than shark shit) morality.

``like d'oh``

[mqx]

I mean, for all the FUD over how software patents "might impede FOSS", the reality is that FOSS has been doing fantastically well for the last many years, despite the presence of software patents.

Re:``like d'oh``

[sirReal.83.]

Just an example: no U.S. Linux vendor can distribute livdvdcss or LAME. That means Red Hat, Sun JDS, Ximian Desktop, SuSe, Debian, etc. cannot legally be ready to play DVDs out of the box. Or mp3s.
This isn't including the fun stuff the DMCA gives us to play with.

Re:``like d'oh``

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and don't forget the guy who made an MS-ASF parser.. and even a simple thing like an MPEG4 (yes including grandma's pirated divx movie his son brought him last week) is dangerous to bundle in your usual general-public (binary) distribution.
And don't forget Freetype who can't use built-in "hints" on some fonts... or the Gimp which can't call the color by the "pantone" name.

Only your usual whining windows-dualbooter or someone who think anyone can compile anything himself would be so clueless to think that patents aren't dangerous to FOSS. Welcome to the real world.

Re:``like d'oh``

[Anonymous Coward]

isnt SuSE a German company?

Re:``like d'oh``

[sirReal.83.]

They were bought by Novell, which is an American company. So no, not really.

The killer patent...

[Eric Damron]

I think I've come up with a patent that could destroy Microsoft... Let's obtain a patent on the buffer overflow! Think about it...

Oh damn... I forgot about prior art... Never mind...

Re:The killer patent...

[Anonymous Coward]

File for it anyway, the USPTO doesnt check for little things like prior art.

Solution: change a few words in the GPL.

[Anonymous Coward]

What if the GPL were modified so that the right to use ceases if a patent suit is begun? With a registered copyright, that's 100,000 USD per infringement of copyright. So, the scenario runs like this:

1) big corp sues little FS developer.
2) 100 projects with the patent suit clause decend and demand retribution, yet all are willing to settle if the patent is licensed. Want to bet that even Microsoft has some FS somewhere in their infrastructure?
3) Patent suit is settled with a paid up license to avoid 100 little copyright infringement suits in a dozen countries.
4) ????
5) Errrr... well in safety is profit.

IANAL-IAFYLS. Is it legal? Could it work?

Something like this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Something like this?

-John Le'Brecage

Easy for Linus to say.

[Anonymous Coward]

As he's surrounded by free lawyers provided by IBM, Intel, HP, etc.

There is nothing to fear but ...

[donnz]

There are a few other comments in a similar vien. But this is where articles like the one we've just read, the EFF and (recently) proven community based defences like Groklaw are really proving their worth. Won't take many "scary" cases to fall over before they are just not scary any more.

One Simple Defense

[Euler]

Ok, here's an idea I haven't seen floated around on Slashdot much... Use the closed-source model as a weapon against itself. Corporate software vendors are bound by their own dogma and/or investors to never let their source code out.

Patents REQUIRE full disclosure. Think of a 19th century inventor like Edison. He has to fully describe his invention in a patent disclosure so that anyone in the field can make use of the invention. That is the spirit of a patent. It is required, or the patent is invalid.

Fast forward to the 21st century. If a patent holder cannot fully disclose a working model and description of an invention (i.e. source code.), then the patent holder has violated the responsibilities of a patent holder and looses rights to the patent. Yes there are examples of this, and yes it is clearly spelled out in law.

There are probably concepts that don't require source code to demonstrate, but most code-level innovations that geeks are worried about do. Furthermore, court action brings the possibility that source code could become exposed as evidence - something many companies may greatly fear. A company might not mind leaking some demo code for a single patent. But with a whole arsenal of patents, the burden starts to fall on the patent holder.

This isn't a totally bullet-proof defense, but one worth exploring.

Re:One Simple Defense

[strags]

[i]There are probably concepts that don't require source code to demonstrate, but most code-level innovations that geeks are worried about do.[/i]
I disagree. Any algorithm can be described in plain english. Most algorithmic patents are described in pseudocode.

Re:One Simple Defense

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice idea. Explain it to Congress.

Re:One Simple Defense

[NoOneInParticular]

Not really, how can you determine that the plain English or pseudo-code algorithm actually implements the things that are claimed? For anything but completely trivial stuff, you need to be able to run it to see if it actually does what is claimed. Check the words of Knuth: Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. . Maybe a mandatory reference implementation in a publically available language should become a prerequisite?

Re:One Simple Defense

[Euler]

I agree, if psudo-code is detailed enough to describe software, then it isn't psudo-code... it's just code written in some language of the author's choosing. Psudo-code hides software concepts in little black boxes for the sake of saving lines on paper. That's a no-no if you are truly trying to describe software's functionality.

Both sides

[imnoteddy]

I have personal stories from both sides of the argument.

Apple once sued Microsoft and HP for stealing their GUI (I know, most people do not remember that HP was involved in the lawsuit, but they were). One of the specific claims in Apple's suit related to "overlapping windows". I happened to have worked in a research group that had bought (in 1981) an Apollo workstation which had overlapping windows (not a GUI, each window had a UNIX(tm) style shell). I told one of the defendants about this and later heard that HP (which had bought Apollo) went to the Computer Museum in Boston to video tape this as evidence in the case.

Later I was working for a little company that had been bought out by a mega company. They sent out one of their patent lawyers to tell us to try to patent everything. The story he told was of a group of lawyers from an Incredibly Big Monopoly (figure the acronym for yourself) swooping down on a smaller computer company claiming they'd infringed on a dozen patents and demandibg payment. The smaller company's techies made a spirited defense that they hadn't infriged but the lawyers for the Incredibly Big Monopoly said, "We have tens of thousand of patents and thousands of lawyers. We'll find something". The smaller company wrote a check that day.

Draw whatever conclusion you want.

Re:Both sides

[Anonymous Coward]

You're kinda like the Forrest Gump of software!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

What about chilling effects?

[Anonymous Coward]

Rosen is over estimating the importance of Sourceforge as prior art. Most new algorithms are developed by CS researchers such as profs, grad students, and researchers in industry. The fundamental problem with software patents is the chilling effect they are having on the movement of new ideas from researchers to ordinary programmers.

Imagine I'm writing some program that uses sorting and I run across a paper by Dr. Smith explaining a new algorithm that is 10% faster than quicksort. If I use Smith's algorithm my program will be faster but how do I know if it is patented or not? I could ask Dr. Smith and he might answer that it is not, but perhaps he based his algorithm on work by Dr. Jones which was patented with Smith's knowledge. Or maybe Dr. Wong from IBM independently discovered and patented this algorithm a year earlier without Smith knowing it. I have no way of knowing this and so the safest thing to do is not to use it, resulting in inferior software.

Many fundamental algorithms used in CS today were developed years ago in the 60s, 70s and 80s. These were not generally covered by patents. There is a long lag time before ordinary software is using some of the more sophisticated techniques developed by researchers. We have yet to feel the full effects of the patent boom which started in the 90s. Give it another 10 years.

