Perens Dismisses Torvald's Patent Pool

ficken writes "Open source activist Bruce Perens has dismissed as inadequate a new IP initiative backed by Linus Torvalds. The Open Source Development Labs' (OSDL) patent commons project is intended to provide patent protection to open source developers. Perens, speaking at LinuxWorld, compared the patent pool to "spitting in the wind" -because the patents it contained come from "the wrong people.""

Comments

Re:Stop the infighting

[Master of Transhuman]

I agree.

Perens is simply keeping his name in the press.

While some of his remarks may be partially correct - namely, that it's not terribly useful to have a patent portfolio built from people who already support OSS - his primary mission here is simply to denigrate some useful work.

Where are his solutions to the problem? I see lots of criticism and no ideas from him.

Eben Moglen, at LinuxWorld this past week, outlined a program involving not merely the Patent Commons Project, but attempts to change patent laws and to actually reverse patents that are of particular threat to OSS.

Perens concentrates only on the Patent Commons Project, and ignores the rest. This proves his only motive is to start a flame war.

Nothing like handing Microsoft some talking points, Bruce. Way to go.