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Red Hat's Secret Patent Deal and the Fate of JBoss Developers (Gigaom)
Bruce Perens wonders
about the outcome of a patent lawsuit against JBoss. "The suit in question - Software Tree LLC v. Red Hat, Inc. - claimed that JBoss, the well-known Java web software, infringed upon U.S. Patent No. 6163776, which essentially claims invention of the object-relational database paradigm. In that paradigm, an object in an object-oriented software language represents a database record, and the attributes of the object represent fields in the database, making it possible for programmers to access a database without writing any SQL. It's a common element in most web programming environments today."
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Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 12, 2010 20:20 UTC (Fri) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] Bruce makes a number of important points. I read (and write) a lot of articles and opinion pieces on open source and patents, but this is the best one I've seen in a long long time. Red Hat isn't being open about that recent patent deal. But there's a precedent in which it definitely paid patent royalties: when it settled the FireStar case. Red Hat published a misleading FAQ on its website trying desperately to divert attention away from what really happened. The non-confidential part of that settlement was published and leaves no doubt that Red Hat entered into an obligation to pay (even GroklXX arrived at that conclusion, a website that I very rarely agree with). That payment was probably not on a per-unit basis because that's difficult to implement with open source. They may have made a one-off payment, or a royalty on revenues/profits, or some combination of both. The details of the payment weren't known, but the fact that they had to make one is stated unambiguously. Concerning Eben Moglen's discouraging anti-software-patent lobbying, it's interesting that he gets away with it (other than Bruce criticizing him for it now) while I get criticized for calling on people to be pragmatic. The first time I met Eben Moglen (together with a MySQL VP), he told us not to do it. Instead he wanted money for his patent-busting efforts, which failed miserably (Microsoft's FAT patents are still in force). We at least defeated the EU software patent bill, even though that defensive victory didn't eliminate software patents per se in Europe. I tried very hard to fight against software patents (in the EU) at the legislative level. I said here on LWN as well as on my own blog several times that at some point (more than four years ago, in fact) I couldn't help but arrive at the conclusion that it's impossible. It won't happen simply because the collateral damage caused to other industries is huge (you either have to do away with the largest part of the patent system, or you have to live with software patents) and there simply isn't any serious, meaningful support for the anti-software-patent cause by businesses. Here on LWN I gave an example by quoting what a staffer of the conservative group in the European Parliament once said: unless you bring in those middle-aged closed-source entrepreneurs with beards, bellies and glasses talking about how they suffer from software patents and how they may have to lay off employees because of software patents, there's no way that a political majority will do what the FOSS community asks for. While my focus is on how to deal with the most important threat (exclusionary strategic use of software patents), Eben Moglen never talks about that issue because he's been loyal to IBM throughout his professional life, so he dosn't want to talk about how IBM uses its mainframe patents. Instead, he always talks about his (IBM's) favorite bogeyman from the West Coast, which is the wrong focus.
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 13, 2010 1:06 UTC (Sat) by linuxrocks123 (guest, #34648) [Link]
You posted this exact comment, word-for-word except s/LWN/Slashdot/, on Slashdot. What is wrong with you?
---linuxrocks123
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 13, 2010 4:10 UTC (Sat) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] You posted this exact comment, word-for-word except s/LWN/Slashdot/, on Slashdot. What is wrong with you? Could you explain what's wrong with that? Those are comments on the same article. Should I say one thing here and the opposite on Slashdot?
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 13, 2010 15:54 UTC (Sat) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link]
Well .... nothing is directly wrong with that, just as nothing is directly wrong with self-censoring GrokLaw. But both smell of self-interest more than public interest.
One of the things we people are good at is noticing patterns. We don't necessarily make the right conclusions from what we notice, but most of the time, it's the only way we have of judging strangers. It especially governs the way we choose politicians. Only those who vote strictly on one specific issue have the luxury of delving into a candidate's background and making objective decisions. Everyone else would have to tote up points for all teh different issues, and there are too many candidates and too many issues for that to work out. So we vote based on overall judgement of how much we trust candidates.
So here comes someone criticizing GrokLaw, FSF, Eben Moglen, RedHat, and tooting his own horn, looking rather inauspicious just from that. Throw in gratuitous insults with the self-censorship thing, and posting the same comment in multiple places, and it begins to smell fishy.
It's your reputation. Do with it what you will. But don't pretend such innocence and purity, it doesn't fool anyone.
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 13, 2010 16:02 UTC (Sat) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]
Cross-posting suggests "self-interest", posting only on one site would suggest "public interest"? This is a non sequitur. The interest here is simply in providing information to people, and doing so via multiple outlets at the same time is perfectly legitimate. If the information is accurate, then it's in the public interest to do so in as many places as possible. If it isn't, then it's against the public interest even if it happens on only one site.
Those entities and the individual you mentioned do some good things that I like and support, but unfortunately they also do some things that I believe must be exposed. My blog doesn't treat any entity or person as sacrosanct, infallible, or immune.
It would be interesting to know which of my statements suggests that I "pretend [...] innocence and purity". I participate in debates in order to make valid contributions. It's about accuracy and veracity, not innocence and purity. I could be extremely impure but still be right.
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 13, 2010 17:50 UTC (Sat) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
> Cross-posting suggests "self-interest", posting only on one site would suggest "public interest"? This is a non sequitur. The interest here is simply in providing information to people, and doing so via multiple outlets at the same time is perfectly legitimate. If the information is accurate, then it's in the public interest to do so in as many places as possible. If it isn't, then it's against the public interest even if it happens on only one site.
It would of been better if you posted it to your blog and put a link there with a short description.
That way you don't have to fill up multiple web sites with your wall of text, improve your appearance of sanity, and would not irritate sensitive types.
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 13, 2010 18:02 UTC (Sat) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]
Your idea makes sense, but you know, I've also been criticized here and on Slashdot and elsewhere for linking to my blog when I felt that something was too detailed for a discussion forum. So there's any number of ways to make people unhappy :-)
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 13, 2010 22:19 UTC (Sat) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
Your never going to please everybody. That's why most successful people learn early on that if they want to get anything done they are going to have to ignore a hell of a lot of other people's opinion. :)
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 14, 2010 22:43 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Those entities and the individual you mentioned do some good things that I like and supportYou might want to wipe the froth off your lips when you talk about them, then. (Seriously: I've seen manifestoes from revolutionary movements that talk about their enemies less venomously than you do about RH or Eben Moglen. You might want to turn the accusations down. Like, way down. Most non-political-activists are likely to be repulsed by your communication style.)
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 15, 2010 5:27 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]
You say I should turn down accusations. Interestingly, you actually just made accusations against me, such as being more venomous than revolutionary movements, and you didn't substantiate them in any way. So you might consider backing up your claims with facts in order to enable a reasonable discussion.
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 15, 2010 6:30 UTC (Mon) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link]
The very fact that you are so fast to come back with yet another accusation of your own, rather than respond to complaints and even constructive criticism, is evidence of an abrasive manner untroubled by public perception. That's a strange attitude to have for someone who presumably wants to change opinions.
That is the point, by the way. You come across as an abrasive, accusatory, unreasonable person, with whom it is impossible to have any kind of calm discussion with any kind of give and take. It is entirely at odds with your stated reasons for your posts.
One is left with the conclusion that you would rather be heard than understood.
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 15, 2010 6:42 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] rather than respond to complaints and even constructive criticism,You'd be hard pressed to find someone more patient when it comes to responding to complaints and constructive criticism. You just made this claim and I didn't see any example. The post to which you relpied is a response by me to a comment that was certainly not "constructive criticism". Just like your comment, it contained accusations without specifying them. So the first thing that you and the other commenter I replied to should do is state your criticism more clearly. That would benefit the debate and those following it. You come across as an abrasive, accusatory, unreasonable person, with whom it is impossible to have any kind of calm discussion with any kind of give and take. Again, you describe what may be your impression but you don't substantiate it in any way. It's certainly possible to have facts-based discussions. However, if people make up facts (such as claims about what I have allegedly implied) or base their argument on absurd assumptions, then the only option may be to dismiss such points. In particular, if discussants are either for emotional or for intellectual reasons (or both) unable to distinguish between the way they'd like the world (such as the world of politics) to work and the way it actually works. Of course I'm in a position to claim that I know what I'm talking about. I've had different successes in that field. I won awards, I've contributed opinion pieces to influential and credible political publications, and high-level politicians, at the EU level as well as cabinet members of governments of EU member states, have recognized my competence and pragmatism, even in public endorsements such as in a newspaper interview. Also, there's just overwhelming empirical evidence against the abolition of software patents being a realistic proposition. You can demand a "give and take", but that doesn't work with people who don't deal in any realistic way with the fact that no legislature in the industrialized world has ever passed a law that would have restricted the scope of patentable subject matter in this field to a greater extent than the legislation previously in force. I don't blame people for trying to come up with the magic formula that's going to overcome that problem, but that doesn't make those proposals any more meritorious. The problem that you and maybe a few others have is that you hate the messenger because the news is bad. However, the messenger does his job if he tells things the way they are. If people aren't smart or reasonable enough to take that approach, they can slam me all they want.
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 15, 2010 12:21 UTC (Mon) by sorpigal (subscriber, #36106) [Link]
>Again, you describe what may be your impression but you don't substantiate it in any way.
If one man replies and states an impression of you based on your previous posts then either there is a personal vendetta involved, which is not likely, or it is probable that many people reacted the same way. If your postings caused people to react negatively to you then they probably react negatively to your message. If that's the case then you are actually harming your causes every time you post in support of them. You could convince more people with a different style of rhetoric.
Demanding a citation of proof of the fact that a person reacted negatively is as idiotic as it is pointless; you would never agree with the evidence if it were presented, because you don't read it the same way. I generally support your posts but I still cringe every time I read something like this because it only furthers the impression that you are a lunatic, invalidating any good point you may have made.
>The problem that you and maybe a few others have is that you hate the messenger because the news is bad. However, the messenger does his job if he tells things the way they are. If people aren't smart or reasonable enough to take that approach, they can slam me all they want.
Please, martyrdom is unbecoming. You're simply saying "You can't win, so don't try," which is unpalatable. You may be convinced that software patents cannot be abolished by law and that no good can come of lobbying for this, but to stop trying merely because the goal is unattainable is the worst sort of defeatism. If you're being "shot" it's for being a boor, not because the message is bad.