The fact is that I don't feel safe using any algorithm developed in the last 15 years without knowing with certainty if it is patented or not.

Change country

[TheLink]

There are countries where software patents don't apply.

I can see the day when...

[darnok]

those of us who create FOSS will voluntarily register our products with some central group such as the FSF or EFF. I'll call this entity "FSF/EFF" for the rest of this rant... Maybe this registration will need to have some financial basis, and we all become "shareholders" - any developer registering their product loans the FSF/EFF $US1 on the understanding that this loan will never be collected. This registration will involve assigning all copyrights for the product we've developed to the FSF/EFF, who will then make it available under e.g. GPL.

If the "owner" of the product gets sued for patent infringement by Large Company X, then it's the FSF/EFF who'll be answering rather than an individual developer working from his kitchen table. The FSF/EFF will have the coordination skills and contacts to be able to verify if the patent infrigement claim is valid or not (note: I'm talking expert legal opinion here, not a bunch of techos using Google!), whether or not the claim is worth contesting, and is maybe even able to coordinate licencing or cross-licencing deals as necessary to generate operating $$$.

The FSF/EFF then functions as a not-for-profit, worldwide company, which seeks to keep important bits of FOSS out in the public arena. It has board elections and all the various paraphernalia involved in keeping it above suspicion. It won't be able to protect every person who creates FOSS, but it would be able to 'protect' key bits of software such as Linux, Apache, ... from the likes of SCO.

Any thoughts? I'm particularly interested in feedback from people with legal expertise that goes beyond Google ;->

Re:I can see the day when...

[16K Ram Pack]

It's really not a bad idea.

When it comes to court cases, you are better off being armed. If everyone who used OSS at home gave $5 to the FSF or EFF, how much would they have? And the next time that someone big tries to hit someone, they hit right back, what kind of message would that send?

Most people will bleat about protecting their freedoms, but they won't help to pay to defend them.

To any /.ers reading... next time you think about buying a case mod, or a new DVD or something really trivial, give some money to something worthwhile like the FSF, the EFF or an open source project. If you ask a question on a forum and someone helps you, slip the project a few bucks. It's probably saved you a lot more than that. Pay for the lawyers who will defend your rights in future.

Sadly, the government won't do this for various reasons, so we have to do it ourselves.

Re:I can see the day when...

[Anonymous Coward]

I just gave them a thousand bucks (like I do every year).

Note to government employees:

It is possible to contribute to the EFF through the "Combined Federal Campaign" (CFC).

A great way to put money where my mouth is, and I look good for generously donating so much to "charity"...

Re:The real OSS enemy are lawyers

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly the case where we don't have to worry. They are looking for royalties, big settlements. Someone could sue me for using one of their patents on my website. For what?They couldn't collect enough from me to pay for the cease and desist letter.

SCO hasn't gone after the developers because that isn't what they are after. They want money.

Derek

Mod parent up

[0x0d0a]

Insightful, interesting proposal that is a good argument against the existence of software patents.

No point in worrying.

[Ambassador Kosh]

I suspect that even hello world infringes on several dozen patents. Something like python, perl, slashdot, gnome, kde etc are likely to violate thousands to tends of thousands. So much pointless stuff has software patents for it that there is no real point worrying. When you are in the middle of a minefield it is too late to worry about safety.

Overall I would just ignore all software patents. If you don't pay attention to any the odds are the penalties will be far far less. Also it makes it easier to invalidate a patent if you knew nothing about it when you infringed. Overall just try and write verty good software and get large businesses hooked on it. When it costs far less money to get the patent thrown out then it does to switch to some other system they will defend it.

Also remember that proprietary software offers no real advantages here. Any proprietary product you use could be nailed by this at any time also and it could put them out of business so it seems the risks are pretty close to me but free software is more likely to be defended by a larger number of people.

I suspect at some point free software is going to end up with some kind of get out of jail free type thing with resepect to patents like nasa has. Patents just won't apply to it since it hurts the society too much.

Inevitability of Civil Technology Revolt

[powdered toast dude]

Ultimately, it's not going to be about tactics like patents and lawsuits and licenses. It's going to be about the populus and the freedoms they deserve and want. The problem is that they don't realize it currently, because the technology is so new that they only thus far believe they want "whiz-bang features".

We, the faithful, already know what is "right". And, I believe, as the general public becomes more technologically knowledgeable (as has happened in the automotive industry in the last century), the population will indeed come to realize the civil technology freedoms they require to retain the immutable freedoms that America's founders intended as they were manifested in the society of that time. Until they do, the corporate powers that see further into the future than grandma does will (temporarily) win.

But once the masses do "get it", civil technology (and general consumer) revolt will not only be necessary, but will be practical and, indeed, so obviously in the interests of the masses that it will be unstoppable.

Corporate America and Congress take note. Civil technology revolt is coming. The question is not "whether", but only "when". When it happens, on which side will you place yourself? How will you strategically manoever yourselves then?

Re:Inevitability of Civil Technology Revolt

[Tune]

Nothing is illegal if one hundred businessmen decide to do it -- Andrew Young

Re:Inevitability of Civil Technology Revolt

[RotateLeftByte]

I Think that companies that are about to or have embarked upon a "Patent Everything and Screw the OSS Liberals" path should think again and again and again. There are two types of patents. Those which are enforced and those which are not. In some companies, getting a patent granted is a sign of Excellence in your field. In others (we know who you are...) it is a tool to get money from whoever and wherever possible. IMHO, if a company who had a raft of patents donated all royalties from a large chunk to a Not for Profit (or Similar company), this would go a long way to setting an example for others. As an industrial historian, I would hate to see something like the Tollpuddle Martyrs happen in the 21st Century. The way the the likes of SCO want us to act reminds me of the quote attribued to Henry Ford, "Any colour as long as its BLACK". The OSS world is by its very nature diverse and we should tight tooth and nail to keep it that way. From where I am sitting now I see a poster that says "Imagine a World With Only One colour One flavour One texture One Aroma and One Sound It might be interesting.... For the first hour Value diversity " This is from a company that has tens of thousands of patents and also contributes to the OSS cause" Not all mega corps are bad all the time. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learnt by some others here.

Re:Inevitability of Civil Technology Revolt

[LaCosaNostradamus]

Aren't you predicting after the fact? With rampant downloading of copyrighted material through software written by individuals, and overall a freely-available OS written by more of those frickin' individuals, it seems that we're deep into the CTR already. It strikes me as true that the next step must be taken soon, in that comparatively large numbers of people will simply shrug and break the law without hesitation, since that's the only way to exert what they see as their intrinsic freedoms. (I speculate that this step will exist among all non-corporate software developers.) As for more meatspace revolts ... that remains to be seen.

You don't know much about patents

[SpectralOne]

One of the restrictions of a patent monopoly is that you may not *USE* the incarnation of the invention, so the user using the material that infringes patent is itself a violation. This whole discussion is rather moot; just don't write OSS that infringes patents. Just because it's OSS doesn't give free reign to violate the law. If the OSS is innovating, then the OSS author can claim public art or file their own patent. It's really that simple. If a company has a patent right to it, don't infringe!

