Patent Concerns Unlikely To Nix Munich Linux Plan

MonkeyDev writes "Yahoo is reporting that Munich is ready to move forward with plans to 'abandon Microsoft Windows in favor of upstart rival Linux. The council is expected to take a calculated risk and vote through the move, despite concerns about possible software patent infringements in the face of coming European Union legislation that caused months of delay.' Not everyone is excited about it. A software developer at MySQL claims 'Linux violates 283 U.S. software patents.' How does the Linux community respond to these claims?" (Florian Mueller, the MySQL developer mentioned, isn't opposed to Munich using Linux, though -- just the opposite.) Update: 09/29 02:22 GMT by T : Marten Mickos of MySQL AB writes with a correction: "Florian Müller is an independent software developer and entrepreneur. He is ALSO an advisor to MySQL AB but he does not work for the company. He is presently engaged in coordinating opposition against software patents in EU, and thereby doing all of us within free software and open source a great favour."

Comments

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Half Life 2 is EXPECTED to come out someday...

So what?

[Threni]

> Linux violates 283 U.S. software patents.' How does the Linux community respond
> to these claims?

I just don't care.

Re:So what?

[lphuberdeau]

Well, 238 patents isn't much if you consider the amount of stupid patents out there. You can barely cross a street without violating one. In fact, I quite glad to see it's not that much of a disaster. Now if you remove things like using an image as an icon, drag and drop of files, pressing tab to change links in a browser, memory allocation, displaying characters while you type, ... you're probably down to 2.

Re:So what?

[benjamindees]

The conduct of the [freedom seekers] is a threat to the authority of the [arbitrary authority], and a threat to peace. [freedom seekers] has answered a decade of [arbitrary authority] demands with a decade of defiance. All the world now faces a test, and the [arbitrary authority] a difficult and defining moment. Are [arbitrary authority] resolutions to be honored and enforced, or cast aside without consequence? Will the [arbitrary authority] serve the purpose of its founding, or will it be irrelevant?

Re:So what?

[taj]

I agree, 183 patents isn't much if you consider the amount of stupid patents out there.

In fact at this rate there wont be any patents to worry about.

Re:claims ?

[Geek of Tech]

Not really sure whether it would be a surprise or not, but I can just see SCO suing said developer for defamation against their IP. (Hey they think it's theirs anyway.)

Talk about posting too quickly

[Infonaut]

I'm thinking now I should just hit refresh for three minutes before posting, just to be on the safe side. ;-)

Re:claims ?

[TedCheshireAcad]

A software developer at MySQL claims 'Linux violates 283 U.S. software patents.' How does the Linux community respond to these claims?"

The same way we respond to any other question about our beloved operating system: RTFM noob.

Re:claims ?

[flacco]

you don't want to see a computer/technology patent war. everyone would be guilty of something. Heck, IBM would have almost everyone by the balls if they chose.

luckily for open source / free software advocates, ibm is currently fondling, not squeezing. :-)

U.S. enforces patents...

[the-build-chicken]

...rest of the world innovates on linux and open source to the benefit of their economies...

hey, that's your foot america...what are you doing with that gun??!?

Re:linux patent violation #1:

[Monkelectric]

All logic functions are decomposable into smaller functions. However, if you look at things with that fine a microscope, then you are really just a collection of atoms. Obviosuly you're much more then atoms, and a program is much more then logic. Here's a joke Consultants tell themselves (I believe there is a version for mechanics):

A network consultant gets an urgent call from a company manager, their network is down and they need him *NOW*. He walks into the company, looks everything over, says "hmmm" strokes his chin, pulls a patch cable out of his bag and makes a connection. Instantly everything starts working. The frantic manager is relieved, and the consultant writes out his bill, for "network consultation, $500". The manager says, "this is outrageous, I won't pay this bill! I demand you rewrite it!" So the contractor writes another one -- "$5 patch cable .... $495 Knowing where to plug it in".

The lesson is this really... That although programs are only logic, they aren't just logic :) Just like plugging a patch cable in, isn't just plugging a patch cable in. Now, I happen to agree with you actually. Software patents are rediculous, and I think a better argument would go something like this:

Programs are expressible in *languages*. To a programmer, these languages are every bit as real as spoken languages. If a statement in a language coresponds to a word in human languages, then a paragraph might corespond to a function, and a chapter a module, a book a program perhaps?

So basically, we have people patenting the plots to short stories. And they're saying, *NOBODY* can use this plot, its ours, we invented it. Well really a plot is just linguistic expression, and frankly there aren't that many.

Try this...

[Anonymous Coward]

To Nix Munich Linux Plan

Try saying that fast for three times...