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 15, 2010 12:55 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] or it is probable that many people reacted the same way. People like Zack and linuxrocks123 did postings of that kind on other threads before. Also, you know and I know that a few people posting aggressive comments aren't necessarily representative of a silent and reasonable majority. Demanding a citation of proof of the fact that a person reacted negatively is as idiotic as it is pointless; That's not what I did. I wanted to know which particular statements of mine the person disagreed with. I believe that's a reasonable question to ask. Of course, one can purposely try to misunderstand even a clear question. But that's not my responsibility. but to stop trying merely because the goal is unattainable is the worst sort of defeatism. If you're being "shot" it's for being a boor, not because the message is bad. Reasonable people will always draw a line where they determine something's not achievable and it's therefore better to focus on what can be done. I have a track record of pursuing and successfully reaching ambitious but achievable goals. For instance, I promoted the rejection of the EU software patent bill and it became the first and so far the only time in the history of the EU that the European Parliament rejected a proposal from the Council (member state governments) without conciliation. So I know that some things can happen for the first time even if they didn't happen a long time before. But there are things that just aren't realistic. LWN has users from everywhere on this planet but obviously the two major jurisdictions that are key for this debate are the US and the EU. No US Senator has ever stood up and said "we must pass legislation that restricts the scope of patent-eligible subject matter". No national government of the EU or member of the European Commmission has ever made that kind of proposal either. Instead, one can hear high-ranking politicians talking frequently about the importance of IPRs for the economy, about giving more funding to the patent offices, about making litigation more efficient, etc. I said this before on this thread but let me make it very clear: it's others who make such a big deal out of what professionals wouldn't even debate because it's so obvious. For me the conclusion that it won't work isn't a big issue because it's simply the situation we face. When I make the point, it's just an interim step toward talking about what could and should be done under the circumstances. Of course, if some people freak out because they can't come to terms with the fact that the world is governed by politicians, not open source programmers, and that those politicians will listen to statements signed by the CEOs of companies, not personal opinions of programmers, then the debate won't move passed something that should be a logical conclusion from which to start exploring realistic options.
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 15, 2010 12:56 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]
won't move "past" => not "passed"
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 18, 2010 10:18 UTC (Thu) by madhatter (subscriber, #4665) [Link]
I was interested to read what Florian wrote. I don't read Slashdot, because I don't have the hundreds of spare hours that that would require. If I were to do so, I'd happily read a copy of his pertinent comments at another place, and recognising them, skip-read them. The responses, presumably, will be different in both places, and make interesting reading in both places (except this thread, which is pretty dull).
He's responding to the same article in different fora, and it seems reasonable to me that he should respond similarly; to tailor his response to the constituency would be very political (and I don't mean that in a nice way). So what's he to do? Reply in only one place? I may miss his comments, and I'll be sad. Ensure that he only replies in multiple fora if there's no overlap between their constituencies? Who the hell has time to do that?
Really, if you don't want to read his words twice, don't read them the second time you come across them. It's not that hard to do.
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 15, 2010 17:34 UTC (Mon) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]
Add to that, software patents are explicitly illegal AS SUCH in Europe, so saying "we can't defeat them" is stupid. All we need to do is convince the courts to apply *current* law, and software patents are dead.
And in the US, well while Gene Quinn seems impossible to convince, the fact is that software (certainly insofar as it exists as a "big number" on a storage media) IS MATHS, and as such software patents are illegal in the US too.
So if Florian is telling us not to try and persuade the courts to enforce the law AS IT CURRENTLY IS, then he really IS being defeatist. Point is, we don't HAVE to persuade the politicians, we just need to get the courts to enforce the law!
Cheers,
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 15, 2010 17:41 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] All we need to do is convince the courts to apply *current* law, and software patents are dead. You are right in the sense that if the judges wanted, they could do away with software patents in Europe by interpreting the existing exclusion very broadly. As collateral damage they'd also do away with many other patents that way, but yes, they could if they wanted. But they don't want. You're not going to get them to want it. You'd need legislation. You need politicians. A number of defendants have tried to convince the courts and they've failed, such as in the German court case involving that XML generator patent.
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 15, 2010 19:41 UTC (Mon) by linuxrocks123 (guest, #34648) [Link]
Yes, German courts have sometimes upheld software patents. However, as you probably know, there is no stare decisis in civil law countries, so this really doesn't matter too much for future work. This just means that attempts to convince German courts to apply the law as written have failed so far, and we need more work here. The EU, thanks to the efforts of many people including you, provides ample statutory support for excluding software patents in EU countries, but for civil law countries like Germany, the interpretation will always be uncertain, and the battle will be constant.
---linuxrocks123
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 16, 2010 1:10 UTC (Tue) by wahern (subscriber, #37304) [Link]
Just because German courts don't have a doctrine of stare decisis doesn't mean they don't have precedent. In all Western legal systems the courts interpret the law (from whatever source), and in all Western legal systems consistency in interpretation is an expected characteristic.
Of what I know of the German legal system, while precedent isn't binding generally it's certainly more persuasive than in other legal regimes. German decisions tend to cite to more cases and authorities than, say, French decisions.
If you go back to Roman times the role of precedent is totally orthogonal to both civil and common law systems (it's more a myth than fact that continental civil law is more "Roman" than English common law). In Roman times if you had the same facts, you were supposed to have the same outcome. Precedent was binding. You did have a body of jurist-made law. Cases were recorded, cataloged, and distributed. The difference is that Roman jurists, especially before the Justinian Code, but even after, refused to devise abstract rules beyond the facts of canonical cases. (They contrasted themselves with the other extreme of the Greeks.) The Justinian Code let to a revolt among jurists because of this. Civil law and common law diverged differently along these lines. Civil law dropped the binding precedence, but focused heavily on very abstract doctrines. Common law kept precedence (or rather re-emphasized that latent character) and applied legal abstractions more moderately, preferring to stay more strongly rooted to factual patterns.
Also, neither is directly descended from general Roman law or the Justinian Code. Derivation came by way of certain practices of the Catholic Church rooted in Roman legal philosophy (contrasted with the honor-based systems of medieval Europe), and from the academic _exegeses_ made of the recently discovered Justinian Code. The Justinian Code was itself an exegesis and _codification_ of the large body of "common" Roman law, and was politically a centralization if not usurpation of judicial power by the emperor in the waning days of the empire.
Google Books has some very interesting 19th century literature on the development of the Roman and European legal systems. Not much of the basic scholarship has changed. Just read it like Wikipedia; be a critical reader and compare and contrast bold assertions with other authorities.
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 16, 2010 5:22 UTC (Tue) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]
There's no need to get into such detail. The answer is very simple -- see below -- and linuxrocks123 apparently just thinks that by using a term like stare decisis he can impress people and cover up the fact that he appears to know pretty much nothing about German law.
The answer is very simple actually: decisions taken by the Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Law, the highest court in matters of civil and criminal law, and patent law is part of civil law) do bind on the lower courts, particularly if they are so called "Leitsatzurteile" (guideline decisions) in which the BGH emphasizes a certain principle (or more than one -- such as in the XML generator case).
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 25, 2010 2:30 UTC (Thu) by linuxrocks123 (guest, #34648) [Link]
Yes, but the decision is not binding on itself, and since it's not a common law country they could reverse themselves without "looking bad". By contrast, while the US Supreme Court can reverse itself by virtue of the fact that no one can really stop them, this happens so rarely that decisions (even horribly reasoned ones such as Roe v. Wade) tend to live forever.
---linuxrocks123
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 26, 2010 22:19 UTC (Fri) by linuxrocks123 (guest, #34648) [Link]
Also, you're probably wrong even about the decision being binding precedent on lower courts:
(From Wikipedia)
So, yeah, it's precedent, but it's somewhere between advisory and binding, even on the lower courts.
---linuxrocks123
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 20, 2010 17:02 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Please, martyrdom is unbecoming. You're simply saying "You can't win, so don't try," which is unpalatable. You may be convinced that software patents cannot be abolished by law and that no good can come of lobbying for this, but to stop trying merely because the goal is unattainable is the worst sort of defeatism. If you're being "shot" it's for being a boor, not because the message is bad.Quite so. What really turned me against Florian's posts wasn't his defeatism (I can entirely understand getting defeatist when facing down the hydra-headed monster which is the EU's higher layers). It's the continuous attacks on individuals and companies who, outside of Florian's world, appear to have done nothing but good for the community. That goes beyond unsporting into repulsive, and, y'know, when I find what someone is saying in half his messages to be repulsive I often end up with a negative opinion of him.
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 20, 2010 16:13 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Aha. A venomous, viciously unpleasant and pointlessly partisan response which does nothing to answer any of the points I brought up.
I rest my case.
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 14, 2010 16:53 UTC (Sun) by linuxrocks123 (guest, #34648) [Link]
Okay, I'll spell it out. What's wrong with it is that people don't do things like that naturally in their spare time. You are not publishing these comments because you want to; you publish them because you have an agenda, yours or someone else's. You want to spread a message, and that message is, "Give up. We've lost." You have a conscious goal, and that goal is to demoralize the same movement you once worked so hard to help. I find this behavior disgusting.
Why would you do something like this? I don't know. Maybe for money.
---linuxrocks123
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 14, 2010 17:42 UTC (Sun) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]
It's good that you spell it out, and you did this in a direct, straightforward way.
The fact that those patents don't go away isn't a message I have to spread for its own sake (it's empirically proven that the movement has never brought about restrictive legislation proactively). It's a point that I just have to make from time to time to ensure people focus on where we can all really make a difference. You might have misunderstood my set of priorities.
Concerning "people don't things like that naturally in their spare time", I'm much less active than, say, Roy #boycottboy Schestowitz of TechRights (formerly BoycottNovell), who blogs and tweets several times more than I do, or GroklXX#s PJ (who writes much longer blog posts, updates her News Pick column more than once per day, and participates actively and moderates the discussion on her site). There would be other examples, too. You can find a number of people out there who participate in these debates. In some cases you'll be right (something like GroklXX is certainly a full-time job). In others you'll be wrong.
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 14, 2010 20:13 UTC (Sun) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link] Concerning "people don't things like that naturally in their spare time", I'm much less active than, say, Roy #boycottboy Schestowitz of TechRights (formerly BoycottNovell), who blogs and tweets several times more than I do, or GroklXX#s PJ (who writes much longer blog posts, updates her News Pick column more than once per day, and participates actively and moderates the discussion on her site).So your reply seems to be be "yes, but others are worse."
