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Red Hat Makes a GPL-Compatible Patent Deal
Bruce Perens writes "Red Hat has settled patent suits with Firestar Software, Inc., Amphion, and Datatern on a patent covering the Object-Relational Database Model, which those companies asserted was used in the jBoss Hibernate package — not in Red Hat Linux. The settlement is said to protect upstream developers and derivative works of the upstream software, thus protecting the overall Open Source community. Full terms of the settlement and patent licenses are not available at this time."
Reader Koohoolinn adds a link to RedHat's own report of the settlement and adds that the deal "is GPLv2 and even GPLv3-compatible." Koohoolinn also points out
commentary on Groklaw that this deal "means that those who claim the GPL isolates itself from standards bodies' IP pledges are wrong. It is possible to come up with language that satisfies the GPL and still acknowledges patents, and this is the proof. That means Microsoft could do it for OOXML if it wanted to. So who is isolating whom?"
Red Hat is the best thing for the open source community in terms of patents.
Do away with our corrupt tax code. Support the Fair Tax
Not sure why there is even a patent on this, but making a deal which protects everyone is pretty nice.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
License the patent to all software that is licensed under GPLv2 or latter, problem solved. The GPLv3 doesn't actually ban you from patenting anything, it just says that if you implement those patents in a GPLv3 covered work, you must grant downstream developers the right to implement those patents in their modified versions of the software. Similarly the paragraph which demands you do not sign certain types of patent deals only applies to deals which gives protection to only a subset of the receivers of derivative works. Nothing stops you from making such a deal which provides a license to anybody who uses a GPL compatible license for works that implement it.
Does a deal like this lend legitimacy to a ridiculous patent, thus encouraging more patent trolling? Would ignoring them have been better? Maybe this patent is actually meaningful, but I doubt it.
I am SOOOO excited that this magnificent event has taken place in MY LIFETIME !! I will name my first son GPL-compatible Patent Deal to mark this magnificent event for all OUR LIFETIMES !!
Ms. Deal
I guess Apple could have just jumped in and showed prior art with the Enterprise Objects Framework they got from NeXT; it's the oldest ORM I've seen (and used). Version 1.0 came out in 1994. They ported it to Java when they ported WebObjects in 2001. Cayenne is an open source implementation very similar to the original. Surely Apple has some patents on those stuff, or they could have just showed prior art, I mean, how old are the patents from these companies that RedHat paid off?
Go hug some trees.
In other words the settlement details are rarely every made public in these kinds of situations. What they have announced is that the settlement grants a royalty-free patent license to all upstream and downstream developers, distributors and users.
http://www.mhall119.com
Obviously I am not a lawyer but the way I read it many people other than Red Hat are protected, but not quite all. If you develop your own project completely from scratch and you are violating this patent (which may or may not be dubious, RH never admitted to violating it or that it was legit) you are on your own. The licence of your wholely new and unrelated project is irrelevant. If you go and get your project accepted into Fedora (pretty easy task) you are then covered since Fedora is a RH brand. Now your upstream code from the Fedora project (and any predecessor code created before you got accepted into Fedora) is now covered by this licence so other distros or projects can take your work use, modify, and distribute it just like any GPL code and are legal. It seems from my reading of all the press over the last 2 days and the RH FAQs like the only condition that needs to be met is that code which makes use of this 'patent' exist in a Red Hat brand. If it exists, existed, or will exist, in Fedora everybody is covered. This is a great thing for RH to do to support all of us who use a RH supported distro or some other distro.
"Are you sure this protects anyone other than Red Hat, Inc.?"
.. In addition, derivative works .. are protected"
"Upstream developers receive a perpetual, fully paid-up, royalty-free, irrevocable worldwide license to the patents in suit"
"All products distributed under a Red Hat brand are covered
davecb5620@gmail.com
HURRAY.
Kudos Red Hat guys, you keep going. In the end, the decent shall prevail.
Im all behind you guys.
NO SIG
While this deal might be good news for RH and anyone up/down stream using the code base, I fear it's counter to the spirit of the F/OSS movement. Yes, I'm actually one of those people who thinks RMS and the GNU Manifesto make sense and raise important considerations. The problem is this: as an intermediate coder (I'm a sysadmin, not a programmer, fwiw), I will now hesitate to look at the source of some "open source" code for ideas and methods. If I do, I might cherry-pick a method which is encumbered, even though its implementation is open. Will the GPL eventually be as useful as MSFT's "shared source" license? I hope not.
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Not to be confused with Col.
Eben Moglen is supportive and obviously aware of the terms so I expect more details will be forthcoming. I have absolute trust and respect for both Moglen and Red Hat, what possible reason would they have to deceive us?
BTW, that sound you hear is Brad Smith dodging chairs.
IMHO the best outcome for RHAT is as follows: software patents exist, but impact no free software. Thus such a precedent is good for them.
It even makes some sence (if we assume "sence" and "SW patents" are compatible), since open-source is a way of sharing secrets/knowledge for a benefit, just like patents are (at least in theory).
WYSIWIG, but what you see might not be what you need
Read carefully:
"The settlement is said to protect upstream developers and derivative works of the upstream software". It means that any implementation of the same code will be protected by this deal, whether is made by Red Hat or not.
That also means it'd be quite the same for you to say about the kernel: "Trust Torvalds, Molnar, Cox and many others, you little people wouldn't understand the kernel internals' details".
- Otaku no naka no otaku, otaking da!!!
I now that Red Hat is shooting for GPL high fives... but normally when a company settles, there's money involved. Did this Red Hat settlement result in money being paid to GET the community off the hook? Isn't that patent blood money as well? Just curious.
It seems like this would be simple enough to work around: You have something totally new and you want it covered? Find something Redhat distributes, pick a couple of highly generic classes out of their code, stick them in your code, now it's a derivative and your covered. No?
This would be a gift if Red Hat didn't get value from that community. But since they do, I think the best way to describe it is that Red Hat is sharing the way the community would like more companies to share.
Bruce Perens.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Almost, but not quite. As I said in another post, this is true only if your code is GPLv3 as well. For example, if you did a clean room implementation for BSD you could still find yourself facing patent lawsuits. Unless I am missing something...