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Computer Associates Pledges to Open Source Patents
DigitumDei writes "Systems management vendor Computer Associates International has confirmed that it intends to pledge a number of its patents to the open source community. This is a move by CA to make it clear that they do not intend to use their patents against Linux. They have, however, ruled out any further large scale donation of CA software code to the open source community as they just released the Ingres database management system under an open source license last year."
Great, now there'll be open source software that DOES really suck!
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Let me be the first to say..well done CA!
"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people."--Howard Zinn
I'm not sure which "Patents" they're talking about ...
... ... if we get all excited about this pledge?
However
Doesn't it give their other "patents" more credibility
Cheers,
-- The Dude
Open source runs on Windows too. stop equating open source with Linux (as in dont-fear-the-penguin)
The only way the current patent wars are going to end is for more companies to take actions like this.
They need to realize that having open source as an ally will be more beneficial in the long run than persisting in a petty patent grabbing scheme and trying to crush their competitors with the resulting lawsuits.
...'pledge a number of its patents to the open source community' means? Isn't it plainly terminating the patent right? or does that mean I can sue anyone for this patent myself?
I presume that to "pledge" a patent to the open source community, one could do one of two things: either contribute the patent to the public domain, or license it in some way. I would be surprised if they put it in the public domain, because then competitors could use it for closed source projects.
The question then becomes, what does the license look like that pledges patents to the "open source community" as opposed to the community at large? What kind of restrictions will be placed on the use of the patent under the license?
Symantec should follow suit. Not that viruses are the central focus they once were.
Now accepting PayPal donations!
Speaking of which, anyone using that? The user's email list looks a little quiet...
The Army reading list
the GPL patent can only used with other GPL patented product. In this case, commercial product with patent in would not be able to use it :)
when would microsoft open up their patent?
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Slashdot: And what number would that be?
CA Spokesperson: Zero!
Unknown host pong.
As it happens, the press release from CA has a slight mistake in it. Instead of pledging to "open source patents", CA pledges to "patent open source". We apologize for any inconvenience caused.
Sincerely Yours,
John Swainson
CEO Computer Associates International
The IT industry is really splitting into two opposing camps. OTOH we have those who believe technology should be expensive and lucrative. OTOH we have those who believe technology is sliding down the commodity curve and that the future lies in services.
It's pretty clear which companies are on each side. With this statement, CA position themselves on the "sliders" side along with IBM, Novell, and the free/open source community.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
After IBM its CA now. This is wonderful. If all the corporates decide to open up their patents, code and other intellectual property we would be living in a better world. Eveyone benefits: 1. Corporates get great community support 2. Application get enhancements and maintainance at super speed 3. Communities get source and rights for further development 4. Consumers get great products and services Microsoft, are you listening?
fuvoo: watch something
I totally applaud the sentiment behind what they did. Bravo!
However, it begs to be asked that isn't Ingres like the IBM database released recently, obsolete or at the least less relevent technology today?
Haven't other open source technologies surpassed them and this is an attempt (albeit a good one) to get favorable press after the latest round of bad press against CA?
"What the hell is an aluminum falcon?"
Companies which get "defensive" patents to protect themselves from a bigger, more agressive, richer company seem to be merely an altruistic charade. If the owners ever get tempted by the money, then it will be enforced.
If a company had no desire to ever enforce the patent, then turn it over to the public domain. You'd still create the legal precedent that allows your products to exist.
If a company holds on to the patent, it's simply to be able to pull it out of popular use at a later time (no matter who cooperative they seem now).
If a patent becomes the shoulders for your patent or product to stand on, then you're setting yourself up for a fall no matter how solid that ground seems now.
From the article:
"It's the plan," den Hartog said. "I know he [Swainson] has worked on the preliminary work to get that done."
Not much accomplished on this yet. This seems like a feeler.
That said, it's only a pledge, when done.
A promise, only.
It would be nice to see something binding on this, or to see the end of software patents altogether.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
Part of me would like to think that CA did this for purely good reasons, but I suspect there is a practical reason behind this.
Many companies donate patents (intellectual property) to non-profit institutions for tax cut purposes. A company can "claim" a value of $x for the patents that it knows it will never use or find a license for, and give them to a university or non-profit as a charitable donation, in effect lowering their tax bill which improves their earnings per share. This is done in the chemical industry all the time.
So we should look at the patents being donated - are they really key patents, or extra patents that cover some niche or really should have never been issued in the first place? I'm betting that none of these patents really prevent the open source community from doing anything currently, and their release is probably a tax-cut plan for CA.
I'd love to be wrong though.
-When going for broke, go for Ithaca!
After 18 years!!!!
to really fork. One group will use all this patented stuff, and be vulnerable to legal attacks. The other group will(should) play it safe and stay completely patent free.
What?
You know I was thinking about this today before I even read this story. I was wondering why the EFF doesn't just register all the possible patents that come from any open source program. I bet if they did that and then turned around made the patents "open source" (free to use) but restricted the use to anyone not one a special EFF blacklist. That way the EFF gains alot of leverage and I bet they would slowly built up enough patents on important software advances to really hurt the big companies trying to screw us over with patents. I say use thier own laws against them.
just because your a schizophrenic doesn't mean people arn't really out to get you
Too bad that Ingres sucks. This comes from one of the more prominent QA folks at CA.
