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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
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.
Folks making proprietary use typically won't want to be subject to the GPL -- so they'll need to get a patent license, because they're certainly not covered. That limits the extent to which this patent can be reused, and thus to which having offered it can backfire on the licensor.
(That said, Red Hat was prepared to shoot them down hard if they didn't agree to settle -- lots of prior art dug up).
Yes, that is the idea, IT IS PRECISELY THE IDEA. The GPL is not intended to let you limit your software patents to only some subset of all GPL software. It is intended to keep GPL software, any GPL software, safe from patent threats. Thus if the truck manufacturer licenses his trucks under the GPL, he will be allowed to use the patent that covered the car. This is not a flaw, IT IS WORKING AS INTENDED. To be safe from the patent he will have to put the truck under the GPL, which means he will be forced to give the operating manual and blueprints of the truck to anybody who buys it from him. Thus either he will be blocked from implementing the patent, or the community gains information about how to build trucks. This is only a problem if your goal was to use some GPL code that implements your patent (i.e the cars ) while simultaneously threatening OTHER GPL products which implement your patents (i.e the trucks). The GPL seeks to prevent you from doing this. Thus while you have given a very good example of how the GPL achieves this, you incorrectly described it as a problem when it is in fact the very point of the GPL.
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.