Slashdot Mirror
CA Releases Patents to OSS
simonfairfax writes "ComputerWorld reports that Computer Associates International has released 14 patents to the opensource community, following IBM's lead. From the article: 'CA said it is joining IBM in encouraging other companies to create an industrywide "patent commons" in which patents are pledged royalty-free to further innovation in areas of broad interest to developers and users of IT.'"
Wait a minute... If the open-source community now "owns" patents, what happens when they start using that new version of the GPL that prohibits use by patent owners? They won't be able to use their own code!
:)
Suckers
I'm your huckleberry
We need more critical mass. I hope that other companies and orgs follow with the same!!!
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
Looking through here, it seems like these aren't CA's lame ducks either...
The actual list of patents can be found at CA's website
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
I read that as "CA Patents OSS"
I must admit that I have been watching this whole "released" patents thing with slight amusement. Doesn't it strikes to anyone that this movement essentially declares to do the same to innovation and market, what original patent system claimed (and actually did, too) to do.
What we have turned this system into, that we now engineer a ways around it now? (but at least it's actually pretty nice to see that needs and deeds of the smart remains the same over the time despite the corporate USA.)
Very important links on it. Thanks.
Its a great thing that CA is giving open source these patents to help secure itself, but the long term solution here should be to avoid giving validity to software patents and fighting their existence. There has been success in europe on this front (although not entirely, I believe) and surely not having to deal with the patent minefield would be better than having a collection of defensive patents...
Business Voyeur
This is a nice gesture, but it won't address the real problem, no matter how many companies "donate" patents.
A patent pool could possibly help if it is actively defensive. In other words, it has to be structured like the GPL -- allowing some patent-pool entity to retaliate when a patent abuser like Amazon sues to enforce One-Click BS.
It could work such that by joining the patent pool, you get the right to use all of its patents but in return you have to place all of your own patents in the pool. (Unfortunately, there are many loopholes in this system, like creating multiple corporations to bypass the responsibility provisions... Also, it does nothing to address the "patent factories" who churn out hundreds of patents on basic concepts while selling no actual product.)
Anyway, the ideal solution is to get rid of software patents entirely. There is no reason for them to exist, except to allow people to monopolize ideas and hinder true invention.
...Amazon sues to enforce One-Click BS.
O_O
I read that as "Amazon uses One-Click to sue and enforce BS."
One-click suing... got me scared for a moment...
That's nice and all, but is there actually any legal assurance that they won't change their mind and sue a developer for patent infringement at a later day? The cynic in me thinks it'd be a great way to get free labor -- promise a royalty free license to a patent and then wait for someone to write some useful code. When it's released, sue them and offer to settle if the developer turns all the code over to your company. It'd probably cost a lot less than actually hiring someone to do something useful with the patent.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I only sort of mildly disliked them before. But that was before I found out that part of my FOSS project was based on something, hazard pointers, that has a patent application in on it. You go and improve somebody else's idea and then you can't even use it. Sucks.
You're giving Amazon ideas. Dangerous ideas. The last thing we need is for them to add a corporate layer with one-click lawsuit support. Especially if they can break into SCOs offices and steal their beta version of the algorithm.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
This seems a pretty strange list to me: someone knows why they have chosen those 14 patents? They have a specific application/library in mind?
There's a hidden treasure in Python 3.x: __prepare__()
Lots of companies file patents they say are "defensive". That is, they say they won't prevent anyone else from developing the patented invention. They just need to fill the vacuum, getting a patent before someone else files an "offensive" patent which would be used to prevent others from developing that invention. But until the day comes when the "defensive" company changes its tune (maybe after changing ownership), we never can know whether the patent will be used offensively - and then it's too late.
What's wrong with releasing these patents into the public domain? We have a "fourth state", beyond the mysteriously dual states of "offensive" and "defensive" patents, and the vacuum of "no patent (yet)". Why do we need "an industrywide patent commons"? Why don't IBM and CA just release these patents into the public domain? They lose no more, and the "holding company" can't later be abused to control "submarine patents" that surface to catch entrapped users.
I'm sure that IBM's and CA's patent lawyers know more about the public domain than I do. They don't need me to think this up. But since we could get everything they're promising with a "public domain release", and they're not doing it, I suspect foul play.
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make install -not war
It would be very cool to see another clause saying that organization wishing to take advantage of this patent protection must also license all of their software patents under the same (or compatible) terms.
