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Working Toward a Patent-Agnostic Open Source License

Posted by timothy on from the balancing-interests dept.

Glyn Moody writes "Are there ever circumstances when software patents that require payment might be permitted by an open source license? That's the question posed by a new license that is being submitted to the Open Source Initiative (OSI) for review. The MPEG Working Group wants to release a reference implementation of the new MPEG eXtensible Middleware (MXM) standard as open source, but it also wants to be able to sell patent licenses. If it can't, it might not make the implementation open source; but if it does, it might undermine the fight against software patent proliferation."

3 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. Software patents. by Z00L00K · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's just a way of trying to make software patents more valid.

    I would say that any patent that lacks hardware (chemical compound or physical device) wouldn't be valid.

    --
    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    1. Re:Software patents. by kansas1051 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I would say that any patent that lacks hardware (chemical compound or physical device) wouldn't be valid.

      Few patents target software per se. Most "software patents" actually claim (cover) computing hardware that implements some allegedly novel/non-obvious functionality. In any event, why allow someone to patent an application-specific integrated circuit that performs new function X but not a FGPA configured via a HDL that performs new function X?

  2. Re:MIT/BSD licenses by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 4, Interesting

    According to the thread, many people in OSI believe that MIT/BSD licenses do (implicitly) grant patent rights. This was a surprise to me.