Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Red Hat Seeks Limits on Software Patents

Posted by Zonk on from the putting-a-fedora-on-top dept.

eldavojohn writes "RedHat went to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals asking for limits on software patents yesterday. They have not uploaded their full brief yet online, but promise to post it soon. Here's a tidbit: 'Given the litigation risk, some open source companies, including Red Hat, acquire patents for the sole purpose of asserting them defensively in the event they are faced with a future lawsuit. Red Hat also provides open source intellectual property protections through our Open Source Assurance Program that protects our customers and encourages them to deploy with confidence. Our strategy is a prudent one and mitigates the risk of patent lawsuits, but it would be unnecessary if the system itself were fixed.'"

4 of 107 comments (clear)

  1. Patents by omeomi · · Score: 5, Informative

    I remember hearing once that companies like IBM often build a stockpile of patents, not so much to litigate, but so nobody else can tell them what to do with patents they don't have. Even if you're infringing on somebody else's patents, if you have enough patents of your own, you can probably find one that they're infringing on, and you've essentially come to a stalemate, so everybody's happy. Only works for the big players, though. The little guys get screwed.

    --
    ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
  2. I sometimes feel sorry for the RedHat brand by pembo13 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    RedHat is essentially that son who does everything the family needs, but is rarely acknowledged because he isn't 'cool'.

    More on topic, I hope this works out, if only so it would reduce their costs as I like their services.

    --
    "Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
    1. Re:I sometimes feel sorry for the RedHat brand by everphilski · · Score: 5, Insightful

      By the "vocal" community perhaps. Industry tends to use it pretty hardcore. I've been through three engineering (mechanical/aerospace) jobs in the last three years, and all three, when using Linux, used Red Hat.

      So while people piss and moan on /. and other forums, and praise Ubuntu or whatever flavor of the month, real work does get done on Red Hat and similar distros. It's just that you wouldn't hear about it, unless you were really **doing** it.

  3. Re:Honestly by garett_spencley · · Score: 5, Informative

    "I call bullshit. Name one category of software that would not have been developed without patents and name a few specific products."

    PNG, Ogg Vorbis etc.