Rather than taking RMS's short-sighted "no patents at all" approach, the GPL could use patent protection the same way it uses copyright protection to incentivise developers to open-source their software (and patents).
Such an apporach would give open-source software a huge advantage over its proprietary counterpart: not ony would OSS developers get access to a vast selection of source code, but they would have royalty-free access to use certain techniques that would otherwise not be allowed. This could have a very strong viral effect beyond the power that the GPL currently wields.
If RMS could have fought against copyright protection, he would have--after all, "information wants to be free," right? Lacking that option, he used his own copyright protection to force others to willingly give up their own. Software patents are a reality. Rather than fight impotently against the ideal, we ought to harness that protection to further the open-source cause. The earlier it takes hold, the more powerful the move will become.
I rather like the idea of the FSF patenting its more clever ideas to prevent them from being used by closed-source developers. Right now OSS makes it easier to develop open source, the effect would be better if they also made it harder to survive developing closed source software.
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea...."
RFC 1925
Good call.
Do you have a newsletter?.....
What's wrong with releasing these patents into the public domain? We have a "fourth state", beyond the mysteriously dual states of "offensive" and "defensive" patents, and the vacuum of "no patent (yet)". Why do we need "an industrywide patent commons"? Why don't IBM and CA just release these patents into the public domain? They lose no more, and the "holding company" can't later be abused to control "submarine patents" that surface to catch entrapped users.
A very good point. Originally, it used to be that most research at colleges, universities, and any federal or state authorities was - by default - created as a public domain patent. But sadly this is now regarded as IP (Intellectual Property), and zealously guarded by those same institutions that used to have it be free.
Sure, open source could use the revenue - and there will be revenue - from such private patents, but if they were released into the public domain it would free up innovation.
And freeing up innovation and creation is the whole point behind having a patent process in the first place. At least in the USA when they were created as part of the Constitution.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
the quote at the bottomb of the /. page:
Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is meant to be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as a soap bubble?
Seems relevant.
Someone please mod this jerkoff down? Seriously. CA does something good for a change, and this dickweed is crying "they sky is falliong, the sky is falling."
Grant everyone a free and open license to use the patents. Then when there are enough patents, just destroy the whole bunch in one quick action. Can it be done?
or, destroy the patents, release their contents to the public domain and establish existing software as prior art to any idiot who thinks he can re-apply for the patents and then sue the open source community won't be able to.
Actually, what we need in addition to the patent database is a prior art database that deters people from applying for patents for stuff that already exist.
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
Actually all you need to do is document and publish it into some where well know to people familiar to the art. Make sure it shows up as prior art so that no one else can patent it. No real need to go through the patent process.
A bad idea is a bad idea and should be opposed even if there would be some short term benefits to "do as they do". Starting to use patents would give this particular bad idea legitimacy and would only start another arms race. And we've seen how good that works for solving any problems...
I think it's great that people have the guts, stamina and principles to do what they think is the long term right thing even though it's not the easy path.
Software patents simple is a horrible and flawed idea and so it should never be acknowledged as a viable way forward.
Spine World
So is that CAlifornia or CAnada?
That's technically true. But the PTO is granting so many patents with existing prior art that they often won't see the documentation. Then it becomes the public's expense to defend from an unworthy later patenter when the Cease & Desist letters arrive. Companies like CA and IBM have lawyers on retainer and other overhead amortization that make the patent process pretty cheap. And maybe cheaper to patent up front, then decide what to release to public domain, than to decide in the rush to patent everything, in case they decide to keep it. So patenting something, then releasing it to the public domain is the best way to protect the public's progress in the useful arts and sciences.
I don't know if the PTO has a "public domain" registry for patents converted from private to public, but that would certainly be an extremely valuable service. As would be a library of prior art, which seems the natural function of the Library of Congress (which runs the Copyright Office).
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make install -not war
I thought SCO owned the patent on Linux...
I'm pretty sure there is plenty of examples prior to 1995 that display data in a graphical format. I didn't read into the others much but they're releasing a patent that is worthless because they never should have had it in the first place.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
I also suspect that "defensive" may also mean "in case we need to counter-sue" in the event that some other company sues them over a patent.
Well, sure. But releasing the patent into the public domain gives up no defensive power in that case, either. Keeping it does let them keep the "intellectual property" value as part of their corporate valuation, as the "defensive" policy doesn't give away value to anyone else, though in theory it would reduce the value of that IP because it's not exclusive, therefore not "competitive". But that's exactly why such a "defensive" patent is so slippery: policies change, so nothing stops a future policy from excluding people. Except perhaps "submarine patent" legal theories, but those have little precedential power, and might protect only those "grandfathered in", before the policy change.
