Red Hat has a point [LWN.net]

Red Hat has a point

Posted Jun 4, 2002 17:53 UTC (Tue) by GreyWizard (subscriber, #1026)
In reply to: Red Hat has a point by rknop
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.

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.

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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.