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IBM Opens Their Patent Portfolio to Open Source
kfiller writes "IBM announced that over 500 of their currently held software patents will be freely available to use for those who are working on open source projects (NY Times, free registration required), with the hope that more companies will do the same. More information is available at SourceLicense."
A) These things may have been patented before they decided to do this
B) They don't have to worry about someone else patenting them
C) They're only opening them up for open-source projects, meaning IBM projects can use them and open-source projects can use them, but IBM's closed-source competitors can't.
Twenties Retirement
IBM's tactic: Apply for U.S. patents on methods used in software and then license them royalty-free for use in free software.
IBM's possible strategies behind the tactic:
You make a good point, but considering how much IBM benefits from Linux already, and how all that benefit would be lost if the community died, Wall Street ought to see this as a sound strategic decision by IBM.
Oh, and by the way -- considering that it's 500 patents out of 40,000, you've got a really strange definition of "most."
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Responsible investing in companies that improve society, sure ... but irrationally throwing away your money?
It seems IBM forsees a future in which software is commoditized. This doesn't bother them because they sell lots and lots of hardware. It seems they believe they will sell even more hardware if people aren't "wasting" their money on software.
See the cycle? If much of the money that previously went to Redmond goes to them instead, do you see how they just might make a buck or two?
Open source changes the notion of who will make money. IBM has made major moves to make sure they will be the bennefactors of this change. They have a much better chance at dramatically increased riches than almost any other "linux vendor" you can name.
TW
" You're insane if you think IBM's push into Open Source is being done for any idealistic reasons of Good vs Evil."
Read my sig. Evil is as evil does. If IBM is doing good then it makes the world a better place. It does not matter what their intentions are.
Acts are what matters. Acts are what we judge. If IBM gets to make a ton of money by doing good then more power to them. I will definately support that. The alternative is to try and make money buy lying, cheating, stealing, suing, and cpreading evil and chaos which is what MS and SCO does.
Why wouldn't you support IBM over MS/SCO? Really I want to know.
evil is as evil does
Whatever the intent of the patent system, right now its main use is for threatening other companies into cross-licensing agreements. Which is where Open Source comes a cropper, because it's not a legal entity that can enter into such agreements, and has no patents to cross-license.
But IBM's pledge works around that, by providing some patents for OSS to work with, and showing how to 'cross-licence' even without an OSS legal entity.
In fact, it might be the start of a 'viral' subversion of the patent system, in just the way that the GPL is for copyright. Imagine a time in a few years, where a lot of companies have done the same thing that IBM does. Each of those companies is then committed to the OSS patent pool, and can't threaten any OSS with a lawsuit on any particular patent without losing access to all the rest. And of course, the more companies that join in, the more patents are in the pool, and the more attractive it becomes.
What's important now is how other companies react to this now. If a few more come on board, this could be the Start Of Something Big!
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
Because IBM seems to have decided the future is in software services, not writing software. Let the geeks write the software then IBM will make a pile of money telling companies what software they need, putting all the bits together, installing it then maintaining it.
Responsible investing in companies that improve society, sure ... but irrationally throwing away your money?
Exactly how many open-source projects currently pay IBM for patent licenses? And how many do you expect to pay in future?
IBM is losing nothing here. What they have gained is a great deal of goodwill, and given open-source development a boost. Remember they have a great deal of experience in bulding upon open-source projects, where there competitors generally do not - so anything good for open-source is good for IBM at the moment.
This is a smart move by smart people, and it follows in the footsteps of other smart moves. This is an indicator that IBM really understands how open-source can help their business, and if IBM continue in this fashion, they will make a great deal of money while the rest of the world catches up with them in the open-source stakes.
That is why this encourages people to invest.
Now that they sold the PC business, they don't need MS any more.
They don't do desktops.
They want consulting, and the better the GPL software is, the better they can compete against Novell with Suse, against Oracle, SAP and Sun.