Re:You don't know much about patents

[Golthar]

Nice troll.

This works because company's like Microsoft and IBM have not patented every thing under the sun yet, right?

Wrong.
Almost everything you do on computers violates some kind of vague patent spun somebody.
Just look at the Eolas case against microsoft.
And then keep in mind that most open source projects do not have the funding to defend themselves if one such bullshit patent is invoked.

It's only a matter of time before this system is abused to keep competition out.

Wasn't stimulating competition the main reason for patents?

Re:You don't know much about patents

[SpectralOne]

> Nice troll. Thanks. >Wasn't stimulating competition the main reason for patents? Absolutely not. Patents were designed to allow an individual a limited monopoly on their ideas, to encourage the growth of the sciences without destroying the profitability. It allows the inventor to earn money, while still sharing his work publically.

The distributors

[jeti]

Simple. You sue commercial distributors. They got some cash to win and will easily fold in, because most of them can't afford expensive lawsuits.

And the term distributors does not only apply to f.e. Mandrake, but also to companies that deliver products using OSS (f.e. routers and settop boxes etc).

Rosen makes same mistake than for licenses

[Balaitous]

Just as Mr. Rosen had trouble understanding what makes free software work when he proposed a contractualised version of the GPL, he seems to have trouble to move out of lawyer / contract / royalty thinking regarding patents. He reasons as if patents were tools for making money through royalties and not tools to block your competitors. However, one point is true: it is difficult to attack free / open source projects with patents because of the strength of community response. That's why the attacks are likely to focus on users (scare them), isolated developers (already done), and companies doing a mix of free and proprietary software.

Re:Rosen makes same mistake than for licenses

[Anonymous Coward]

And attacks will also, as you implicitly allready say, focus on companies using open source in their business model, while contributing resources to further development. If the new patent laws in Europe will match the American ones, this well be a piece of cake for the MS's of the earth. So this would mean that a lot of people who are now paid to spend their time -at least partially- improving open source software, would be pulled of those projects and assigned to different, closed source projects, maybe also in different companies as the open source ones might go out of business.. And of course, businesses using/developing open source will see this coming, and will possibly even quit before being attacked, or will not start those risky investments..

Not a nice view of the future, isn't it? That's also why I think it so important to keep on fighting against these new malicious patent rules in the EU, so at least there some liberty will prevail..

Re:Rosen makes same mistake than for licenses

[Robb]

My understanding is that the most likely use of patents is cross licensing, then royalties and finally blocking competition. Of course, software patents may be different but there are sound economic reasons why most patents are not used to block competition.

Not illegal, it's still under GPL ..

[RedLaggedTeut]

I don't believe that a patent can make releasing source illegal, and I'll offer arguments why:

First off, the patent owner had to publish information to the patent office which describes the patent. As your source code is not a product, but just a description of one, it should be legal.

Second you are allowed to do research using others patents, you are just not allowed to sell a product based on the patent. So there is at least one instance where you are allowed to distribute under the GPL, so your release is a valid GPL release.

Third, AFAIK you are allowed to use patentented stuff for research (on it). I wonder whether distributing something for free would be allowed - since you can always claim you are releasing it for people doing research. And since every user has the source, he can do "research". You probably would be forbidden to release binaries though.

This would place the burden on distributors that they may not charge (much) for the distribution, but they do not need to change the license since the burden is placed on them automatically by patent law.

I realize you would have to jump through some legal hoops to actually make use of your rights, but I believe your step from patent illegal => GPL illegal is wrong. At the worst, you still receive rights to the source under the GPL, you just may not exercise them because of other laws(patent).

Patent is a IP. Copyright is a IP.
But not: Patent=>Copyright.

Re:Not illegal, it's still under GPL ..

[julesh]

Second you are allowed to do research using others patents, you are just not allowed to sell a product based on the patent. So there is at least one instance where you are allowed to distribute under the GPL, so your release is a valid GPL release.

The GPL states that you're not allowed to distribute if you have any other legal requirements on you that would prevent you from fulfilling all of the terms of the GPL when you distribute. One of those terms is that you must give the recipient the right to redistribute under any of the acceptable terms of the GPL, one of which is redistribution in binary form (with an offer to provide the source code). A patent judgment against you would make it illegal for you to give such permission to distribute in binary form to anyone, so no, I don't believe it is legally possible to distribute a "source code only, experimental use only" patent encumbered program under the GPL.

You'll need a less restrictive license for that.

The power of a global community

[pandrijeczko]

If patents are that threatening, why has Microsoft done nothing about bringing legal action against the SAMBA team, for example? (Not that I believe MS should so this, BTW.)

It strikes me that this would be a prime target for Microsoft to strike a blow against Linux in the Windows interoperability area.

I can only assume that Microsoft cannot be that sure that such action would succeed in the first place - though I'm not sure I can see why... perhaps someone out there has some ideas?

I'm sure that Linux will face some patent litigations in the future, if only to test the resilience of the GPL and the community.

But I'd hope that if that happens, someone starts up a campaign fund to fight any court actions as I'm sure a lot of the community will donate into it.

Re:The power of a global community

[fymidos]

>I can only assume that Microsoft cannot be that
>sure that such action would succeed in the first
>place - though I'm not sure I can see why...
>perhaps someone out there has some ideas?

Samba is a protocol, not a good one you might add, that's propably infinging on a zillion of patents itself.

>I'm sure that Linux will face some patent
>litigations in the future

I'm pretty sure it will not...

Re:The power of a global community

[Thomas Shaddack]

It strikes me that this would be a prime target for Microsoft to strike a blow against Linux in the Windows interoperability area.

They are aware they won't gain nearly as much as it would seem. The only result would be adoption of some of the many existing NFS clients for Windows by some and "underground" use of "infringing" Samba by others.

No so sure.

[PotatoHead]

Sun, being a UNIX house, is near the front of the line, but they won't be the last to lose with Linux. The best asset SUN has is its people. They need to leverage that into new solutions that are more than the common stuff we have today.

This is what Open Source is all about. We know how to build most of the software people need to use today. Why keep paying for that, when we could be advancing the art of computer science, or helping people make the most of exists now. Good OSS people can build complex, powerful solutions right off the net. They are worth paying for. Software companies can build new things that are worth paying for as well.

The fortunes of the big software houses were built on the general ignorance the rest of us had. Problem is they stopped innovating and began simply selling and locking in to keep their position. This benefits nobody really, including them, because the backlash from their overselling will tarnish their customer relations to a point where it might almost be better to let new companies, with a clue, step in and show how it should be done.

Linux and OSS will eventually force a new model. Open operating systems, standards, and applications will provide most of what people need. The software worth paying for will be new software that is tough to write, it will be new software that actually delivers its value in terms of its raw capability. Services will continue to be big as people understand they can pay for solutions that fit them, and perhaps only them, instead of boxed software stamped and sold by the billions. This is where IBM has it right, and also where SUN has some learning to do yet.