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 14, 2010 20:16 UTC (Sun) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]
I said others spend much more time on such activities -- without expressing a value judgment in this context and particularly without confirming any allegation relating to me.
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 14, 2010 23:04 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Or, indeed, denying them. Very like a politician, but politicans are often less obvious about it.
What should we presume about someone who casts venomous aspersions on actions by specific other entities, but shrouds himself in darkness? To be frank, by now I'd be surprised if you *weren't* being paid by someone to do down the anti-software-patent movement and attack RH and others. Before you started this posting spree on LWN, I knew of you vaguely as someone who'd done good work in the anti-software-patent field, and would have happily stood you for a beer: by now, if you bought *me* one I'd check it for poison before drinking it.
So from my sample of one, yeah, your posts here have really helped your reputation (decline).
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 15, 2010 5:26 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]
I'm not someone who "shrouds himself in darkness". I'm available in real life. In fact, Jon Corbet saw me at LinuxTag. I speak at conferences, I get interviewed by journalists, etc. If you look for someone shrouded in darkness, think of that pictureless avatar named PJ who didn't even provide a picture to the EFF after receiving an award nor attended the awards ceremony.
As to your reservations concerning me, I would encourage you to check for poison before drinking anything in a figurative sense that you hear in those public debates. I warn people all the time against poison in what they are served by certain entities and persons, so I definitely don't blame anyone for using the same approach -- provided it's based on reasonable judgment -- when having discussions with me. I encourage skepticism and critical dialog, and as you can see, I'm quite available as long as people are reasonable. I have to draw the line somewhere, such as when I'm being accused of having said or implied things I never did, or I have to make it clear when someone makes proposals that reflect a complete failure to understand the world of politics or the legal system. But that doesn't mean I expect anyone to trust me. I make points that are food for thought and I encourage further analysis and verification.
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 17, 2010 10:22 UTC (Wed) by Randakar (guest, #27808) [Link]
PJ? PJ is just afraid she made enemies that will stop at nothing smear her and her reputation. She said this explicitly, and for good reason - it actually happened once.
The fact is, you are talking pure Microsoft/SCO party line garbage. Eben Moglen working for IBM? Don't make me laugh. The man has been part of the Free Software movement for how many years now? Everything he does and says is consistent with what he obviously believes to be the right thing. There is no reason to suspect him of taking a paycheck for it, because he never changed. Unlike you.
Attacking PJ for being anonymous? Oh, please. I don't care one whit about who she is. If she's actually a convicted serial murderer or something along those lines? I still don't care. It doesn't change one iota about the quality of the reporting on that site. Every non-opinion thing she posts is verifiable, backed up with sources and facts that are beyond dispute. SCO hates her because she exposes their lies to sunlight. What is your excuse?
The fact is, you made a 180 degree about turn here. You suddenly slander people with reputations beyond dispute for no apparent reason, work against goals you used to support, attack companies that by all outward appearances are largely on the side of the FOSS community - and we're supposed to believe this sudden change of heart was completely and utterly genuine?
I'm sorry, Florian. You do not get to do this and not see your reputation wither. I seriously hope you're getting paid good money for it, because like it or not your reputation will forever be "Microsoft shill".
You have chosen your side. We know where you stand. Your attempt to look neutral has failed.
As for the whole "give it up patents will never go away" stance - I believe you are wrong. Educate enough people, and patents will go away. Patents are a failed concept. They do not achieve their objectives. The current excesses shine the light on them and expose them for what they are - a failed legal mechanism, one we are better doing without.
Unlike you I take the long term view. We have failed *for now*. Give it time. The anti-patent stance is right, and if we keep taking that position we will convince the rest of the population of that fact as well. It may take thirty years but it will happen.
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 17, 2010 10:33 UTC (Wed) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]
Randakar, this posting is really amazing. It's amazing how you ignore the facts about Moglen and IBM (everyone in the industry knows about that connection and even after IBM's patent threat against TurboHercules he still gave speeches about IBM being "a friend"), and of course the problem about GroklXX is the quality of the reporting found on that site, but few people will agree with what you said about how it doesn't matter if someone is a convicted serial murder.
Then you level accusations at me that aren't supported by the facts. You don't seem to realize that I gave up attempts to fight against software patents at the legislative level more than four years ago and since I didn't do anything in IT-related politics during several years, the theory of someone having paid me to realize abolition wasn't achievable is just implausible. I had a blog at the time (no-lobbyists-as-such.com) on which I explained my reasoning in October 2006. I'm still against those patents.
Finally, by saying that one can do away with patents in general (not just software patents) and just has to educate people, you show you just leave in a dream world. Would you please stay in that dream world -- and live there happily forever after -- and not bother and baselessly attack people who operate in the real world and try to solve problems over here in realistic ways. Thanks.
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 15, 2010 11:22 UTC (Mon) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]
It's so close to being SPAM. If you want to voice your oppinion, fine. Just try to take the time and articulate it targeting your audience (LWN and Slashdot are slightly diferent audiences, I would say).
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 15, 2010 12:43 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] Just try to take the time and articulate it targeting your audience (LWN and Slashdot are slightly diferent audiences, I would say).
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 14, 2010 6:25 UTC (Sun) by tdwebste (guest, #18154) [Link]
I hope you spent more time reading Bruce Perens commentary than you have criticizing others ( FlorianMueller ) who have read it.
Open source development is decentralized development. Efficient decentralized competitive open source development and open source code reuse has a weakness.
"Patent holders can shut down open source at any time, simply by bringing claims against individual developers and small companies that can not afford to defend themselves."
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 14, 2010 16:47 UTC (Sun) by linuxrocks123 (guest, #34648) [Link]
yeah, big yawn. (1) This hasn't happened yet. (2) There's been a solution to this for years, and it is anonymization. You can use FreeNet or just host the server in New Zealand and keep the contributors' names secret. As long as you're careful to walk the fine line of not giving the patent holder enough to prove with a preponderance of evidence that a pseudonym belongs to a particular coder, you can even make the names an open secret, thus preserving the fame reward of open source.
---linuxrocks123
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 14, 2010 21:12 UTC (Sun) by rriggs (subscriber, #11598) [Link]
How do you suggest Red Hat, Novell, IBM and other companies that make money selling and supporting Open Source software in the U.S. be "anonymized"?
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 15, 2010 2:15 UTC (Mon) by linuxrocks123 (guest, #34648) [Link]
Big companies already have to deal with nuisance lawsuits on a routine basis.
---linuxrocks123
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 14, 2010 23:02 UTC (Sun) by salimma (subscriber, #34460) [Link]
If we have to resort to anonymization just to develop code, I think the war has definitely been lost long before that.
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 15, 2010 2:09 UTC (Mon) by linuxrocks123 (guest, #34648) [Link]
I think it would mean we lived in an overly litigious society, certainly. We're a long way from that de jure: I don't think the defense that source code counts as discourse on the patented technique rather than the manufacturing of a patented device has been tried. If a test case like this comes up, we should mobilize. Perens's point, however, was that even a nuisance lawsuit against a hobby project could be disruptive; this is a valid point even if overstated, and it is an orthogonal problem to patents. For people concerned about nuisance lawsuits of any kind, anonymity is, and will remain, a way to avoid that concern.
---linuxrocks123
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 15, 2010 2:44 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
Actually, this is not necessarily true. In fact, this may be a good thing in some ways.
For instance, if it were come to be that people that want to create software and give it to the public for free were forced underground, that may in fact suggest to various legislatures around the world that patent systems in place are most definitely broken. It's not like we're are talking about pirating software here. We are talking about highly skilled, technically competent developers being prevented from creating new software. That can't be a good thing.
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 19, 2010 20:28 UTC (Fri) by daniel (subscriber, #3181) [Link]
"You posted this exact comment, word-for-word except s/LWN/Slashdot/, on Slashdot. What is wrong with you?"
I for one am happy that Florian copied his comment here verbatim, I missed it on Slashdot.
Your post was rude and disrespectful. I get the impression that a number of readers here are completely unaware of the extent and importance of Florian's work, which has benefited our community.
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 13, 2010 17:34 UTC (Sat) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]
"... my focus is on how to deal with the most important threat (exclusionary strategic use of software patents)"
Could have fooled me.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 14, 2010 2:42 UTC (Sun) by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054) [Link] [Disallowing software patents] won't happen simply because the collateral damage caused to other industries is huge (you either have to do away with the largest part of the patent system [...])How is it that excluding software patents requires eviscerating the patent system? The U.S. used computers for thirty or so years without software patents. The patent system appeared to work just fine during that period. :-)
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 14, 2010 5:52 UTC (Sun) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]
1) The patent system has generally experienced enormous growth over the last few decades.
2) More fundamentally, the problem is a "systematic" one: software patents describe inventions that are structurally the same as other technical inventions -- and those other inventions now increasingly include computing technology. Software patents in terms of patents reading on software don't even necessarily claim software in their wording, but software can infringe them (at least on a contributory basis). So it's not as simple as just saying "software isn't patentable" because the presence of software in the claims isn't a useful criterion. There's no way to really draw a line without collateral damage. You would basically have to reduce the patent system to molecular pharmaceutics in order to have criteria in place that software patents can't fulfill.
The underlying logic of the patentability of technical inventions is basically that an innovative solution to a technical problem must be patentable. That's what the US Supreme Court also made clear in its Bilski ruling: the Court fully recognized that technology had moved on since patent law was created but that patent law should apply the same principles to old as well as new technologies.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 14, 2010 12:58 UTC (Sun) by DOT (subscriber, #58786) [Link]
"There's no way to really draw a line without collateral damage. You would basically have to reduce the patent system to molecular pharmaceutics in order to have criteria in place that software patents can't fulfill."
Not necessarily. Add one pragmatic condition to patent law: machine language or machine readable source code cannot be the basis for a lawsuit. Any patents that would apply, only apply when the algorithm is used outside a computer program (eg: a specialized hardware chip). These concepts can be defined just like the GPL defines them.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 14, 2010 14:31 UTC (Sun) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] Add one pragmatic condition to patent law: machine language or machine readable source code cannot be the basis for a lawsuit. Any patents that would apply, only apply when the algorithm is used outside a computer program (eg: a specialized hardware chip). These concepts can be defined just like the GPL defines them. Before I learned about how substantive patent law (the rules for what is and what isn't patentable) works, I, too, thought that there should be a simple solution like that. But there isn't. What you propose wouldn't work for the following resaons:
Let me make this very clear: I'm disappointed that the facts are the way they are. But we have to come to terms with them. The anti-software-patent movement has no political clout to achieve restrictive legislation beyond existing legislation anywhere in the industrialized world. Even if it could do away with software patents in a way that wouldn't do collateral damage, the movement wouldn't be able to achieve that. But since there would be collateral damage of mind-boggling proportions, you have the entire tech industry up in arms and it's futile to even try. So we have to focus on the way those patents get used.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 14, 2010 16:21 UTC (Sun) by Zack (guest, #37335) [Link]
Just because you did not succeed doesn't mean you have to automatically join "the winning team".
