Novell is behind at this point [LWN.net]

Novell is behind at this point

Posted Jan 11, 2005 20:05 UTC (Tue) by LinuxLobbyist (guest, #6541)
In reply to: Novell is behind at this point by JoeBuck
Parent article: IBM frees 500 patents

I think you need to get your facts adjusted. You're almost right, though. Go back and look at the Novell's press release. It's *very* much in-your-face to companies who wish to use patents to threaten Free Software. What Novell was saying is that they will use their patents to go after any company that tries to sue any of the Free Software products they sell. Since they pretty much include the same core bits as any other Linux distributor, this effectly defends *all* distributions, albeit indirectly and not in all cases.

In the Red Hat case, though what they've done is a nice gesture, they *have* no patents to contribute. Only applied-for patents.

Overall, I think this is an awesome move by IBM. I even posted a 'dream with me' comment on Groklaw some time ago imagining a time when IBM uses it's massive patent portfolio to whip into submission any company who tries to sue FOSS developers. This is one huge step in that direction. Let's hope it's the begining of the end for software patents as a weapon (or software patents altogether) and a message to our friends over in Europe.

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Novell is behind at this point

Posted Jan 11, 2005 21:47 UTC (Tue) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link]

While Novell's portfolio is significant and Red Hat's isn't (yet), Red Hat has at least one patent: #6,754,891 ("debugger system using tracepoints for computer software"). Evidently Red Hat has a number of patents in the pipeline.

Novell has promised to defend the free software that they developed or distribute, but they have not made any promise that free software developers will not be sued if they infringe on a Novell patent, other than the implied promise made by the fact that they distribute GPL'ed software.

Ideally, Novell will take its cue from IBM and publish a list, naming specific patent numbers and specific conditions under which those patents can be used.