I'm guessing that the release of its source code will be caught by the virus detection script language Symantec has patented. The script looks like this:
about $10,000 a patent. And if it wasn't a good one, you would have to have enough money left over to make it worthwhile giving up than to be dragged down over this. And then you'd just get cross-licensing deals, rather than the removal of patent on software.
Now if the EFF created an IP shell company who had the money....
Let's see what the patents are first. If they're patents for outdated, obsolete methods, then so what. If they're patents for useful stuff, then game on!
Better world is a world without software patents, not a world where some companies gratefully give us what is ours anyway.
This Is Not a Sig
These patent pledges are a sign of problems on the horizon, if patent law was functioning as it's supposed to there would be no need for companies to make these gestures.
More important, I would think, will they be enforced against others if the others begin to enforce their patents against open source? I.e., between battles of parties with a lot of patents, an often outcome is that the patents are cross-licensed.
I realize a dedication is a great step, but with some activity towards holding open source back due to patent infringement issues. Getting a patent stable would be a counter threat to this.
Ha ha, your wife has been open source for years while you are at the office! BTW, can you take those pants you found to the cleaners and return them to me? Tnx.
Think about it--the more companies working to protect Linux or other OSS, the better off they all are with respect to using it.
And if they get something in return--whether that be tax breaks or whatever--that's all the more incentive they have to help us. And that's a good thing.
It may well be true that there's no such thing as a free lunch here, but if we're both getting something out of this, and neither is the worse off for it, how then can it be a Bad Thing[TM]?
Does anyone reading this work at CA? I would really love to get an internship at the Islandia, NY location! Reply with details.
All your Sybase are belong to us.
OMG WTG BBQ!!! Another open source database, thats just what we needed!!!
Actually, what IBM contributed is quite unclear. Read the revocation clause at the end of IBM's announcement in their patent pledge. IBM can revoke the pledge from anyone who sues "Open Source Software" (odd in that nobody sues software) for any "intellectual property" matter (a purposefully vague and undefined term in the IBM patent pledge). I was surprised at how poorly specified their pledge is.
So, if someone involved in "Open Source Software" (a reasonable inference on what IBM meant by their language) distributes one of my GPL-covered programs under a license other than the GPL, that's copyright infringement. I have to decide if I want to risk losing my access to IBM's pledged patents or defend my rights under law and pursue a lawsuit against the copyright infringer. This is hardly a good choice to have to make, but considering the small number of pledged patents and how unlikely I am to be sued for patent infringement by IBM anyhow, I might choose to risk forgoing access to the pledged patents. I certainly won't write any software planning to implement any of IBM's patented ideas (but I might not be able to help it, since patents are written to be quite expansive).
Digital Citizen
This is news? Or more Fucked Up Disinformation?
"...reduce the groundswell of the anti IP movement..."
The term "Intellectual Property" is the most devious of terms. It implies assigned value to ideas and then further goes on to try to restrict who can "own" those ideas. It also blurs 4 distinct areas of law that should never be blurred. Patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secret. So to clarify this "anti IP movement" is really about getting rid of the notion that ideas can be thought of only by one entity and only controlled by one entity. A culture stagnates when ideas and though processes are stifled.
B.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
I guess I need a lawyer to explain exactly what software patents mean to me. Have the corporate lobbyists made it illegal for me to express myself in my own home by writing a program that may do similar things in similar ways as programs written by the monopolistic corporations that they represent?
If it's not illegal for me to express my creative talents in my own home is it now illegal for me to share those expressions with others?
If it is illegal for me to express my creative talents even in my own home then surly most government agencies and private businesses that do their own in-house programming are also endanger of going afoul of the software patent laws unless they hire an army of attorneys to research each and every line of code that they write to ensure that someone else doesn't have a patent covering its functionality. I know of no government agency or private business that does this.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Thanks to CA,
no-thanks to non-profit patent exemption from governments across the world
A blog I run for the wealth
Moderation -2
100% Offtopic
The story is about CA opening patents, and references the Ingres source they opened recently. Ingres was the predecessor to Postgres, different in its source being closed. I asked whether I can use the now-open source Ingres instead of Postgres. How is that "Offtopic", unless TrollMods just don't know what Ingres and Postgres are? Or are just jerks?
--
make install -not war
Sometimes it's hard to find the verb in a headline.
Clear statement Opensource programs are able to use there patents as long as they let IBM use/ship the program to there clients without charge. And that the Opensource project does not attack there patents ie to get them revoked.(not exact words)
This is inforcable in a court of law. Bit like SCO found out people who had Vaild at&t licences even that at&t patents had been aquired could not over rule the old aggreements. This is the same with IBM statement.
Once statement is done there is no way back. Open source is safe from that company. All we need is the statement.
Hmm Microsoft is using patents to cripple competion might be what we have to do. To get theres. Some lawer some please look into it.
This may be a little off-topic, but does anyone know how a company can use embedded GIF tracking in HTML mail to potential customers, yet have a privacy policy saying among other things:
It appears to me that the only way I can avoid sending my IP address and a tracking code with a request for an almost invisible GIF image each time I read unsolicited mail from CA is to disable inline images in my mail reader (or not use an HTML-capable mail reader at all). Fortunately I have done that already, but I'm still curious enough to look at the HTML code. How do I "opt out" from receiving these messages when I'm not even a CA customer, and I don't want to disclose my e-mail address to them?