Maybe, just *maybe*, it isn't all doom and gloom, and it's time to accept that you might not have been the right person at the rigth time at the right place and start including yourself under "any entity or person [that shouldn't be treated] as sacrosanct, infallible, or immune."
"I'm disappointed that the facts are the way they are. But we have to come to terms with them. "
Some of these facts are:
Somewhere out there there might be a person who can relate these simple facts in an effective, elegant and concise way to the necessary institutions, and you're not helping by trying to explain your own faillures in the software patent arena by convincing everyone it really was impossible from the outset on.
So yes, some "coming to terms" might in fact be needed here.
Yes, ad hominem, and I apologize. But once you start reasoning like
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 14, 2010 16:36 UTC (Sun) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] Unfortunately, Zack, the comment of yours I'm responding to is consistent in quality with several others you posted here in reply to what I wrote. This means it's hard to find anything remotely accurate in it, and the extent to which you're emotional is reversely proportional to the extent to which you're informed. Maybe, just *maybe*, it isn't all doom and gloom, and it's time to accept that you might not have been the right person at the rigth time at the right place I won my battle. I wanted to prevent that EU software patent bill from being passed, and I did. A little later, I defended the biggest revenue source of the world's number one club in the world's number one spectator's sport (along with the strategic interests of allies including a couple of other major soccer clubs) in the EU. Then, in a non-lobbying regulatory context, my work contributed to the only Statement of Objections the European Commission issued against a merger during the entire year of 2009. So much for my track record. Would like to know yours, by the way. However, I was talking about the entire worldwide anti-software-patent movement. I wasn't alone in the EU, let alone worldwide. Show me one single offensive victory. Show me that one tenth of an inch of progress that the movement achieved other than in defensive situations such as in the EU and NZ. and start including yourself under "any entity or person [that shouldn't be treated] as sacrosanct, infallible, or immune." I don't have to start including myself there because that's always been my approach. 1. software is math If you knew at least a tiny little bit about substantive patent law, you'd know that what gets patented isn't math, it's technical inventions that apply math. Somewhere out there there might be a person who can relate these simple facts in an effective, elegant and concise way to the necessary institutions, Your knowledge of how politics work is, apparently and unfortunately, at the same level as your knowlege of substantive patent law. This isn't a question of making politicians understand. There's no way the majority of them is ever going to understand, and even if it did, it would look at who wants a certain decision to be taken and who opposes it. I explained right here on LWN what would be needed. Bring in those middle-aged closed-source IT entrepreneurs with beards, bellies and glasses telling politicians how their businesses are in danger and how many people they have to lay off because of problems with software patents, and then the debate will begin. But until that happens, there won't even be a serious debate among political decision-makers. "it's futile to even try. So we have to focus on the way those patents get used." with no support other than your own personal views and theories on how complete industries would collapse if software were excluded from patentability, Two completely wrong things that you said here: 1. There's not just my own personal views and theories here. There's the empirical evidence that the entire anti-software-patent movement, which started in the US in the early 1990s with the League for Programming Freedom and in the EU in 2000 with what became the FFII, has never scored any offensive victory. It has never been able to bring about, let alone push through, a legislative intiative anywhere that would have restricted the scope of patentable subject matter in any way beyond existing legislation in a given jurisdiction. 2. Your wild imagination leads you to claim that I said or implied things I didn't say or imply. I didn't say or imply that "complete industries would collapse". I said that there would be collateral damage in terms of patents being granted on the kinds of inventions I described. Whether that would make industries collapse is a completely different question that I didn't address in any way because it doesn't matter: those industries simply want those patents, whether they're good or bad, and since they want them, politicians let patent offices grant them to them.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 14, 2010 22:34 UTC (Sun) by Zack (guest, #37335) [Link]
> Unfortunately, Zack, the comment of yours I'm responding to is consistent in quality with several others you posted here in reply to what I wrote.
Of course I might be wrong in aspects of my account. But *everyone* who doesn't agree with your theories about how inevitable software patents are is somehow either wrong, uninformed, not knowledgeable or disingenious. And this includes but is not limited to the EFF, the FSF, RedHat legal, Eben Moglen, GrokLaw ...
It's not hard to imagine someone applying Occam's raisor at some point. And that's without taking into account your machiavellian writing.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 15, 2010 4:57 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] But *everyone* who doesn't agree with your theories about how inevitable software patents are is somehow either wrong, uninformed, not knowledgeable or disingenious. No, there are people with whom it's possible to have disagreements but on a reasonable and logical basis. However, you, Zack, have repeatedly made aggressive statements that aren't backed up by logic and facts, such as claiming that I said/implied things without any basis for it. Also, the way you expressed your ideas of how a political decision can be brought about, it's clear you have neither operated in a political environment at a reasonably high level nor have the knowledge and judgment to grasp how those things work even without having been there. If I called your suggestions for how to do away with software patents naive, I would be very diplomatic. And this includes but is not limited to the EFF, the FSF, RedHat legal, Eben Moglen, GrokLaw ... I had only one public disagreement with the EFF ever: on the bnetd case. However, I reacted very favorably to the Defensive Patent License outlined by a former EFF staff attorney, and the EFF itself is about many things other than indirectly supporting computer game piracy. With the FSF there are certain problems: their radical views on IP are counterproductive in politics, they play favorites with their major sponsors, and I criticize them for calls to spam Larry Ellison's email account or encourage people to write to the USPTO instead of coordinating an organized and competent response. All of those things are bad no matter how good the vision of free software is. Concerning Red Hat, I just told the facts about their former deputy general counsel Mark Webbink's push to keep the EU software patent directive alive, and the very topic of the article here (their non-openness about their patent settlements) is also something for which they deserve to be criticized. One can also -- as I do -- point out that their business model is too parasitic to work for a large part of an industry. There are other things like that, but those are all unrelated to Linux itself. Those are issues with one company's business model, leadership, and lobbying. Eben Moglen is indeed a major problem. I still haven't seen any problem he's ever solved for FOSS, but I've seen some he's contributed to. GroklXX has demonstrably lied on some key issues and if you look at its very recent comments on Google's answer to Oracle's amended complaint, those are so ridiculously off base that they either shill for Google or they write like they've never seen a defense to a patent infringement complaint before that one. t's not hard to imagine someone applying Occam's raisor at some point. That's not an excuse for you making false allegations and expressing absurd views. If you want to apply Occam's razor, LWN provides a feature that enables you to turn off all of my comments so you don't have to read them. If you really mean the things you write about me, then it doesn't make sense that you aren't using that feature. Now that you know it exists, you could search for it and activate it.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 15, 2010 14:38 UTC (Mon) by Zack (guest, #37335) [Link]
>No, there are people with whom it's possible to have disagreements but on a reasonable and logical basis. you have repeatedly made aggressive statements that aren't backed up by logic and facts, such as claiming that I said/implied things without any basis for it.
-The advance of software patents can't be changed because of the political climate.
and everything else is (in your opinion, which you usually fail to state) either dogma, belief or impractical. The logical basis you start from is not reasonable or logical; it's circular.
As for repeatedly aggressive statements. Personally I find drowning threads in large texts repeatedly and having the last post in every subthread aggressive. So I take it as personal preference and feel in no way does it influence being reasonable or logical.
As for claiming you said things without any factual basis for it, I take it you are referring to the "industries would collapse" I mentioned earlier. It's not verbatim the "collateral damage of mind-boggling proportions" you mentioned, but not the product of a "wild imagination" by a long stretch.
The message you were trying to convey, which was "doing away with software patents would do collateral damage of mind-boggling proportions so it's futile to even try", is still plain assertion. Maybe politicians believe that. Maybe patent holders believe that. Maybe even you believe that. But that doesn't make it true. How would that work ? How did it manage to work at all before ? I mean, if software patents were abolished tomorrow, who would really suffer but for a few german luxury car manufacturers ?
It's not your message I object to, as you claim, but the assertions you present as fact time and again. You present the current interest holders' view as a given and reason from there, instead of trying to analyze deeper and try and make a case for changing the current regime.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 15, 2010 17:27 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]
All of my references to collateral damages where in the context of the scope of patentability. It was about doing away with software patents but simultaneously doing away with even more patents. Here's a quote from a comment on this same subthread: "Even if it could do away with software patents in a way that wouldn't do collateral damage, the movement wouldn't be able to achieve that."
I meant collateral damage in terms of patents not being granted, and it's another question whether that's good or bad for those other industries because those industries want patent protection. Right or wrong, that's their position and politicians won't abolish software patents at the cost of doing away with so many other patents.
The circular logic that you imply (advance of software patents => political climate => advance of software patents) is not even remotely an accurate summar of what I said. I've made it sufficiently clear all the time that there isn't serious resistance to software patents by businesses, but there are companies of all sizes supporting them. There's nothing circular about that.
As for the middle-aged closed-source IT entrepreneurs with beards, bellies and glasses, that is a quote from what a staffer of the largest group in the European Parliament said and I use it as an example of whose resistance is missing. That's independent of the consideration how likely it is that this would happen. If I tell you that you need a spacecraft traveling at the speed of light to get to a given solar system in four years, it doesn't mean that I necessarily think you or anyone else can build that spacecraft. Still it can be correct to state this requirement, even if it's hypothetical.
The middle-aged closed-source IT entrepreneurs with beards, bellies and glasses would be fighting against software patents if those were a pressing problem for the economy.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 17, 2010 10:32 UTC (Wed) by Randakar (guest, #27808) [Link]
Those industries need to be weaned off their addiction to patents.
Patents don't work. They have never achieved their objectives.
Software patents are just a particularly nasty example of why they don't work. Focusing on abolishing just them is all very nice for programmers, but in reality society needs to get rid of the entire patent system.
