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Red Hat has a pointRed Hat has a pointPosted Jun 3, 2002 20:29 UTC (Mon) by rknop (guest, #66)Parent article: Red Hat and software patents
They do have a point, however, that some licenses are naturally vulnerable to proprietary take-over, and that makes a very nice loophole for a company who wants to get around one of Red Hat's "defensive" patents. They would just have to BSD the small bit of code that actually infringes the patent, and then make their proprietary code call that one bit of code as (say) a license. The ability of proprietary vendors to "hijack" and use BSD code is considered a feature by those who choose to use the BSD license for their code. However, the GPL proponents are right in that it leaves a big vulnerability in a hostile world, where companies like RedHat want to have defensive patents against proprietary software companies which have declared themselves hostile to free software. Given that, I don't blame RedHat for being cautious about carte blance to BSD and LGPL software. What I'd like to see RedHat do is change their promise to say that they will not charge patent violation against anybody who publishes BSD or LGPL code-- but the explicitly do not extend that promise to people who use such code in a proprietary product. I don't know if that is legally viable, but it would make it clear that RedHat wants to support the full free software community, and wants to grant no quarter to any proprietary software. Of course, the real solution is to have a rational government which recognizes the mess that software patents are and gets rid of the whole thing... but then, when it comes to "intellectual property right", our government's vector is pointing hugely in the wrong direction at the moment. -Rob
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Red Hat has a point Posted Jun 3, 2002 20:41 UTC (Mon) by jonlasser (guest, #1077) [Link] In fact, I suspect that Red Hat's problems with the BSD license are more oriented around legal concerns than around minor software-license infighting. That is to say, a patent that is not actively defended is generally considered invalid. So Red Hat has to keep the patent from being used willy-nilly by 'unauthorized' parties. Authorizing everyone to use it regardless will end up with an invalidated patent, practically speaking. Licensing it under the BSD license is tantamount to blanket authorization to use it. Licensing the patent, by contrast, for free to all software that can't be taken proprietary puts them in a much better position to defend the patent, as I understand the system. That said, I'd like stronger assurances that they will not prosecute for use of the patents in GPL'd code.
Re: Red Hat has a point Posted Jun 4, 2002 9:02 UTC (Tue) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link] Sorry, I think you're confused. Trademarks are the ones that need defending. Patents you are perfectly allowed to let a billion dollar industry emerge before you start enforcing it.Remember the GIF patent, that they started complaining about years after everyone was using it for the web. With patents you can pick and choose who to sue.
Red Hat has a point Posted Jun 4, 2002 17:53 UTC (Tue) by GreyWizard (subscriber, #1026) [Link] They do have a point, however, that some licenses are naturally vulnerable to proprietary take-over, and that makes a very nice loophole for a company who wants to get around one of Red Hat's "defensive" patents. RedHat's policy may close the loophole, but it also curtails legitimate activity such as honest free software development under a BSD license (this is why such blunt monopolies should not be granted to undemocratic and profit focused corporations without great care). They can have their cake and eat it too if they create a patent license available to anyone who does not sue RedHat for software patent infringment -- which is a scaled-down version of what the LWN editorial suggests. Eventually they should cooperate with other free software companies that hold software patents to improve the strength of their protection. That's much more explicit and allows legitimate free software projects to continue unmolested.
Red Hat has a point Posted Jun 4, 2002 18:47 UTC (Tue) by raindog (guest, #1235) [Link] I'm not sure yet about their implementation, but the general idea of using patents against the patent system strikes me as very true to the "judo copyright" approach pursued by the Free Software Foundation with the GPL.Think about it. The GPL was originally created to use copyright against the copyright system itself, to create an ever-expanding pool of works that was not only part of the commons, but could never be removed from the commons. It creates sort of a "super-public-domain" and encourages people to add more stuff to it. I don't think even Stallman could have predicted that it would work as well as it has, the usual harping about names and who contributed what to whom aside. I've been waiting a few years to see what happened when the proprietary software guys with money started trying to take things to the next level above copyright, hoping against hope that some free software supporter companies would have the cash to put together some defensive patents that would be free to use in the same manner as the GPL. I never thought of tying the patent license to GPL-ish licenses, but I think it's kind of a neat idea. I just wish they would commit legally to doing that. It's kind of too bad that BSD-ish devotees are going to get screwed by this, but they've been living with the possibility that someone could come along and make their entire life's work proprietary for decades now. Similarly, for a dozen years they've had to be careful not to incorporate any GPL code into their stuff lest it become 'viral' or whatever, just as they had to be careful not to use proprietary source code they may have seen previously. They've had to avoid using patented algorithms before (GIF anyone?) and now they have to avoid "GPL patents" like they avoided GPL code. So things really aren't that different than they've ever been. Better for Red Hat to have these patents than Sun or Microsoft. The best situation would be to have no software patents at all, so send your hundred bucks to the EFF and get their nice baseball hat. I've got two of them so far.
Red Hat has a point Posted Jun 6, 2002 11:35 UTC (Thu) by forthy (guest, #1525) [Link] I like the idea of having a patent pool which enforces sharing. "If you want to use our patents, allow us to use your patents". A lot of corporate patents are exactly done for that reason, and many companies have patent cross-licensing agreements with competitors. That is, with software and hardware patents, patent cross-licensing rarely happens in businesses like "life science" or pharmaceuticals. There, a single patent is sufficient to produce a medicament, whereas thousands of patents can (or could) cover processors and integrated operating systems. Patent litigations often end up in the two companies signing a cross-licensing agreement, because they really both violated each other's patents.To formalize this patent pool, a few things have to be clairified. First, is it really important which license the software is written in that uses a patent? I don't think so, because the business here is just to effectively eliminate software patents on the long run. IMHO it is sufficient if the licensee of the patent just puts their own patents into the pool. If *BSD implements a patented technology, no problem. If Microsoft wants to take the *BSD code and put it into the Windows kernel, they can do as long as they put their thousands of more or less bogus software patents into the pool. They can still use their patents in a defensive way, and counter-sue third parties, which are not members of the pool. Also, members of the pool still have the right to sell their patents to outsiders.
Red Hat has a point Posted Jun 12, 2002 21:51 UTC (Wed) by origz (guest, #1985) [Link] The patent pool idea is pretty good, but it inherently leads to squabbles and lawsuits. Furthermore, RHAT needs its own patents to be a successful company. This is a step in the right direction, and if it holds up to its promise of not enforcing the patents for free software, I'm ok with it.However, please do not call stuff licensed under BSD "free software." It is not. Free software must not only be provided with source at no charge, it must also be under a GPL-type license that prohibits making it non-free. BSD is not free software, but rather software in the public domain. If you say that public domain software can use your patent, you are effectively saying that ANYONE can use your patent. Coupled with good lawyers on the offensive side, this would easily invalidate the patent.
BSD Public Domain? No. Posted Jul 22, 2002 22:11 UTC (Mon) by GreyWizard (subscriber, #1026) [Link] Free software must not only be provided with source at no charge, it must also be under a GPL-type license that prohibits making it non-free. BSD is not free software, but rather software in the public domain.What? No, sorry, that's just wrong. Public domain refers to software for which the copyright has expired or has been given up by the owner. BSD software is not public domain. Furthermore, BSD software qualifies as free software according to the very specific and clear definition provided by the Free Software Foundation and Richard Stallman. Of course, BSD software cannot properly be called "copyleft" because that term explicitly applies to software with GPL-like licenses that prevent non-free derivation.
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