I will pay for software that is new, or that is difficult to write and maintain because those that do the work deserve it. Sadly, this does not fit most of what SUN and Microsoft and their partners package and sell today.

SUN still has a lot of very bright people capable of great things --they just need to buckle down now, while they have some position and cash in the market and really take things to the next level. They should do this on Linux and let the OSS community do the rest.

SGI, BTW is beginning to see some real success doing exactly this. Almost cost them the company because they were late to the party and had a very vulnerable position to begin with. SUN is in far better shape, they should have a good chance at keeping things that way, if they work at it...

Now Linux

[HerbieStone]

free as in Bear :)

yeah, don despair...

[fatmanone]

we can start some underground open source development movement, and since the end user should not care, the software will survive, patented by other or not.

Here's a thought...

[Reteo Varala]

Are there any sites that are specifically for publishing anti-patents?

To my mind, the anti-patent would be a published invention that, instead of granting a monopoly on a technology, would assure that it would remain in the open, as it would be an invention "patented" to someplace other than the USPTO.

This would qualify as a prior art publication.

If all these anti-patents are published to one location, perhaps it would give the USPTO a one-stop source for qualifying prior art to prevent junk patents from being accepted.

All one would need to do is register their invention to this publisher in exactly the same way (minus the cash requirement) as one would submit a patent.

Re:Here's a thought...

[zrq]

How about it SourceForge ... PatentForge ? Could we create patent licences equivalent to the main OpenSpource licences. The ApachePatentLicence would allow anyone to use the idea, the GNUPatentLicence would require any implementation to be covered by the GPL. It would be very interesting if someone did post something that became the 'next big idea', and MS had to release a GPL version in order to stay in the running.

Re:Here's a thought...

[Reteo Varala]

I like the idea of PatentForge, but the problem here is that unlike copyright, which applies as soon as the copyable product is made, a patent must be accepted by the USPTO. Otherwise, there is no legal monopoly guarantees to license against.

However, the point I was trying to make is that patents work in a specific way; the government publishes them in the USPTO as patents. From that moment on, the patent is considered effective.

Now, what if there was another organization that worked exactly like the USPTO, except that when their "patents" are published, they are actually official prior art.

Hell, I'd start one myself if I had any idea at all how to research patents... and not warp my mind into spaghetti over the linguistics of such a thing... I'm no lawyer.

Any groklaw folks here wanna weigh in?

Our best defense remains a strong offense.

[Ogerman]

As most other posters have already mentioned, the threat is more real than Rosen envisons because of the chilling effect. So how do we protect ourselves from legal FUD attacks (or worse) in the future? We make the F/OSS projects that compete with the "big guys" so successful that any attacks will anger millions of users and not be worth the PR backlash. And, if we do this, we will simultaneously be weakening the proprietary cash cows used to monopolize markets and fund bogus lawsuits in the first place!

Our competitors would like to quietly out-innovate us in a down economy with their increasing armies of R&D people, embrace and extend, release dramatically improved products of their own, and then scare off any further attempts of F/OSS to compete using this patent nonsense. We cannot let them get this far. This strategy represents the new attack on F/OSS. Barring the overthrow of software patenting itself, there is a grave danger to the future of software innovation and F/OSS in the US. We need to act immediately.

As previously stated, we need to get the most influential open source projects into rapid adoption. The way to do this, in the short term, is to perfect the projects that can save businesses and other organizations the most money with the least transition. In the end, cost drives adoption as long as quality is sufficient and migration costs are minimal to non-existant.

Desktop platform choice is driven primarily by the applications that all users need, not the more specialized ones. I think the simplicity of this fact escapes most folks in the Open Source community.

It currently works like this:
1.) All users need an office suite.
2.) MS Office dominates due to file format lock-in, feature richness, and overall polish.
3.) MS Office runs natively on Windows and MacOS.
4.) Windows or MacOS are chosen for the platform.
5.) Most other software is written for Windows since it is the most popular platform for running the office software that all people need.

I don't know how much more blatantly obvious it can be, but the key to open source on the desktop is a perfected, feature rich, and highly-polished OpenOffice that is a near drop-in replacement for MS Office.

If we can collectively pull this off, the situation will look like this:
1.) Companies switch to OpenOffice on Windows to save big bucks.
2.) With OpenOffice proven, many desktops are now immediate candidates for Linux, another cost savings. Some conversion begins. More system integrators ship with Linux and OpenOffice by default.
3.) Demand for Linux business software (including proprietary) spikes because it is the cheaper desktop platform and meets the base needs. Porting efforts begin en masse.
4.) Widespread adoption of Linux desktops brings widespread public exposure to all the other great F/OSS that has been developed over the years. A snowball effect occurs.
5.) Open Source soon dominates the software industry. Software patents are no longer a significant threat.

OK, so that all sounds great, but how do we actually make this happen ASAP? I see two options at this point. We raise money to either 1.) hire a dedicated group of full-time OpenOffice developers or 2.) buy one of the proprietary MS Office clones, which may be superior to OO at this point, and set it free. This is, of course, in addition to continued community development. Think of it this way: it only took 7 weeks to raise 100k EU to buy Blender from NaN and turn it open source. Blender was a relatively obscure project, and high-end 3D modeling software is hardly something that everyone needs. How many millions could we quickly raise in a fundraising effort for an office suite? What are we waiting for?

THIS IS DANGEROUS THINKING

[Anonymous Coward]

Civil technology revolt is coming.

HOW is it going to come? WHO is going to bring it?

When one of these stories is posted, how many comments do we read on /. saying "Oh, that could never happen, people would never allow it".

The poster, of course, has not realized that, despite being informed (unlike the majority of the population), he/she has allowed it, because he/she has done nothing to stop it.

WE are the people who have to make an effort. If WE can't be bothered to lobby our politicians not to pass these laws, then WE are not going to organise a civil revolt.

If you don't want to start marching, then start writing now, but don't bury your head in the sand.

disclaimer
Apologies if I've misinterpreted what you said. There are many more naive comments posted than yours. My rant really applies to them. /disclaimer

It's a problem

[xyote]

The emphasis in research, especially academic research, is to patent everything in order to make money. But it is still considered bad form to mention in academic papers that you have applied for a patent or have one. I tend to look up the authors in the USPTO patent database to get an idea what they are up to.

There's also the problem of what are called blocking patents. Even if someone puts an algorithm into the public domain, somebody else can still file patents on slight improvements that were not immediately obvious to the orginator of the idea. Since those obvious improvments will occur to almost everybody and seem to be the natural and best way to do it, everybody will end up infringing those patents.

Don't be silly

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's just that that's all they know, so if you start using open source stuff, they can't do much for you and loose you as a customer"

The difference between lose and loose aside, other than the people who write the software, "consultants" don't care what you use.

That is, if you hire a consultant to write you some software, you can get a consultant to write it in Java or C#. Its all the same money to them.

Its not like FOSS magically makes you a developer superman who can write any software all on his or her own.