In that context I believe the "collateral damage" is actually desireable. If the net effect of this is that nothing can be patented, so much the better.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 15, 2010 20:40 UTC (Mon) by jra (subscriber, #55261) [Link]
FlorianMueller wrote:
> Eben Moglen is indeed a major problem. I still haven't seen any problem
Eben has tirelessly worked pro-bono on behalf of Free Software projects for longer than you've been around in this community. He has solved many major issues for the Samba project, and was instrumental in the FSF and EU vs. Microsoft case that opened up all Microsoft network protocols for Free Software to implement.
Florian, you really aren't fit to shine Eben's shoes.
Jeremy.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 15, 2010 20:53 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] Eben has tirelessly worked pro-bono on behalf of Free Software projects He talks a lot about pro-bono work but he operates the Moglen Ravicher law firm, which charges clients. The SFLC only advises non-commercial developers, but companies are the ones who have the biggest legal issues and he charges them. He says that his firm donates its profits to the SFLC, but he can define pretty arbitrarily what's a profit and what's simply paid to the lawyers working on the cases, such as him, for their work. There was a lot of money involved with the antitrust efforts you described, particularly a lot of IBM money, and Eben Moglen has directly and indirectly received money from IBM on many occasions. I wouldn't call that pro-bono, even though I do believe that interoperability is worth fighting for. Interestingly, Eben and the others who fought for the cause when it helped Samba (such as ECIS) don't seem to care about interoperability in general. I don't see the fighting against IBM now -- well, IBM is known to fund them. So don't describe such guns-for-hire as idealists.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 15, 2010 21:03 UTC (Mon) by jra (subscriber, #55261) [Link]
> So don't describe such guns-for-hire as idealists.
For someone who claims to be a member of this community you don't seem to have any history here. You certainly have no memories of it.
In the early 1990's Eben spent his own money to fly around the country to represent Samba to corporations who were violating our copyright, and got them to stop. This was well before "Open Source" existed, or Linux was a gleam in IBMs eye. In addition he has negotiated many agreements between the Samba project and corporations who were using our code in ways that may have violated the GPL, if he had not been there to arbitrate between us.
I know several other occasions where he has done similar things for other Free Software projects. Eben has never charged us for any of this work.
Please take your untruths about Eben elsewhere. There are people here who have memories going back a lot longer than you.
Jeremy.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 15, 2010 21:09 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]
You say "[i]n the early 1990's". According to Eben Moglen's own representation of the facts, he started practicing "free software law" in 1993.
Anyway, that was a long time ago, and you described it as if he was still doing mostly pro-bono work. That's why I mentioned his Moglen Ravicher firm. Also, the SFLC itself isn't the kind of charity as which he describes it. It has very substantial resources (contributed by large corporations) and I heard it takes cuts of the deals (such as settlements) it negotiates, which is also unusual for a charity.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 15, 2010 21:18 UTC (Mon) by jra (subscriber, #55261) [Link]
Last time I checked, 1993 was "in the early 1990's". Samba was started in 1991, and started to get traction in 1992.
> Anyway, that was a long time ago, and you described it as if he was still
Is this an apology I hear for attempting to attack Eben's good name because someone who knows him well and has *actual facts* about his behavior just gave you a smack down ? If so, it isn't a very good one. I'd work on your politeness if I were you.
Jeremy.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 15, 2010 21:24 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]
Your "actual facts" relate to the early 1990's. I presented facts that concern the current modus operandi of the SFLC and the Moglen Ravicher law firm. I never criticized him for what he did in the early 1990's because I'm simply unaware of what he did then. I have criticized him only in recent years. That's why I believe that the facts I presented are the more relevant ones at this stage, and I don't see how something he did 17 years ago could possibly disprove what's known about his current modus operandi.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 15, 2010 21:29 UTC (Mon) by jra (subscriber, #55261) [Link]
*sigh*. That would be a "no" on the apology then. Shame :-(.
Never mind Florian, I'm sure you'll reply to this message and having the last word will mean "You win ! You win !" the argument.
Your employers really should take a close look at your modus operandi. By employing someone like yourself they're really wasting their money.
Honey catches more flies than vinegar every time.
Bye from me.
Jeremy.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 15, 2010 21:35 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] Unlike you, I don't have employers. Apart from having corrected you on that detail, I'm absolutely fine with ending the subthread right here and letting people look at the facts that were presented.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 15, 2010 3:05 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> If you knew at least a tiny little bit about substantive patent law, you'd know that what gets patented isn't math, it's technical inventions that apply math.
Ah, yes, that is the trick they use.
Now, consider that software really _is_ math, because it is just a collection of algorithms (we can not only see this with our own eyes, but Prof Knuth, a leading expert in the area - for those who require authority - confirmed the same). If that is so, how can these "technical inventions" prevent this pure math from being distributed? What "technical invention" is being distributed in JBoss, when all of JBoss can literally be printed out on a very long piece of paper and one can in fact follow the algorithms of it by hand? How is JBoss code different from a very, very long formula? It isn't in fact any different.
Of course, one cannot easily convince legislature of this, because the moment they see a computer, they think "machine" - which is true. And, writing software sure is technical, no doubt about that (because these algorithms are required to work, of course). However, the end result is and always will be just math.
Granted, when software is used with some particular device, together these things may in fact be "a machine", a "technical invention". But, last I checked, Red Hat are not shipping any of those. And yet, they are being on the receiving end of lawsuits, because some moron decided somewhere that even on its own software is more then just algorithms.
Yes, these are very subtle arguments, not easily conveyed to someone not familiar with the field.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 15, 2010 5:08 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] Ah, yes, that is the trick they use. I wouldn't call it a trick. I would look at it non-judgmentally. There's no doubt that if government wants, it can grant exclusive rights on anything, from lotteries to patents. Economic operators will obviously seek such exclusive rights and will try to meet the criteria established by the government. That pursuit isn't illegitimate per se unless they use outright lies or bribery to get their way. There may be conflicts between different legal concepts, such as between intellectual property rights and competition rules, and those will then have to be sorted out from time to time. How is JBoss code different from a very, very long formula? It isn't in fact any different. [...] Granted, when software is used with some particular device, together these things may in fact be "a machine", a "technical invention". But, last I checked, Red Hat are not shipping any of those. And yet, they are being on the receiving end of lawsuits, because some moron decided somewhere that even on its own software is more then just algorithms. A computer running that software becomes a Java application server that has certain technical characteristics and you seem to agree on that. But from a legal point of view you can't say that the machine is protected as a whole while everyone can circumvent the law by shipping individual components separately. That's why what you say about them providing only the software can't be the criterion. If you want to address the issue, you have to convince politicians that the essence of those inventions shouldn't be patentable. To do so, you have to convince politicians that on the bottom line it would be better for the economy not to have that protection even though industry in general demands it and will be up in arms once there's any attempt at abolition. There are formulae everywhere, but like I said above, government can grant such rights and will do so (and in this case is actually doing so almost everywhere in the industrialized world) if that seems politically opportune. Yes, these are very subtle arguments, not easily conveyed to someone not familiar with the field. Even if you could get every single member of Congress or of the legislative institutions of the European Union to understand that, you still wouldn't be any closer to abolition because politicians decide a matter of economic policy based on what works for the economy. The patent system as it stands -- one that grants patents on inventions found in a Java application server -- exists and the economy at large fully supports it. That's infinitely more important than any philosophical argument about mathematical monopolies, even if the latter were understood by everyone. Do you think politicians will decide on philosophical grounds what kind of business they do with China? They obviously look at economic facts and political realities. Pragmatism, not philosophy.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 15, 2010 5:45 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> But from a legal point of view you can't say that the machine is protected as a whole while everyone can circumvent the law by shipping individual components separately.
I will state that simple fact again. How can a company that ships algorithms recorded in a file be sued for what someone potentially may do with those algorithms? It is a nonsense.
> Economic operators will obviously seek such exclusive rights and will try to meet the criteria established by the government.
That is the crux of the problem, actually. Nobody (by which I mean very few) in their right mind will give up on having a monopoly. (That's why you're not seeing great support from business to get rid of patents - they always think they will be the ones that land that lucrative monopoly themselves.)
As I stated elsewhere, convincing politicians is a game of convincing them that they will not get re-elected next term (since you mention China - this doesn't apply there, obviously - not a democracy). And this involves convincing their voters that they are getting ripped off.
Yes, that's much harder to do. And yes, most people couldn't care less, mostly because they don't understand they are in fact getting ripped off.
What I'm saying about software being maths only applies in the context of current rules, which are already rubbish. However, these rules supposedly say maths is not patentable. Well, that was dropped long, long time ago for sure. So, pretending that the government set rules and that those rules are being followed is nonsense. Monopoly holders will always, _always_ seek to expand their monopolies. It like sharks smelling blood in the water.
So, just like Statute of Monopolies was a progressive law in 17th century (because it made monopolies more fair), it is time for something like this again. Otherwise, we've learned nothing from history.
> They obviously look at economic facts and political realities.
Some people believe there would be economic doom and gloom should governments decide to get rid of monopolies such as patents. I do not take this view. It is in our nature to want new things. It is in the nature of business to want to make bigger profits. When these two are put together, innovation is inevitable.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 15, 2010 5:52 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] Just like you, I would like to see governments have the courage you describe at the end of your comment, but what I want is separate from what I consider feasible.I will state that simple fact again. How can a company that ships algorithms recorded in a file be sued for what someone potentially may do with those algorithms? It is a nonsense. No, it's the way patent law works in all areas, not just software. There's a concept called contributory infringement. Obviously there's a limit to that. The utility supplying electricity can't be held responsible for you using it to execute patent-infringing software. In that case, there isn't enough of a connection between what they supply and what you do. But if software is provided that turns a computer into a Java application server, then the connection is pretty strong. This isn't a perfect analogy, but think of a ban on gun imports. It won't affect those importing commodities such as iron. However, if all you have to do to work around the ban is to ship two parts of the gun separately, then the import ban doesn't work at all.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 15, 2010 6:13 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> This isn't a perfect analogy, but think of a ban on gun imports. It won't affect those importing commodities such as iron. However, if all you have to do to work around the ban is to ship two parts of the gun separately, then the import ban doesn't work at all.
This is banned for entirely different reasons, such as safety of human beings.
> There's a concept called contributory infringement.
Yes. However, I would think that the _major_ principle of patent law would override any such claims. And the major principle of the patent law is the subject matter of it: maths not included.
