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CA Releases Patents to OSS

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the moving-in-the-right-direction dept.

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.'"

2 of 97 comments (clear)

  1. Yay by PunkOfLinux · · Score: 5, Informative

    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
  2. Re:Matter meets anti-matter by jhoger · · Score: 4, Informative

    The new GPL (which no one has seen) does not "prohibit use by (software) patent owners."

    The only comment from fsf on this is is that you will lose your license to use a particular piece of software if you sue users/creators of that piece of software for patent infringement. Not scary at all.

    Besides the comment is meaningless, since a license is for users and redistributors of your code not the creator of the code. You can't license yourself out of your own code unless you transfer ownership to another party in a contractually valid way, or release to the public domain.

    -- John.