Now, if you're using a consultant that is well versed in MS, then that's what they'll suggest. If you hire a consultant that thinks Red Hat is the greatest distro, that's what they'll suggest.

I'm flaming because your post is devoid of thought.

Oh brother

[Anonymous Coward]

"Now the bear thinks twice about trying to get the open source honey."

The entire FOSS community is embarassed that you'd write something so...so... "douche-baggy".

Not a good approach

[Sanity]

We can fight fire with fire

Not if your opponent is fireproof. Many of the most aggressive patent parasites don't build any software themselves and are therefore immune to retaliatory patent attacks.

Earth

[Anonymous Coward]

" Copyright is the best way to protect software? What planet are you living on?"

Check if there was more innovation in software development before software patents or after.

You'll be surprised.

Now, people from planet earth won't be surprised, but apparently you will. Welcome to earth.

Missed the point...

[Oddly_Drac]

"Any patent owner that tries to assert its patents against open source software has many hurdles to leap before the royalty checks start to arrive."

Whereas someone hit with a lawsuit has to start paying money to defend it from the word "go", which is the real chilling effect of software patents, not that the battle will be hard for the people sending out the lawsuit.

Projects won't close down, they'll go underground

[Denial93]

I claim any significant OSS project cannot be closed down. Everyone has the source, everyone knows how to communicate anonymously, hence everyone can continue the project without fear of legal issues. Of course, one could not gain reputation from doing so, but one might work without this incentive - out of altruism to users, or out of friggin hate for whichever competitor drove one underground.

If someone starts a massive patents war, the big players will shell out billions to lawyers and courts, one or two of them will go down, and when the dust settles, OSS will come back out in the open... unharmed.

Spoken like the ISO-standard /. whiner

[Moraelin]

The real long term investment is research and inventing new things. A ton of monkeys re-implementing the stone wheel doesn't produce any progress. Sure, you have cheap wheels, but you're still in the stone age.

If you have electric lighting today, it's because someone researched a way to produce electricity and a way to produce lightbulbs. And had a business plan to recoup investment and make money from that research.

If you can talk to people over the phone, is because a lot of people along the way had a commercial interest to invent the phone and a lot of improvements to it. And, yes, it involved one helluva lot of patents.

If you can drive a car or ride a bus, blimey, it's because someone had the financial incentive to invest in research. Again, it involved patents.

If you can ride the train, and it's quite a bit faster than the early 10mph engines, it's again because someone had the financial incentive to develop better ones. And yes, it did involve securing a market to recoup the investment. When not by patents, by other kinds of deals.

Or go look up the kind of infant mortality they had in the middle ages, or even as late as last century. If nowadays you didn't die in the first years after birth, it's because of all the doctors and pharmaceuticals companies who had good money to gain from keeping people alive. Yes, that involved patents too.

Etc.

So in the long run, all the armies of monkeys copying someone else's work aren't producing jack squat to help progress. If that's your ideal society, one where everyone reimplements the wheel and no funding ever goes into research, go join the Amish already.

And let me give you another thought to chew on: the real _waste_ is in the re-implementation. Do we need 100,000 different re-implementations of a simple e-commerce web site? Not really. One would be enough. Hundreds of billions yearly are _wasted_ on reimplementing the same things, again and again, the only difference being a new crop of bugs.

It's not a benefit to society, it's a _drain_ of useful resources. Those hundreds of billions would be better invested in either creating something new for a change, or just building a few new factories. Wasting them on reimplementing the same tired crap is _not_ a benefit.

So for all I care, even one company took monopoly of one thing... GOOD! Finally! Let them implement it only once and sell it. Maybe then the rest of us can move to better stuff. Or maybe then someone will invest in research, instead of just copy-and-pasting other people's work.

(And no, if anyone wants to come with stuff like "but people invent things without commercial incentive too! Benjamin Franklin flew a kite to discover electricity!"... I admire your idealism, but you don't know much history, do you?

Did Benjy also invent a way to produce that electricity on an industrial scale? Any means for distribution? Did he also invent any devices that use it? Etc. Well, blimey, nope. The actual useful stuff came from people who wanted to make money out of it, not from lone visionaries flying kites.)

Re:Spoken like the ISO-standard /. whiner

[Jadrano]

The real long term investment is research and inventing new things. A ton of monkeys re-implementing the stone wheel doesn't produce any progress. Sure, you have cheap wheels, but you're still in the stone age.

If someone had a patent on wheels, it would cover all wheels if similar practices like with software patents were used. So, there would be no incentive to try out other materials and design details - the one company that would have a patent on wheels could make huge profits with expensive wheels and no other company could design and sell better wheels (for the duration of the patent monopoly).

If you can drive a car or ride a bus, blimey, it's because someone had the financial incentive to invest in research. Again, it involved patents.

Yes, patents were involved. Because of a patent of Otto on the four-stroke gas engine, Benz, who was ultimately much more successful, had to wait until the patent expired (in the meantime, he could only build cars with two-stroke engines). That's an example that shows that those who come up with an idea first often aren't the ones that implement it the most successful way, and when the first ones are given a monopoly, progress is delayed.

And let me give you another thought to chew on: the real _waste_ is in the re-implementation. Do we need 100,000 different re-implementations of a simple e-commerce web site? Not really. One would be enough.

What is a simple e-commerce website? If you look at the development of e-commerce websites, there has been a lot of progress, especially if you don't only consider at what the customer sees, but also at the integration into the integration into the internal procedures of a company. If one company had had a monopoly on e-commerce software, it is unlikely that this field could have developed in such a way. Furthermore, I think you contradict yourself somehow with the "waste" by developing new "simple" e-commerce websites. When really simple e-commerce websites are created from scratch, little is wasted because not much effort is needed (once, I wrote a PHP application for a simple webshop, too, I could have used existing solutions, some of them free, but if the customer needs just the basic functionality writing a new application can require less effort when there are additional requirememnts, such as using an existing website layout). In contrast, a lot of effort is put into developing e-commerce solutions that are not simple, at all. But then, it's not a waste because they contain different functionality.

Those hundreds of billions would be better invested in either creating something new for a change, or just building a few new factories. Wasting them on reimplementing the same tired crap is _not_ a benefit.

What is "something new" and what is "reimplementing the same tired crap"? Can you show a clear boundary between these two things? Most progress is done on the basis of ideas and applications that already exist. If you can't improve, extend and transform existing applications and are restricted to things that are radically new (that's very rare), there is much less room for development.

Or maybe then someone will invest in research, instead of just copy-and-pasting other people's work.

• The remark about copy-and-pasting is offtopic. You should be able to distinguish between copyright and patents.
• Studies about the relationship between patents and investment in research are interesting. In the area of software patents, most show that the introduction of patents lead to a decrease in research (possibly because more expenses are needed for patent lawyers, which leads to cuts in research and development, and also because the exclusion of competitors with patent monopolies leads to less competition, which stifles the incentive for innovation), see e.g. economic study by Bessen & Hunt 2003.