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make install -not war
The software companies are only doing this so software patents aren't eliminated completely. By pretending that their useless patents on XOR are helpful to the Free Software community (and thereby looking like the "good guys"), they keep the "good" patents to themselves. If they didn't give away their worthless ones, people would start questioning the software patenting process, and probably eliminate it.
Don't support this. Vote to abolish software patents completely! If mathematics can't be patented, why can algorithms!?
My other car is first.
You know, that thing we already had?
Look out honey cause I'm usin' technology
Ain't got time to make no apologies
Must be an off day for /.ers.
/. usual reaction to good deed news :
I must say I'm surprised to see the reactions to this article.
Real world reaction to good deed news usually is:
"Let no good deed go unpunished".
"Let no good deed go without being beaten to a bloody, beaten to death annihilation".
I think this is very good news, and quite possibly the first sign of a snowball rolling down a hill. Not that a certain nameless corporation will ever contribute any of it's patents to the patent pool.
That may not be a problem with the GPL, where every derivation is under the GPL as well. It gets at best murky with the LGPL, and any BSD or MIT license would be completely subverted since as soon as you have commercial derivation - which these licenses explicitly allow - you lose the right to use the patents.
This, and the release of patents by IBM is a PR stunt, nothing more, nothing less. The only way to clean up this mess is to overhaul the patent system (unlikely) or to release the patents to the public, *without* any restrictions.
I had no idea that CA could hold patents....
The fact that someone did this will make others follow suit (I hope).
Waking up today and reading this is almost as good as waking up one day and finding out that people actually care about our planet, this is a good day!
Now...if only the medicinal business did the same thing, then poverty struck third-world countries would benefit from cheaper medicines due to more innovations that would follow because of the new free flow of formulas and less restrictive patent licensing.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
The problem with that approach is that someone will still apply for the patent and have it granted, and then (if they sue) you have to go to court to prove that the prior art existed.
In theory the USPTO would find the prior art at patent application time and refuse it on those grounds, but in practice that doesn't appear to happen.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
> But what if you are writing derived commercial applications?
:)
Assuming that by "commercial applications", you mean, "proprietary, non-free, closed-source, applications," then your situation is unchanged. You have no more rights to use those patents than you did yesterday, but nobody on slashdot gives a rat's ass about you anyway, so, so what?
(Actually, you are, I'm sure, perfectly welcome to negotiate a patent license with CA if you don't like the terms of their generous public donation. But I suppose it's more fun to whine on slashdot.)
Otherwise, the answer is, your commercial applications have to be free/libre/open-source commercial applications. Then there's no problem.
> any BSD or MIT license would be completely subverted
"Completely subverted?" What are you? The hyperbole fairy? Try "somewhat limited" and I might go along with you. I mean, when I've released code under BSD or MIT licenses, I've been assuming that it was so that anyone could benefit freely from the code. Not just people creating proprietary commercial derivatives. If I'd known it was just for propietary commercial derivatives, I probably wouldn't have bothered!
> The only way to clean up this mess is to overhaul the patent system (unlikely) or to release the patents to the public, *without* any restrictions.
Well, either, a) you're the kind of insane BSD fanatic who makes the Stallmanites look like moderates, or b) you're a greedy bastard who just wants other people to give him free money. I won't speculate which. But, needless to say, I disagree with you. Not that I'm not sympathetic to your point of view; but I still disagree.
The point about the impact of this (and IBM's patent grant) on BSD/MIT licenses is an important one, and I'm glad you raised the point. I just wish you hadn't resorted to such histrionics in doing so.
The real problem is that software patents are bad for everyone, except for large corporations that can agree to cross-license patent portfolios. This allows the large corporations to block small companies from even entering the software business and provides a weapon with which to attack OSS projects the corporations don't like.
It doesn't matter how many 'good guys' contribute patents to a patents common, as long as there are companies that are going to use patents as weapons in the marketplace.
Even more importantly, this doesn't address the fundemental problems with using patents on software in the first place. In a world with software patents, it will eventually become almost impossible to write code w/o having a staff of patent lawyers to make sure it isn't infringing. Eventually, the cost just to make sure code isn't infringing will become another barrier to entry for software companies. Patents and software aren't like oil and water, they are like Hydrogen and Oxygen. Sooner or later, they'll blow up in all our faces.
