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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."

14 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:Software patents. by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 3, Informative

      Then why is does their patent on a system comprising a specially-programmed computer to perform the steps of x, and/or an apparatus comprising a processor, memory element, and means for performing x, prevent me from making my own?

      Because the purpose of patents is control. Because in this society, power comes from creating scarcity, controlling supply and holding the threat of deprivation over everyone's head, not from creating wealth and being a treasure to all humanity. When you have to pay the powers that be for permission not to act stupid, it's pretty hard to knock them off their roost. Course, that creates waste, violence and poverty in the short term and eventually calamity, war and utter collapse of civilization, but you've got to take the bad with the good...

      Did you think they served some other purpose?

      --
      -1 Uncomfortable Truth
    3. Re:Software patents. by Zordak · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well, I guess to the extent that murdering somebody is considered "transforming matter" under Bilski, you could patent the murder process. But I don't know that there's a good way to claim solving a crime under Bilski, unless you're claiming some specific technique like DNA analysis, which I'm sure was patented at some point.

      --

      Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
    4. Re:Software patents. by mrsteveman1 · · Score: 3, Funny

      If it happened in the library with a candle stick, you owe me money :)

  2. MIT/BSD licenses by argent · · Score: 4, Informative

    They should use the BSD or MIT licenses if they're more interested in releasing code than promoting public policy. It would provide the key functionality they claim to need without dragging their whole process through the muck and mire.

    1. Re:MIT/BSD licenses by GNUbuntu · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, but then it would probably be impossible to enforce their patent pool since the BSD/MIT licenses don't require you to even acknowledge that you've combined their code into a proprietary product.

    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.

    3. Re:MIT/BSD licenses by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Plain English, do you speak it?

      "Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted"

      Or did I miss the part where they said "but we withhold the right to sue you for inducement to infringe if you try the former, and actual infringement for the latter"?

  3. Re:This Doesn't Make a Whole Lot of Sense by jvillain · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think it boils down to this. The open source community can feel free to contribute code and documentation to our project. But we will feel free to keep you from being able to run it on an open source platform and we have the force of patents to stop you. If you want to fork the code we just drop the patent bomb.

    The MPEG group and the other douche bags they hang with are the most anti open source group there is. Am I ever going to play Blu-ray movies on my Linux computer? Not likely.

  4. Re:What does it mean? by spitzak · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It really seems to me that in common use "Open Source" *does* now mean you are free to do whatever you want with the source. Just being able to *look* at the source is not called Open Source, it is probably best to call it "published source code" or "the source code is available for you to look at".

    "Free Software" means the enforced-freeness of the GPL, which is a subset of Open Source.

    So for most uses this is neither Open Source or Free Software.

  5. Re:What does it mean? by Dwonis · · Score: 4, Informative

    The open source definition is a set of 10 criteria that "distribution terms" (i.e. a copyright license) must meet to be legitimately called "open source". The problem is that, if you're dishonest (and many people are), you can still use patent law or other means to render most of those criteria moot while still nominally meeting them.

    On the other hand, FSF's free software definition only deals with the necessary results of those rules, rather than the rules themselves. It doesn't matter whether somebody's lawyers have figured out a clever way to cover all the "open source" checkboxes, unless you have the actual, meaningful freedoms to run, study, adapt, improve, and redistribute a program (including improved versions) to anyone for any purpose at any price, then the program is not free software.

    The FSF has a fairly decent (and reasonably fair) comparison of "free software" vs "open source", entitled Why "Open Source" misses the point of Free Software

  6. Re:wrong word in article title by Mr.+Slippery · · Score: 5, Informative

    Agnostics believe that neither the existence nor the non-existence of God can be proven.

    "Agnostic" comes from roots meaning "not knowing", but its use in the sense of "not having an opinion about" is well-established.

    But honestly, would it KILL you to learn what these words mean before you use post them on a widely read public forum?

    Would it kill you to check a dictionary before trying to go all vocabulary-Nazi on someone? :-)

    --
    Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
    You cannot wash away blood with blood
  7. It contains a Patent Covenant by kripkenstein · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Does this mean that the source code would be freely available, but that you couldn't use it without paying them? I skimmed the artical and linked pages, but can't figure out what this would actually mean.

    TFA says that it includes a patent covenant not to sue two classes of people: Those distributing only the source, and those compiling for 'internal purposes' only.

    It seems to me that the second case would handle e.g. Linux users that compile and run the code on their machine, and use it to view content. The first case is less clear, it seems that it might be intended to cover people 'working' with the code, and that might possibly extend to Linux distros that distribute the code (but not binaries) to their users (who can then compile it).

    Not sure if it's achieved, but the goal seems to be to sell patent licenses to big corporations that make lots of money off of this sort of thing, while not bothering with individuals and hobbyists.