Re:Spoken like the ISO-standard /. whiner

[Thomas Shaddack]

So for all I care, even one company took monopoly of one thing... GOOD! Finally! Let them implement it only once and sell it.

One word: Microsoft.

Do you really want more Microsofts in other areas of technology?

The actual useful stuff came from people who wanted to make money out of it, not from lone visionaries flying kites.

You are forgetting that if you want to work on distribution/usage of something, you first have to get the given something discovered. There would be much less cool things in the world without the lone visionaries you are so easily dismissing.

Money aren't everything. By far.

Re:Spoken like the ISO-standard /. whiner

[L1TH10N]

And let me give you another thought to chew on: the real _waste_ is in the re-implementation. Do we need 100,000 different re-implementations of a simple e-commerce web site? Not really. One would be enough. Hundreds of billions yearly are _wasted_ on reimplementing the same things, again and again, the only difference being a new crop of bugs.

It's not a benefit to society, it's a _drain_ of useful resources. Those hundreds of billions would be better invested in either creating something new for a change, or just building a few new factories. Wasting them on reimplementing the same tired crap is _not_ a benefit.

Seams like you are advocating that we move towards a centralised communist system. I for one, believe in a capitalist system. What you call "waste of resources", I call competition. Competition breeds innovation. Innovation breeds technological superiority. Ever wonder why "cyberterriorism" has not eventuated in America? Its because of the technological superiority of America especially in IT, which has occurred because of key court decisions that have encouraged a free market in terms of the Information Technology industry.

So if you want to support a centralised communistic system then go right ahead. But I believe in a capitalist anti-monopolistic free market system that is based on sound economic theory. Balance in intellectual property laws has lead to the western world technological superiority, this balance in intellectual property laws has undermined by the way that software patents are being used.

ROTFL

[Anonymous Coward]

No, this would be the prototype:

void button::onClick();

If that's all a software patent needs, I'm very scared.

New role for the FOSS

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the opposite is true -- you need a licence to use a patented technology, not to describe it. The developpers don't infringe any patent, as long as they do not use their own software and do not encourage anybody to do so without proper licences.

Thus every free open source software (possibly) incorporating some patented technology should be distributed with a twenty-years-from-now clause and the release date clearly stated: all the potential users will either (research and) obtain all the required licences, undergo the risk of violating the law on their own accord, or wait twenty years to use that software. After twenty years, all the relevant patents will be either expired or invalid due to the software being a clear prior art example.

If somebody took the pain to actually research all the patents covering one or another FOSS piece, that free open source software piece could serve as a reference implementation, significantly clarifying the intentionally obscured patent claims. Anyway, publishing it should be quite legal and could substantially improve the legal certainty by adding to the worldwide database of the code sufficiently old for public use.

If you own/operate a company (branch) in Germany

[Holger Blasum]

Till Thursday you can pipe that SIGKILL to the ministry of economy via an online form.

If elsewhere in Europe (where legislation is hot), here are some mailing lists.

Disagree, see this GPL situation like this ..

[RedLaggedTeut]

Well it is not you, the distributor, who are restricting the use of the source under the GPL, it is patent law. Patent law applies generally not just to you, but to all.

I see it like this, by law it is forbidden to print out xemacs source code(its GPL isnt it?) to a telephone book sized book, whack someone over the head with it and kill him, but you are not required to write this into the license, you can still distribute under the GPL.

( ;-) maybe in some states of the USA, you actually need such a disclaimer)

Decisions, decisions...

[gillbates]

Many have weighed in about how Microsoft could crush OS by filing patent lawsuits, and that the individual developer would cave in because they couldn't afford the legal defense.

Suppose MS sued OS developers en masse. What exactly would the developers do then? Consider the alternatives:

1. Switch to a closed source model, and retain most of the code (absent the patent infringing sections).
2. Write software which detects, and refuses to interoperate with, Microsoft software. (Where would the internet be if every Linux and UNIX server refused a connection from a Windows box?) Think about it - the internet runs on UNIX, and this is a very real possibility.
3. Find security holes in Microsoft software.
4. Write viruses targetting Microsoft Windows.

What if, one morning ALL networked Windows machines refused to boot? The people smart enough to do something like this are now working on FOSS. What if someone distracted them?

FOSS keeps many would-be crackers from becoming problems to Microsoft. It is already bad enough that WinXP can be rooted on day zero. What would happen if Longhorn a virus infected Longhorn's Product Activation code? What if it infected UNIX boxes - not as a victim, but merely a carrier? Longhorn would be a boot once, never run OS.

The consequences of taking away FOSS through litigation are far worse than the dent it makes in corporate profits.

The importance of the USA global power

[Anonymous Coward]

If patents are that threatening, why has Microsoft done nothing about bringing legal action against the SAMBA team, for example?

Because its international?

Australia has adopted the perverted USA intelectual property manners just recently, May 18 2004 (http://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/negotiations/us.html , http://samba.org/~tridge/fta_statement.html). Even now, if Samba were under attack, the development (if not all the developers themselves) might shift to Europe: perversion of the european patent system is still under construction, after the Episode I---The Patent Office Menace, Episode II---The Attack of the Parliament, and Episode III---The Revenge of the Council, the Episode IV---New Hope came, when the Netherlands, and afterwards also others, considered withdrawing their support to the prepared perverted directive, but the European Commission and the European Patent Office are undoubtedly going to strike back (http://ffii.org/). May be that Microsoft waits just for the European Union, may be it even postpones its attack untill the world for free software development gets yet smaller.

The real test of the global community power is yet to come, after the global power of the USA succedes in making the USA laws actually global.

I disagree with the article...

[Lodragandraoidh]

The article posits that we should, at most, do due diligence by focusing our research efforts on our likely competitors' patent portfolio in the proprietary world and identifying prior art. We shouldn't worry about possible legal action unless it comes onto the radar because it is historically very difficult for plaintifs to win patent cases due, usually to the fact that prior art will come to light when the high powered experts and lawyers wade in for the defense. We don't have the money to file patents - so we shouldn't file patents, goes the argument.

However, there is one flaw in that view: most smalltime developers don't have the money to hire high powered experts or lawyers, and must depend on the good fortune of having volunteers or nonprofit organizations work the case. Additionally, the article does not take into account the motivations of a large company (such as Microsoft), who's core business, and thus billions of dollars in revenue, is being threatened. They are likely to begin sueing everyone they can target when the profits start to dry up - not in any hope of winning - in the desire to disrupt and bankrupt the targeted projects to keep their business model afloat. To them it is survival of their revenue stream, at any cost - to hell with new inventions and technology for people. They would have us sitting in caves lit by candles if they thought they could make their margins on candle wax. They have the team of lawyers and the 'war chest' to do it.

Given this view, I think it very important for the Free/Open Source community to patent our ideas - and furthermore challenge the idea of patents by holding them under a free use liscense. Perhaps a nonprofit group, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation could manage the portfolio, and be a central point where donations can flow to support 'free patent' efforts. This way we, as a group, can pool our resources to unequivically counter these attempts to disrupt the evolution of software development that is just gaining steam.