-All that is gold does not glitter - Tolkien
www.ra
For the record, here's what I said about IBM's 500 patents in January:
NOSOFTWAREPATENTS.COM CRITICIZES IBM FOR "DIVERSIONARY TACTICS"
By the time I issued those comments, I didn't even know that those 500 IBM patents were mostly patents on the verge of expiration, and included many patents that had little to do with software, including various medical (!) technology patents.
Like Bruce Perens, I also criticized the recent OSDL announcement:
eWeek: OSDL Begins Open-Source Patent Commons
What's the point in those patent pledges? The only "value" in it is minimal. It's that some companies which are friendly toward OSS anyway make some formal promise not to use certain patents against certain open-source programs under certain open-source licenses, if not under certain circumstances. Companies either give away patents of hardly any value (like IBM did) or they tie their pledge to an open-source license that hardly anybody uses (like SUN did). Some of those pledges are legally pretty meaningless because of some loopholes that leave lots of room for interpretation.
The only meaningful contributions of patents to OSS would be donations of patents that serve the purpose mutually assured destruction, i.e.
(i) they are irrecovably made available for use by open-source developers or a trusted open-source entity against potential aggressors;
(ii) they constitute monopolies on technical features that would really be hurtful to a company like Microsoft; and
(iii) are not already subject to cross-licensing agreements between large corporations.
Anything less than that is of very little value and on the bottom line even negative because it diverts attention from what really needs to be done. Let's face it: No OSS developer is really going to look up something like an OSDL patent pledge database to find out which patents one is allowed to use. That's not practical. The problem is that too many critical patents are held by entities that are hostile toward OSS and are never ever going to pledge even a single patent.
An HP executive actually made a suggestion that potentially meets the criteria I outlined:
Moving on With Patents and Open-Source Software
I don't want to count any chickens before they're hatched, and with a highly complex legal issue like this it always depends upon a careful analysis of the specific terms an conditions, but HP's proposal to build up a patent arsenal that OSS can use for retaliatory purposes is infinitely more compelling that all of those patent pledges combined. It deserves further discussion and thought.
My guess? IBM doesn't see Free Software as competition, but as something they can use as part of the business solutions they sell to their customers. It's in their best interest to allow legal Free development of their patented methods.
On the other hand, I doubt they have any interest in allowing, say, Microsoft or Sun to use their IP. They've worked out a solution that allows their friends everything and their enemies nothing.
For example, say they come up with an algorithm that could make hard drive IO use 50% fewer interrupts. It would be to their advantage to allow Linux developers put it in the kernel while denying it to the Windows kernel, thereby making the products they support that much more competitive.
I won't argue whether that's good or bad, but I can definitely see why they'd want to reserve that right.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
If a "free software" or "open source" organization stopped anyone from working on a technology on which the organization owned the patent, that organization would be 100% discredited, even if they worked against Microsoft, or SCO, or anyone. Most developers would abandon such an organization, especially the best ones. I don't see that structure you describe preventing MS from using the patented tech any more than a public domain release would.
Now, GPL-style viral "open-patent" licenses are another story. Licensing patents with no requirement than that any derived invention also be released into the public domain, and carry that same license. IBM and CA are exactly the companies to get that ball rolling. It could be a watershed that turned the tide of our current patent abuse system. However, since such a license would constrain IBM and CA from privatizing their own derivatives of their own inventions, I don't expect to see it. But at least now the idea is out there. There's nothing more powerful than an idea who's time has come.
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make install -not war
Copyright does not grant copyright holders exclusive rights to run a program. A license is for copiers, redistributors, and modifiers of the code. The GPL explains this, but it applies to all licenses.
What you're saying is true for copyright and the GPL but not for software licenses in general.
2 0050901_decision.pdf
Typical click-through software licenses limit what you can do with software. For example, reverse engineering is not allowed by most proprietary software. When you click, you are forming a contract, and these contracts do hold up in court as can be seen in the recent bnetd related decision.
So what the software vendors cannot control by copyright, they can instead control by contract, at least to the extent that a "breach of contract" civil suit is a threat to the user. For reverse engineering, for example, the liability can be quite significant, even without the kinds of statutory damages that copyright law provides for.
http://www.eff.org/IP/Emulation/Blizzard_v_bnetd/
-- John.