Following current logic, one should be prohibited from publishing the books that explain patented methods (never mind that this is supposedly the _goal_ of the patent system), because this may "contribute" to someone building an infringing machine. It's bullshit - you know it, I know it and the courts know it. But, through the rules of precedent, it's too late.
You see, patent holders (in the current system), can always sue the people that actually _implement_ those Java machines you're talking about. Yeah, I know - that's not as convenient for them. Well, tough luck, eh?
Bottom line, even under the present rules, the system is rigged in favour of the ones that hold such monopolies. Things are laid out for them in such a way that they can go after big targets easily. Well, yeah - they worked really hard to convince the courts they need "protection".
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 15, 2010 6:41 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> Java machines
And let me just point out one other important fact. If, indeed their "technical invention" is _not_ just software, they should be able to sue whoever manufactured the computer this whole thing is executing on. They are, after all, contributing to infringement just like Red Hat. If, on the other hand, the patent holder cannot do that, it means their "technical invention" is just software, which means, it's just maths.
But yeah, all common sense is being thrown out, just to protect poor patent holders. I have a tear in neither eye...
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 15, 2010 6:50 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]
What you just called "common sense" is actually a belief, a dogma. You say no one should have a monopoly on certain kinds of solutions. You're perfectly entitled to that belief. But I wasn't talking about whether one may hold that belief. I was just talking about whether one can prevail in politics on that basis. If you want politicians to do something for you, you have to do for them what enables them to do it. In this case, if you want software patents abolished, or even many or all patents abolished, you have to show that the current situation is harmful and that your proposal would be a better solution. In an area of economic policy, no one cares about philosophy but just about what the economy needs. Since there isn't serious resistance by businesses to software patents, it's clear to politicians that the problem is a philosophical rather than practical one. People don't like those patents and they don't like those patent "trolls" and they may not like the idea of Oracle suing Google, and they may believe that the freedom of software is more important than any other kind of freedom, but none of that is a convincing concept for making the knowledge-based economy work more efficiently.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 15, 2010 7:19 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
"Common sense" I talked about is the interpretation of current law, which does not allow patents on maths. It has nothing to do with any beliefs I hold or any dogma. It is just that when the precedent was set, this cardinal rule was thrown out.
In terms of policy making, in a democracy, citzens vote, not businesses. Asking businesses what they want has some merit, but ultimately governments govern in the interest of general public. As I already explained (multiple times), the change will have to come from general public. We are probably too far away from that point right now, because other, more pressing issues are on people's minds. And in the end, people deserve the government they get.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 15, 2010 7:45 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]
Your clarification is helpful per se, but those two things (interpretation of current law and new legislation) aren't nearly as separate as you suggest.
The judges don't do anything illegal and not even a "contra legem" (against the law) interpretation here -- not in the US, and not even in Europe. They just interpret very narrowly the existing exclusions you refer to. Just like you, I would like to see them interpret them more broadly. But the way this system works is that if the law leaves wiggle room to the judges and the sovereign (We, the People) doesn't agree, then the law must be modified to the effect that there's less wiggle room and that undesirable interpretations of the law come to an end.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 15, 2010 8:09 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
Lawyers are not engineers, so they are not all that precise. In mechanical engineering, for instance, you cannot fit a steel machine part that is 1 mm too thick into that smaller hole - it just doesn't fit. Lawyers have no such problems - legal arguments are more open to, shall we say, stretching.
However, along the way they sometimes open themselves up to critique from us engineering types, who find that some of their rulings violate the very principles they are supposed to be upholding. They use fancy words to explain such positions, in the process redefining what maths is etc. But it all boils down to one thing - who or what are they doing this for.
My only hope is this: what used to be generally acceptable some years ago is challenged today. What is acceptable today will be challenged in the future. I am an optimist: I believe societies do become more free over time.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 15, 2010 8:13 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]
Again, I'd like to see the same outcome as the one you outline. But let me correct you on lawyers not being engineers. I know many patent lawyers with an engineering background, such as @BytePatent on Twitter who did assembly language programming back on the Apple ][. Where I live, patent attorneys need to have a full engineering degree and then they get three years of legal studies on top. Also, in my country, the Federal Patent Court has many technical judges: engineers who act as judges. And nevertheless they grant software patents.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 15, 2010 8:34 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
It is not their education that is making them one type or the other. In law, you don't have to obey the laws of physics! So, ever so slightly, lawyers bend the meaning of words until they bear little resemblance to what they were supposed to mean. A person practicing engineering cannot afford any such thing. If I stuff NULL into a pointer and attempt to dereference it, I'll get a segfault - that is a certainty.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 15, 2010 8:35 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]
The law isn't binary. It's more like fuzzy logic.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 15, 2010 9:29 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
Yes, a little bit too fuzzy. So, we get things like maths != maths :-)
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 14, 2010 20:42 UTC (Sun) by cmccabe (guest, #60281) [Link]
> More fundamentally, the problem is a "systematic" one: software patents
> describe inventions that are structurally the same as other technical > inventions -- and those other inventions now increasingly include > computing technology. Software patents in terms of patents reading on > software don't even necessarily claim software in their wording, but > software can infringe them (at least on a contributory basis). So it's not > as simple as just saying "software isn't patentable" because the presence > of software in the claims isn't a useful criterion. There's no way to > really draw a line without collateral damage. You would basically have to > reduce the patent system to molecular pharmaceutics in order to have > criteria in place that software patents can't fulfill.
I keep hearing certain people say that "software patents are the same as all other patents." Yet clearly before 1991, software and business method patents did not exist. There have been several decisions since then that have expanded or contracted their scope (State Street Bank in 1998 and Bilski in 2008 come to mind.) So even if the distinction doesn't exist in your mind, it does exist in the minds of the patent examiners and judges. It's not unreasonable to think that the Supreme Court could invalidate the whole stinking mess, much like it threw out the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill.
The prospects for invalidating software and business method patents through the legislature is dim. It's the same reason why Congress buys $100 toilet seats or coddles the US sugar industry. Once a corporate giveaway starts, it's self-perpetuating. The big corporations that benefit can give back to the legislators in various ways to ensure that the monopoly, or subsidy, or other giveaway stays in place. The general public is usually none the wiser about what is going on. But you are not helping the issue by urging apathy.
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 14, 2010 23:57 UTC (Sun) by slashdot (guest, #22014) [Link]
It seems to me the biggest problem is that the standard of non-obviousness is WAY too low: in general, almost all software "inventions" are actually obvious or easy to conceive, but they seem to be granted anyway.
How about only granting a patent if:
For instance, this will allow patents on pharmaceuticals (they cure diseases), but will prevent almost all software patents.
You could still patents things like a polynomial algorithm for SAT if one is ever discovered, which seems to make sense if you are going to allow any software patent.
A second option would be to just have field-specific patent legislation, and ban patents covering software (and probably hardware too).
A third option would be to make patents unenforceable against anything which consists only of copyrighted content, and is released with a license allowing free redistribution (and users of it).
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 15, 2010 5:20 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]
There are two different kinds of approaches that you suggest in your post: increasing patent quality and restricting patent-eligible subject matter.
One is (like you suggest with your five-point plan) to raise the bar for all patents in terms of patent quality. There have been and will continue to be different patent quality initatives. There's certainly a way to fight for patent quality and it's not as pointless as fighting for abolition. However, if you believe you can achieve a fundamental departure and do away with a double-digit percentage of the patents that are granted, it will become almost as hard to accomplish as abolition. Some progress can be made on that front, but you'll have to be realistic about how far you can get. With a reasonable level of expectations, it is however a more fruitful approach than abolition.
Similarly, one can also make progress on the enforcement side, concerning the rights of defendants in those proceedings etc. But again, that would require a realistic step-by-step approach.
Your second proposal is like "those patents are so bad we must do away with them entirely" (in terms of what kind of subject matter is patent-eligible, regardless of the quality of a particular application). That is the approach I once took but for the reasons I explained I have to recognize the fact that no one has ever achieved any legislation anywhere that would have been more restrictive on the scope of patent-eligible subject matter than previous legislation. The patent system is expansive and at the most one can slow it down or stop it at some point, but a trend reversal hasn't been achieved anywhere even though so many people have tried for such a long time.
Your third option -- saying that if there's copyright, there shouldn't be patents on the same thing -- is a point that anti-patent activists have often made but I never subscribed to it. As today's reality shows, it is possible to grant different IPRs that are relevant to one and the same product. But the idea that "if there's one IPR there mustn't be any others" doesn't work. For example, even if your software is copyrighted, you still have to respect trademark rights (another form of IP). Patents protect a different concept than copyright, and it's obviously possible to develop software that respects all IPRs. That's why Red Hat had to do some inbound patent licensing deals such as the one that gave rise to the article we're discussing here.
Also, the argument about making patents unenforceable against copyrighted content isn't useful because it won't happen for lack of political support. No matter which approach you try (unless it's a reasonable one to patent quality and to defendants' rights) you'd have to convince politicians to regulate an area of economic policy in a way that large parts of the economy support and there's absolutely no evidence that the downside of the patent system outweighs the upside (otherwise there would be more resistance by businesses).
Banning SW patents disables patent system? Posted Nov 17, 2010 13:02 UTC (Wed) by Randakar (guest, #27808) [Link]
The biggest problem is that patents aren't effective in achieving their stated objectives.
All other discussion - including the whole discussion surrounding obviousness vs nonobviousness - is futile. We can try to solve the software patent problem, but it will not solve the problem with patents on DNA. We can try to tell courts to use higher standards, but smart lawyers will find ways to subvert these standards.
Patents don't work. They have been proven to not work. They didn't work for steam engines, electricity, the telegraph, or telephone. For a while I thought research into medicine might be the one area that it actually achieves something but as it turns out, it doesn't work there either.
We need to abolish patents. Supplant it with a simple system where innovation is promoted by prizes, like the X-Prize does, if we truly wish the government to promote innovation.
Doing anything else does not actually solve the problem.
Best opinion piece on open source and patents in a long time Posted Nov 15, 2010 17:40 UTC (Mon) by vadim1024 (guest, #57750) [Link]
Florian,
I'm affraid you are forgetting about market share factor.