Solution to Patents

[Anonymous Coward]

Eventually what I believe should happen to avoid these problems is that the community should adapt to this and set up a non-profit organisation which can patent, enforce and obtain royalties from ideas that people within the community kindly give to this organisation.

In turn this organisation could defend community projects against frivolous patent claims and even counter sue companies based on a mass of patents. This could result, in an idea world, of cross licencing agreements between said organisation and those holding software patents (IBM, Sun ??).

It'll probably never happen of course - but I thought a good way to fight.

Open Office already is better

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually Open Office already is better than MS Office. As a chemist, I can with Open Office

• put subscript and superscript buttons on avery toolbar in every application to write chemical formulas everywhere
  
• actually write those formulas everywhere, subscripts and superscripts working even in the spreadsheet cells
  
• put all the references I cite into a database for easy use in the future
  

There may be more features, that I either don't remember now, don't know they're missing in MSO, or simply don't know yet at all, because I personally haven't needed them yet.

The only drawback of Open Office for me is, that other chemists I colaborate with mostly use MSO, and so do the publishers of the scientific journals. Thus I must deal with not yet perfect import (especially RTF, although an open format contrary to doc, fails too often) and export filters, with OOo drawing in OOo documents sometimes getting mutilated by doc export and subsequent MS Word import, with all those pretty subscripts and superscripts of chemical formulas in spreadsheet tables reverted to ordinary text by xls export, and all the references pasted from the database losing their reference nature by doc export, becoming simple dead text, and preventing thus my using of the OOo neat database feature, if I want to colaborate with somebody, who is expected to work with my text and eventually add or delete some references.

Thus MS domination succesfully lowers my benefits of the Open Office superiority and out of its very nature efficiently defends itself from spreading rumors about some better equipment available. You, for one, apparently have not yet got the message.

Re:Open Office already is better

[Ogerman]

Thus MS domination succesfully lowers my benefits of the Open Office superiority and out of its very nature efficiently defends itself from spreading rumors about some better equipment available. You, for one, apparently have not yet got the message.

OOo does have some advantages over MSO already, but your set of needs as a chemist is a special case. Just because it meets your needs does not mean that it is ready for the everyone. Most people using MSO are business types. They're more concerned about perfect compatibility with their existing Word and Powerpoint documents, advanced features, and not having to undergo a retraining process. OOo is currently lacking many features that MSO has and that people have come to rely upon. It also lacks the polish of MSO at this point and still has quite a bit of quirkiness in need of fixing. (For example, the "complex table bug" where you cannot merge cells with overlapping rows or columns of other merge regions)

I personally use nothing but OOo and advocate its use everywhere, despite its current limitations. But I do run into heavy opposition because of the above mentioned concerns of business types. OOo needs to be polished until it is the obvious choice, not one involving extended deliberation.

Hollywod

[rumblin'rabbit]

For many decades now, Hollywood has been using the big corporation as their favourite bad guy, so that now people accept this as a matter of course. That would, it seems, include you. You've bought into a modern day myth.

Yes, there are lots of examples of companies behaving badly (note - Martha Stewart was convicted for obstruction of justice over a personnal investment matter, not corporate malfeasance). But one could just as easily name people, or charities, or environmental groups, or governments, or whatever you care to name, who have behaved badly.

If you think corporations don't value their reputations, you know nothing about the modern corporation. Corporations exist only at the pleasure of their customers, and both the companies and their customers know it.

You argue that since companies are driven by the profit motive, they are evil and soulless. Nonsense. There is nothing more human than the profit motive, and it doesn't mean people act immorally. Long term success in business requires integrity. Only someone who's never been in business thinks otherwise.

I'm not saying big corporations are perfect (far, far from it). But it always seem odd to me that they are cast as so nefarious when everyone seems eager to work for them, do business with them, buy their products, and benefit from their tax dollars.

You think you're superior to big corporations? Fine, how many people did you hire today?

Re:Hollywod

[killjoe]

" You've bought into a modern day myth."

The facts are sometimes hard to accept but I will repeat them for you anyway.

A corporation is a soul-less, immortal entity whose sole purpose is to make money. This entity is given full legal rights the same as human beings who have souls. If you believe in the bible and are a christian then by definition corporations are evil because the love of money is the root of all evil.Of course soul-less immortal beings have always been described as evil in pretty much all religions.

"If you think corporations don't value their reputations, you know nothing about the modern corporation"

Corporations don't value their reputations. They only value the bottom line. Look at MS. It has a horrible reputation but as long as it continues to make money it does not care. In fact most corporations know that the more unethical they act the more money they make so they do that.

"You argue that since companies are driven by the profit motive, they are evil and soulless. Nonsense."

DO corporations have souls? Is the love of money the root of all evil?

"There is nothing more human than the profit motive"

The goal of the spiritual life is the transend your human desires and goibles and achieve your divine destiny. All religions, all philosophers, all great wise men in history have advocated that greed is a bad thing and antithetical to spiritual growth.

"You think you're superior to big corporations? Fine, how many people did you hire today?"

If you think that hiring people is somehow the greatest good that a person can achieve then you are fucked beyond belief. Capitalism is based on teh seven deadly sins. Capitalism itself is anti god. Greed, gluttony, pride, avarice, covetousness are all staples of capitalism. Maybe I am full of shit but I don't know of any spiritual leader, religious prophet, or a philospher that said "lets form a society based on greed, envy, gluttony, and pride".

Oh I take that back. There was one guy who advocated all that. His name was Anton LeVay and he founded the church of satan. Maybe you know of others.

Re:It is about the FUD

[dinog]

There are several stings which may work. The first is to say the patent is obvious and have the patent nullified. The second is to find any tiny bit of prior art, and again have the patent nullified. A third possibility is to show that they have not defended their patent despite knowing the infringement, in which case the patent may fall into public domain. Another possiblity are the anti-trust laws, in which case the programmers may well be able to sue, without worrying about penalties.

Also note that as open source is often faster at making changes, a counter suit (you're infringing our patent on X) could cause MS and the likes far more trouble than one of their patents would cause open source. Consider a few "recent" browser issues. MS takes a year to fix it, and Mozilla takes a day. Which one would have a bigger problem with a patent suit ? MS may want to get into this kind of a pissing contest, but they could lose everything if things go poorly for them. A preliminary injunction to stop selling Windows or Office would devastate MS. A two week delay would do more harm to them than anything they can do to open source. A year delay may well destroy their monopoly and eventually MS as a whole.

Oh, and IBM has quite a few patents, likes Linux, and doesn't particularly like MS. There are other companies that may also play the "white knight" for Linux and/or open source. There are also certain governments that like open source software, and are considering software patents. If MS (or anyone, really) does something abusive, it may well adversely affect the inclination of these certain governments to pass the patent laws that MS and the likes are interested in.

Dean G.

"There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence."
- Jeremy S. Anderson

No patents!

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, several comments joining or even extending Rosens idea of free open source software community filing its own patents made it to the default display, while those reminding that software patents directly contradict freedom and opennes are to be explicitly demanded by the reader.

