Foolproofing Open Source (Business Week) [LWN.net]

OSDL CEO Stuart Cohen has written a BusinessWeek column on the GPLv3 process and software patents. "The idea is that a pool of software licenses and software patents (issued and pending) are held in something like a virtual trust for the benefit of both developers and users of open-source software. In general, the vendors who make this pledge are promising not to litigate against people and companies whom they might otherwise sue... We like this idea so much that we're about to take it one step further. We're establishing an OSDL patent commons project that aims to centralize the good works of these vendors, as well as future individuals and organizations who may wish to pledge patents."

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How far does the patent pool go?

Posted Aug 10, 2005 16:52 UTC (Wed) by dps (subscriber, #5725) [Link]

Is this proposed patent pool for open source projects just free for open source developers or is it free for everyone? The former has some attractions as a bargaining chip for open source software in areas that are controlled by patent pools held by commercial interests and operated for profit.

If you do have per box revenues and the contents is covered by my (hypothetical) patent then maybe a payment for using my invonation is reasonable. I would not want that to get in the way of open source's world domination.

My personally opion is that algorithms should be treated as form of mathematics and therefore not patentable. My PhD thesis *did* use formal methods in anger, so I might be biased :-).

Just preventing poeple patent things could be done, presumably more cheaply, by something like IBM's disclosure publication. If IBM thought a patentable ideas was not worth a patent, they published it so nobody else could patent it. Some of the things thus dislcosed became huge within a few years (timesharing is a well known example).