As of your thoughts on Eben Moglen, FSF, PJ and RedHat behaviour and motivations
Thanks
Red Hat's Secret Patent Deal and the Fate of JBoss Developers (Gigaom) Posted Nov 12, 2010 23:20 UTC (Fri) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link] making it possible for programmers to access a database without writing any SQL. What on earth did programmers do before SQL was invented? Indeed, what on earth do they do TODAY when using databases that don't support SQL? The database I enjoy using only added SQL support relatively recently, and, although they don't call it an object-oriented database, you could say it fits that paradigm pretty well ... in fact you could say it fits most paradigms pretty well :-) Cheers,
Red Hat's Secret Patent Deal and the Fate of JBoss Developers (Gigaom) Posted Nov 13, 2010 5:01 UTC (Sat) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link] Add some terminology about objects and methods, and then it seems sufficiently novel to a patent examiner, compared to programming something like the Berkeley DB in C. The interesting question is, would an old object-oriented API on top of one of the older non-SQL databases be prior art? I suspect such things have existed, if only as university research projects.
Red Hat's Secret Patent Deal and the Fate of JBoss Developers (Gigaom) Posted Nov 13, 2010 17:56 UTC (Sat) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
You have to look at the patent.
First step is to ignore the abstract. It's just put there as a sort of build up for the actual 'meat' of the patent. It can be used to set definitions and such, but in reality anything that is said there is not really relevant.
What you need to look at is the claim section.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claim_(patent)
If you an find a piece of software that matches up with their claims _step_for_step_. That is 100% of what the claims suggest you already know exists in some other form prior to the application date of the patent then you might have a case.
After that all you need is 2-4 lawyers, a few months to burn, and a couple hundred thousand dollars (or so) to find out if your right.
Red Hat's Secret Patent Deal and the Fate of JBoss Developers (Gigaom) Posted Nov 13, 2010 18:01 UTC (Sat) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
Also keep in mind that it's quite common to see patents based on other patents.
Like PATENT A:
And then a PATENT B comes along and goes.
You have to do:
And then that can be another patent. It will still be conditional so that if you want to use the invention in Patent B you still have to license both Patent B and Patent A, but that's just how it goes.
I expect that prior art works in a similar fashion. So that if you find something that does most of what is claimed, but not everything, then it's not good enough to defeat the patent.
IANAL, of course.
Red Hat's Secret Patent Deal and the Fate of JBoss Developers (Gigaom) Posted Nov 13, 2010 2:56 UTC (Sat) by ccchips (guest, #3222) [Link]
"Object-oriented database?"
I have one thing to say to these patent trolls, in case anyone is interested?
Pickle.
Red Hat's Secret Patent Deal and the Fate of JBoss Developers (Gigaom) Posted Nov 13, 2010 16:25 UTC (Sat) by grindstone (guest, #71208) [Link]
Sorry but if it's not a bother could you please explain more--I don't know anything about any of this stuff. Really amazing that anyone could patent something like that in this quarter of the century. Are you saying that because objects can be serialized (I just googled) into some other say text file that the historical stuff outside of the object paradigm qualifies as prior?
Death or freedom Posted Nov 13, 2010 19:13 UTC (Sat) by boog (subscriber, #30882) [Link]
I do think there is a point here, which is that open source licences with a "death-or-freedom" clause (most notably the GPL) raise immensely the cost of being found to infringe. Any company on the wrong end of such a suit must license the software for the whole world or cease distribution. This is of course known and intended (I'm not necessarily suggesting it should be otherwise). For something as strategic as the Linux kernel (or an ORM), the company is placed in an almost impossible situation. I don't doubt that there are companies (quite possibly including RedHat) that are in violation of the GPL in this way. However, it would presumably take a copyright holder to sue them to enforce this aspect of the GPL, something that is unlikely for friends of open source such as RedHat.
Change will require politics, which will only be possible when enough companies have a vested interest in open source software and the patent trolls are isolated. My guess is that things will come to a head when somebody brings a patent suit against the kernel.
One could have a tactical discussion about whether we should be targeting licence anti-patent clauses a little differently. Something along the lines of "You lose the right to use any GPL software if you sue anybody for patent infringement by GPL software" (note: I don't know if this is legally possible). The intended difference with the current GPL would be that the licence would not cut off victims of patent suits, possibly allowing a sufficiently large community opposed to software patents to develop more quickly (or at all), ultimately fostering political change.
Red Hat's Secret Patent Deal and the Fate of JBoss Developers (Gigaom) Posted Nov 13, 2010 19:42 UTC (Sat) by Rubberman (guest, #70320) [Link]
This patent should NEVER have been granted due to extensive prior art. In the period of 1994-1995 I was the principal architect and engineer in the development of an object-oriented C++ framework for large scale transaction processing application development at FASTech Integration, Inc. in Lincoln, Massachusetts. A significant part of that work included an entire class library that allowed modeling of any relational database as classes of objects that represented the tables, attributes, etc. One only needed to modify the data members (attributes) of the object (including foreign-key related entities) and tell it to store itself. This Distributed Transaction Processing Framework (DTPF) is a key element in the FACTORYworks manufacturing execution system, as well as a number of other enterprise class systems that now belong to Applied Materials. It was documented in a graduate level CS course book published by Wiley in 2000, "Domain-Specific Application Frameworks". FWIW, we were able to support any number of SQL database systems (Oracle, Sybase, Ingress, et al) by providing a data-specific plugin shared library that provided the DB-specific bindings required by the "Database Storage Adapter" classes.
Today, FACTORYworks controls a large portion of semiconductor, flat panel, and disc drive manufacturing plants world-wide, and went online commercially in 1995 at Samsung Semiconductor, Korea.
Red Hat's Secret Patent Deal and the Fate of JBoss Developers (Gigaom) Posted Nov 13, 2010 23:47 UTC (Sat) by gdt (subscriber, #6284) [Link]
It would perhaps be useful if the various organisations established to provide legal help to free software projects used whatever legal process there is in this sort of litigation to inform the court that other's parties interests are harmed by a sealed settlement.
Red Hat's Secret Patent Deal and the Fate of JBoss Developers (Gigaom) Posted Nov 14, 2010 0:59 UTC (Sun) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link]
True.
The real software patent threat isn't trolls, but cartelization of the industry. Just thinking about it, what would a free-software-friendly patent troll look like?
Tridge tells us that an effective strategy against individual software patents is (1) learn to read them, to tell if a patent applies to actual code and (2) develop and publish workarounds.
So an effective future troll might choose to license a patent for implementation under a reciprocal license, in order to (1) remove incentives for development of Tridge-style alternatives and (2) tempt non-license-reading cut+paste programmers at proprietary software companies (who read the implementations on Stack Overflow) into using it.
Not very well informed article ... here's some resources for better information Posted Nov 14, 2010 18:29 UTC (Sun) by jejb (subscriber, #6654) [Link]
The substance of the article is a speculative insinuation that Red Hat won't do the right thing under the GPL. The last time they licensed a patent, it was made available to all downstream users (as the GPL requires). Even if they've licensed another, there's no reason to speculate they suddenly did it in violation of the GPL contrary to their recent history.
To say that Open Source doesn't take patents seriously is only a half truth. There are a panoply of measures in place to defend the ecosystem ... most people just don't notice. Part of the problem that Bruce specifically doesn't like is that we've shifted away from the grand gestures (like calling for the overturn of the software patent system) to specific countermeasures to keep the ecosystem safe whatever goes on around us.
We face two specific threats: Non practising entities (Trolls) with over broad patents and existing industry practitioners into whose waters we inadvertently sail.
The over broad patents should never have been granted in the first place, so there are two specific projects trying to ensure this doesn't happen in future:
OSAPA (http://www.linuxfoundation.org/programs/legal/osapa) which tries to educate the patent office examiners to look at all the published code and documentation in open source to find prior art.
Linux Defenders (http://www.linuxdefenders.org/) which has three sub projects: peer to patent which allows anyone to supply prior art against a patent application for the examiners to consider; Post Issue peer to Patent which builds prior art databases against existing patents for the purposes of challenging them either through re-examination or directly in court; and Defensive Publications, which will provide a lawyer to any person in the community to write up any good idea they have like a patent application and submit it to the Patent Office as a defensive publication (this is a document which isn't a patent, but which discloses an idea in the same way as a patent and which the USPTO is required to search prior to issuing any new patent).
And finally, our patent ecosystem shield: OIN (http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/) which acts like a patent based VC fund (to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars) with a mission to protect the ecosystem from all patent threats. The protection encompasses both practising entities, which would suffer a defensive strike from OIN if they launched a patent suit against any member of the open source ecosystem and against non-practising entities (Trolls) both by making it clear that Open Source is a well funded, well resourced hard target to go after and through the VC arm which can actually acquire bad patents as they come on to the secondary market (basically looking to be sold to trolls).
The fact that all of this works reasonably well is shown by the relative absence of patent suits in Linux and Open Source ... certainly disproportionate to those in the rest of the industry. The system isn't perfect and certainly needs more people to help ... but the work is just hard (and a bit boring if you read through large amounts of peertopatent applications) and certainly a lot less media attracting than say calling for radical patent reform. However, if you want to get involved, the URLs are above.
Not very well informed article ... here's some resources for better information Posted Nov 14, 2010 20:38 UTC (Sun) by cesarb (subscriber, #6266) [Link]
> The substance of the article is a speculative insinuation that Red Hat won't do the right thing under the GPL. The last time they licensed a patent, it was made available to all downstream users (as the GPL requires). Even if they've licensed another, there's no reason to speculate they suddenly did it in violation of the GPL contrary to their recent history.
This presents an interesting possibility: that RedHat did license the patent (we can speculate endlessly as to why and as to who had the upper hand), with the license being made available to all downstream users as required by the GPL, but on the condition that this is not made public (we can speculate endlessly about the why of that too).
That would put the JBoss users in the very curious situation of having a license to the patent in question *but not knowing they had that license*.
Not very well informed article ... here's some resources for better information Posted Nov 15, 2010 2:27 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> The substance of the article is a speculative insinuation that Red Hat won't do the right thing under the GPL.
What I'd like to know is whether Bruce and/or Florian picked up the phone, called Red Hat and _asked_ them, before speculating.
Not very well informed article ... here's some resources for better information Posted Nov 15, 2010 22:10 UTC (Mon) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] I corresponded with an attorney at Red Hat and with their vice president and general counsel.
Not very well informed article ... here's some resources for better information Posted Nov 15, 2010 23:47 UTC (Mon) by jejb (subscriber, #6654) [Link]
> I corresponded with an attorney at Red Hat and with their vice president and general counsel.
And they confirmed that the "outcome placed Red Hat in violation of the open-source licenses on its own product"? Because that's the speculative thrust of the article.