No patents, please!

The true free open source way of responding to the patent menace is simply publishing prior art---which FOSS by its very nature actually does. Once published, for example in the form of free open source implementation, any idea becomes nonpatentable. To actually prove and substantiate at the court a case of prior art may be hard, expensive and time consuming, but no harder, more expensive or more time consuming than simmillar proof of patent validity and applicability. Given the means available for the free open source community, a published prior art portfolio makes even better than a patent portfolio, because its more suitable for public exposition, widespread explanation and public opinion influence. Sueing a free open source developer for the use of an algorithm freely published in open source at the first time several months before the patent application may hurt the company image much more than sueing such a developer for the use of an algorithm patented by somebody from the free open source community months before the company filed its own patent, but spelled in the patent by the lawyers newspeak so that not even the patent owner understands it and not even the patent office clerks are able to recognize the patents overlap.

Divide liabilities, accumulate strength

[carlos92]

Maybe we should develop a strategy to license software in big packages that you cannot use at all if you sue for patent infringement in any part of the package, and continue designing software in small modules so that replacement of a challenged module is easier.

This is Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

there's numerous counter-examples

"there're".

"their"

What patents are used for - Was Re; Rosen makes ..

[Balaitous]

You are right about patents in manufacturing or physical process industries, at least when players are of similar size. For software and information patents at large (including patents on molecules and vegetal varieties), cross licensing also occurs between large companies. However anti-competitive usage, rent-seeking through monopoly pricing in particular in pharmaceutics, royalty rackets by specialised portfolio companies (with no products), and standards hijacking are frequent. Patents are also used to lure investors into believing that ideas are an asset. Last but not least, software and information-based patents are extremely useful for tax "minimisation" purposes, including through complex networks of cross-licensing.

Re:Hollywood

[rumblin'rabbit]

I loved your reply. Thank you. But there is little point in debating, since we have no common viewpoint upon which to base our arguments. Cats may as well debate with kangaroos.

Re:It is about the FUD

[crucini]

There are several stings which may work...

Those are all legal defenses or counterattacks. How do they fit with the "bear and bees" theory? How does a mob of angry geeks help at all in implementing those defenses or counterattacks?

The only plausible one is search for prior art. BountyQuest tried that. Turns out geeks don't know what prior art really means - read any slashdot patent story for proof. One patent attorney is more valuable than 1000 geeks in these matters.

A preliminary injunction to stop selling Windows or Office would devastate MS.

On what basis would open source geeks request such an injuction? Patent infringement? We don't have any patents.

Oh, and IBM has quite a few patents, likes Linux, and doesn't particularly like MS. There are other companies that may also play the "white knight" for Linux and/or open source.

I don't think any company with a substantial patent portfolio will act as a "white knight". Such companies will act in their own interest. I think Microsoft and IBM are in the equivalent of a cold war. They could destroy each other with IP litigation, so they hold off. But they war through proxies, just like the US and USSR did. IBM used Linux to attack Microsoft and Sun. Then Microsoft used SCO to attack IBM and Linux.

If Microsoft starts suing over Linux patent infringement, they're probably smart enough to stay away from IBM, and IBM is probably smart enough not to retaliate. However, Microsoft might use a deniable puppet like SCO and have them sue IBM.

We may end with a situation where you need the shelter of an IP superpower to use Linux. Maybe IBM will buy RHAT and that huge license cost will protect customers from Microsoft's patent litigation. Debian and Gentoo will have a problem.

Many of us are too young for it to have mattered

[tepples]

why not the ... software patent lawmakers? software patent lawmaker constituencies? YOU?

ME? That wouldn't have mattered. Before the 1998 elections, I was too young to vote in Indiana. Many key U.S. software patents were applied for and granted before January 1999, when the representatives and senators elected in November 1998 took office, and per the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment, the U.S. government can't invalidate them that easily.

Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music

[tepples]

Copyright doesn't have this problem because it's almost impossible for two authors to write the exact same thing, and even if they come close, the law only punishes an author if he copied the other's work - if he can show he came up with it independantly, he's clear.

Not exactly. Even in copyright, the standard for copying is "access" plus "substantial similarity". Having heard a song on commercial FM radio or commercial in-store music even once counts as "access", and a chance resemblance of about seven or eight notes is "substantial similarity." So in light of this analysis, how is a copyright on a melody any different in scope from a patent on an invention other than lasting several times longer?

I can't afford to move, you insensitive clod

[tepples]

They can make it illegal to use in certain countries where that patent is valid.

I can't afford to emigrate from the United States, you insensitive clod! Therefore, if something's illegal to use in certain countries including the one in which I live, then from my point of view, it's illegal to use, period.

F___ the specs; let's make our own

[tepples]

What if the patent depends on, say, some part of a public spec? Either violate the patent, violate the spec, or go home.

I'd choose violate the spec. CompuServe published the GIF specification based on a Unisys patent; we violated the spec. ISO published the MPEG audio specification based on a Fraunhofer patent; we violated the spec. ISO published the MPEG video specification based on numerous patents; we violated the spec. Bottom line: if a specification is patented, then f___ the spec; let's make our own.

Uh, okay, that'll show em. Hey microsoft! Your license to distribute Linux has just expired! TAKE THAT!

That's not sarcasm. Without Microsoft's license to distribute copies of the GNU operating system, the de facto standard userland layer on top of the Linux kernel, Microsoft won't be able to distribute copies of Services For UNIX, and between the termination of the GNU license and such time as Microsoft develops its own alternative, it will lose government contracts that depend on conformance to the POSIX spec.

And how will "the guy in the basement" enforce this anyway???

By handing over the copyright in a free software package to the Free Software Foundation so that FSF's attorneys can take the case.

Re:Projects won't close down, they'll go undergrou

[Thomas Shaddack]

Of course, one could not gain reputation from doing so,...

One could, but not with one's real identity. A reputation can be gained for a "nym" built on the anonymous infrastructure - so you won't be able to publish as John Public, but could become famous as John Doe 4324, holder of the GPG key 0x42342132A. When a suitable infrastructure of Chaumian e-cash emerges, you even could get paid.

Also, you can always decide to link your nym with your real identity, when it becomes a tactical advantage (eg. if patents would get repealed, or couple decades later for a historical book). It's one-way road, though.

Re:Hollywood

[killjoe]

I agree and sadly must point out that this exchange makes abundantly clear how little moral compass or spiritual awareness there is in the US.

A couple of hundred years of capitalism have completely reversed two thousand years of christianity by making greed, gluttony, avarice, covetousness and pride virtues. What the romans could not do Adam Smith did by himself. Turn christianity on it's head. Turn the quest of mankind from reaching their divine destiny to accumulating as much wealth as possible.

Bees and Bears

[Anonymous Coward]

I am a beekeeper, and I can tell you that unless the beekeeper does something about the bear (electric fence, etc.) the bear WILL return again and again until there are no surviving colonies to raid.

Nice try though. :)