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Red Hat Puts Patent Issue to Rest
Red Hat has announced
the settlement of patent litigation involving Firestar Software, Inc. and
DataTern, Inc. "Like most settlements, this one ends the specific
lawsuit between the parties, but it does much more than that. It assures
that upstream developers are protected against patent suits by DataTern and
Amphion with respect to projects incorporated into Red Hat products. In
addition, our distributors, customers, and anyone else who uses Red Hat
products are protected with respect to Red Hat products. This broad
coverage is a significant benefit to the open source community."
(Thanks to Andreas Thieneman)
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Red Hat Puts Patent Issue to Rest Posted Jun 11, 2008 22:33 UTC (Wed) by Brotherred (guest, #45141) [Link] Vendor specific patent agreements scare me no matter what. If any money or equivalant changed hands that may violate the GPL for the programs at issue. I almost hope it does. Being in GPL violation now is better than a maze of "My deal is better than yours" later
Red Hat Puts Patent Issue to Rest Posted Jun 11, 2008 23:03 UTC (Wed) by vmole (guest, #111) [Link] From the original article: 5.What products are covered? All products distributed under a Red Hat brand are covered, as well as upstream predecessor versions of those products. In addition, derivative works of or combination products using covered products are protected from any patent claim based in any respect on the covered products. This would seem to say that any downstream users/developers of JBoss (the product under discussion), whether of the RH distributed version or from the original upstream are covered. But IANAL.
Red Hat Puts Patent Issue to Rest Posted Jun 11, 2008 22:57 UTC (Wed) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link] Looks like a good deal, according to the terms the license is transferable to any derivative, any user, any redistributer, etc... Pretty much along the same lines that the GPL requires. Anyone can take a copy of the redhat code, rename it, redistribute it and everyone it's distributed to is protected as well. Looks like Redhat got all OSS code protected from the patents in question for the code in question.
Red Hat Puts Patent Issue to Rest Posted Jun 12, 2008 4:52 UTC (Thu) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link] Hmm, I was afraid at first that this was like the Novell-Microsoft deal, but it seems it isn't. Red Hat's FAQ goes to great effort to clarify that not only is Red Hat covered, but also it's customers; also covered are upstream developers, and furthermore "derivative works of or combination products using covered products are protected from any patent claim based in any respect on the covered products." I'm no lawyer, but it seems to me that this implies that other distros are protected from patent litigation, as derivative works of the covered upstream projects. If so, then this is very impressive, and adds to my respect for Red Hat.
Red Hat Puts Patent Issue to Rest Posted Jun 12, 2008 8:13 UTC (Thu) by ixs (subscriber, #47170) [Link] Groklaw has done some digging into the issue at Red Hat Makes History With Patent Settlement - Compatible with GPLv3. Seems like it's the first time a patent settlement has been reached which is compatible with the GPL 2 and 3.
Red Hat Puts Patent Issue to Rest Posted Jun 12, 2008 15:22 UTC (Thu) by basic (guest, #12705) [Link] I assume that "non-JBOSS" litigation is not covered by this settlement. Nonetheless kudos to Red Hat for getting this settled without violating the GPL.
Red Hat Puts Patent Issue to Rest Posted Jun 12, 2008 17:13 UTC (Thu) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link] No, it's all RHT products, past, present and future. Patent trolls are getting smarter about this stuff.
Red Hat Puts Patent Issue to Rest Posted Jun 13, 2008 15:07 UTC (Fri) by basic (guest, #12705) [Link] so if we ever have a non-RedHat open source product that the patent owner goes after, we just need to get Red Hat to distribute it?
Red Hat Puts Patent Issue to Rest Posted Jun 15, 2008 13:13 UTC (Sun) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] ... Or just submit and maintain it in Fedora yourself.
even simpler Posted Jun 16, 2008 19:06 UTC (Mon) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link] Or just go straight to the troll, and get the same license terms. Trolls put their patents at risk when they use them against free software or open source, and this troll apparently wants to keep the patent intact for use against defendants who will pay instead of fighting.
Is it good news? Posted Jun 12, 2008 19:45 UTC (Thu) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link] The actual terms are not known, but if RedHat did pay some money, the patent troll was successful, they got the protection money. It's very nice of RedHat to pay for the whole open source community, but it's not that good news for the rest of the community, because there are more patent holders out there waiting to extract some money.
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