AST and Red Hat [LWN.net]

AST and Red Hat

Posted Oct 18, 2009 3:31 UTC (Sun) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946)
Parent article: Sam Ramji: On the CodePlex Foundation and more

"On the red herring, it's my understanding that those 22 patents were offered to both Red Hat and IBM individually before they were sold to Allied Securities Trust, a non-profit that counts both Red Hat and IBM among its members."

Sam's understanding seems incorrect since he seems to have confused AST and OIN. I looked and couldn't find any information that Red Hat is a member of AST and in fact AST membership requirements would exclude Red Hat

http://www.alliedsecuritytrust.com/index-3.html

"Operating companies with over $1 billion in annual product revenue"

Wikipedia doesn't list Red Hat as a member either

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_Security_Trust

Open Invention Network however has both IBM and Red Hat as members

http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/about_members.php

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AST and Red Hat

Posted Oct 18, 2009 9:30 UTC (Sun) by AlexHudson (guest, #41828) [Link]

It has been said that "OIN has a patent treaty with AST I" (http://www.linux.com/news/featured-blogs/168-brian-proffi...) so it may be that Red Hat, while not being members themselves, benefit from the AST I licensing arrangements.

I find it difficult to believe that Microsoft were intending be malicious by selling their patents to a defensive patent trust (which is what AST is). It sounds more like - to me - they tried selling the patents individually first and ended up having to auction them as a lot later. Which basically infers that there isn't a lot of value in these patents.

AST and Red Hat

Posted Oct 18, 2009 20:38 UTC (Sun) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510) [Link]

Except that Microsoft didn't have to sell their patents. Especially patents that effect Linux and Open Source software. They aren't really short of money, although they've tightened their belt a bit they still have around 20 Billion of cash and short-term investments, and longer-term assets worth more. So, I still don't believe much of what we are being told about this.