I work for a Red Hat competitor and part of my day job is necessarily to look for advantages over them but I just don't see them behaving in the fashion you suggest. I think it's far more likely that they just licensed the patent consonantly with the GPL and then agreed to seal the decision. However, these things have a way of coming out eventually, so hopefully one day we'll all know something definitive.
Not very well informed article ... here's some resources for better information Posted Nov 16, 2010 1:53 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] They confirmed that they were not willing or able to convey any factual information.
Pure IBM/Red Hat propaganda Posted Nov 15, 2010 6:54 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]
The organizations you gave haven't solved any patent-related problem. You just promote organizations funded by IBM and Red Hat and some of their allies.
Especially the Open Invention Network has shown its complete failure already: both Google and Oracle are OIN licensees but Oracle sues Google anyway, over a Linux distribution although the OIN claims to protect Linux.
Your claim that Linux is relatively safe because of those organizations is unfounded and unsubstantiated, and in my view, it's completely wrong. Those organizations haven't made any meaningful contribution. There's been and there continues to be on an ongoing basis a lot of patent enforcement concerning Linux. Just look at the Android situation. Look at Amazon, Salesforce, TomTom, HTC and so many others having agreed to pay royalties on patents that pretty obviously read on Linux.
Pure IBM/Red Hat propaganda Posted Nov 15, 2010 7:45 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
Hang on, isn't Oracle suing Google over Java?
Pure IBM/Red Hat propaganda Posted Nov 15, 2010 7:48 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] Hang on, isn't Oracle suing Google over Java?The patents are on Java, and the lawsuit targets Dalvik, which is undoubtedly a key component of a very important Linux distro. The OIN also relates to Apache. It's much easier to view Apache as a separate component (especially since it's also used very widely on other operating systems such as Windows) than to consider Dalvik non-essential in the Android context.
Pure IBM/Red Hat propaganda Posted Nov 15, 2010 12:33 UTC (Mon) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link]
You mean, the operating system based on the Linux kernel, which Google wrote (much of it from scratch) to avoid using GPLed code?
Calling it Linux in this context is, well, interesting.
Pure IBM/Red Hat propaganda Posted Nov 15, 2010 13:02 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]
Your criticism of Google from a GPL point of view is a different story. Your claim that Google wanted to avoid GPL copyleft is highly plausible, in fact. But that's not the issue.
I was talking about the OIN. The OIN isn't called the GPL Protection Network. It claims to protect Linux. Linux is all about proprietary extensions -- without them, it would be far less popular today -- and the companies backing the OIN include some who certainly aren't loyal to the GPL: think of IBM with Apache/WebSphere or its maniframe strategy, or Oracle with its closed-source proprietary database running on top of Linux. Google is another such example, but the OIN gave Google a very warm welcome when it became a licensee a couple of years ago. So the debate of how open Android is has nothing to do with the OIN's failure to serve its stated purpose.
TomTom is also a proprietary product built on top of Linux. The OIN claimed to have helped TomTom. Interestingly, the announcement made it clear that TomTom paid royalties, so it lost; and other companies in similar situations, such as Amazon.com, didn't even bother to join the OIN. The OIN couldn't help Salesforce.com either though it tried (I found out something about an OIN patent that was given to Salesforce.com but it didn't help).
Pure IBM/Red Hat propaganda Posted Nov 15, 2010 13:22 UTC (Mon) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link]
Google built its own stack on top of the Linux kernel. The userspace is completely different. The GPL is merely (the? a?) motivator here. The userspace is not really part of the Linux ecosystem.
A License such as the Apache one makes the likes of IBM and Google untrustworthy. When IBM and Oracle deal with GPL code (RCU, BTRFS) people don't care about their reputation. But that's really a side issue. I have no idea why you brought it up.
Pure IBM/Red Hat propaganda Posted Nov 15, 2010 13:27 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]
I didn't want to bring up those issues. I was merely responding to a post that did. My focus is on whether the OIN does its job, and I think it's pretty clear that it fails to achieve its stated goal.
Pure IBM/Red Hat propaganda Posted Nov 16, 2010 2:57 UTC (Tue) by mfedyk (guest, #55303) [Link]
> When IBM and Oracle deal with GPL code (RCU, BTRFS) people don't care about their reputation.
you forgot the "without copyright assignment" part.
Pure IBM/Red Hat propaganda Posted Nov 20, 2010 17:06 UTC (Sat) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Linux is all about proprietary extensions -- without them, it would be far less popular todayUnless you consider Linux being cheaper than Solaris (and having more developers) as a platform for the Oracle RDBMS as a 'proprietary extension', or unless you somehow define Oracle itself as an 'extension' to Linux, this seems to me to be purest horsefeathers. (One other possibility: you could consider web apps or internal-use apps that are never given to anyone else to be 'proprietary', thus allowing you to consider Google and Pixar/Disney's use of Linux to be something that makes it 'popular'. But this is also ridiculous: whether Google or Disney use Linux or Windows has no effect on people who don't work for those companies, so it cannot be affecting its popularity outside of those companies, and their 'extensions to Linux' never find their way outside those companies either, so that cannot be affecting its popularity either.)
Pure IBM/Red Hat propaganda Posted Nov 15, 2010 20:33 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> The patents are on Java, and the lawsuit targets Dalvik, which is undoubtedly a key component of a very important Linux distro.
Now you're stretching it. I'm not overly familiar with OIN, but from what they say in their FAQs, I don't see why would they give a rat's arse about Dalvik.
> The OIN also relates to Apache.
I do not see how.
> It's much easier to view Apache as a separate component (especially since it's also used very widely on other operating systems such as Windows) than to consider Dalvik non-essential in the Android context.
Again, I do not see why OIN should care one iota about Dalvik (which is a Harmony derivative). All of it has nothing to do with Linux.
Pure IBM/Red Hat propaganda Posted Nov 15, 2010 20:47 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] Since you doubt that the OIN relates to Apache and lots of other software that isn't necessarily required to run Linux, here's the list of program files that currently form the OIN's "Linux System".
Pure IBM/Red Hat propaganda Posted Nov 15, 2010 20:58 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
Thanks for the link. Don't see Harmony on that list at all (and no Dalvik, of course). Point taken about caring about some of the Apache software.
PS. The whole list looks a bit like a rpm -qa dump on an RHEL box.
Pure IBM/Red Hat propaganda Posted Nov 15, 2010 21:00 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]
You're welcome concerning the link. There may very well be a strong Red Hat influence on that list, but Novell is also involved. And last time I checked, the MySQL and PostgreSQL files on the list weren't the actual database engines but just the client programs...
Pure IBM/Red Hat propaganda Posted Nov 15, 2010 21:38 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> And last time I checked, the MySQL and PostgreSQL files on the list weren't the actual database engines but just the client programs...
Is that the Oracle's arsenal hanging overhead?
Anyhow, not sure how all of this relates to Dalvik. Surely, OIN cannot protect random components distributors choose to ship.
Pure IBM/Red Hat propaganda Posted Nov 15, 2010 21:58 UTC (Mon) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link]
The labeling is wrong. Both the MySQL and PostgreSQL distribution tarballs contain both client and server. Hence the code is covered.
What about new components of the Linux system?
For instance:
* RedHat's new *Kit of the day
Pure IBM/Red Hat propaganda Posted Nov 16, 2010 10:37 UTC (Tue) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link]
Also: aaa_base is not a RedHat package, I guess. It is a rather SUSE-specific package.
Pure propaganda Posted Nov 15, 2010 14:54 UTC (Mon) by jejb (subscriber, #6654) [Link]
> The organizations you gave haven't solved any patent-related problem. You just promote organizations funded by IBM and Red Hat and some of their allies.
Ah, right, it's one of those irregular verbs: I spout truth from pure motives, you make questionable statements, he publishes propaganda.
If you define the problem as overturning the US patent system, then possibly you might be correct. If you define the problem as protecting the Linux and Open Source ecosystem from patent threats, then you're completely wrong. I choose the latter definition.
> Especially the Open Invention Network has shown its complete failure already: both Google and Oracle are OIN licensees but Oracle sues Google anyway, over a Linux distribution although the OIN claims to protect Linux.
The Oracle/Google spat isn't a community threat:
Firstly, the patents and copyrights are available to anyone who wants to produce a GPL version of the JVM derived from the oracle one.
Secondly, if you think about it, by providing resources to organisations who specifically reverse engineer something to escape from the copyleft provisions of the GPL we'd be endorsing that behaviour. That would throw a nice spanner in the works of GPL enforcement actions if anyone could say "reverse engineering" and watch us fight internally.
> Your claim that Linux is relatively safe because of those organizations is unfounded and unsubstantiated, and in my view, it's completely wrong. Those organizations haven't made any meaningful contribution. There's been and there continues to be on an ongoing basis a lot of patent enforcement concerning Linux. Just look at the Android situation. Look at Amazon, Salesforce, TomTom, HTC and so many others having agreed to pay royalties on patents that pretty obviously read on Linux.
Your view seems to be a bit clouded. If I take TomTom, the settlement was achieved the moment they took an OIN license. Furthermore, Microsoft acknowledged indirectly that the settlement was a direct result of this action, and finally it caused them to rethink their direct attack strategy. I think that's more of a result than other approaches have yet achieved.
Pure propaganda Posted Nov 15, 2010 17:34 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] You're doing everything to reaffirm my impression that your comment was pure propaganda, including that you make a completely false claim about something having been said that was never said. This shows you run out of facts-based arguments, so you present untruths. If I take TomTom, the settlement was achieved the moment they took an OIN license. Furthermore, Microsoft acknowledged indirectly that the settlement was a direct result of this action, and finally it caused them to rethink their direct attack strategy. The first part is right as a coincidence but doesn't mean any causation. Microsoft's other patent cases were all settled similarly quickly (except for the current one with Motorola). Apparently all those companies just tested Microsoft's determination and they all ended up agreeing to royalty payments (according to the announcements) when they saw Microsoft was serious and did go to court. But the "acknowledged indirectly" part is absurd. Here's the announcement that was made. There's nothing whatsoever in it that would suggest an acknowledgment of the OIN's role. Nothing at all. So unless you can present evidence for what you claimed, you can't be considered a reliable source of information in this context. Let me assure you that my criterion for the OIN's effectiveness is not related to the abolition of software patents but to what you say: does it protect the Linux and open source ecosystem from patent threats? And looking at what has happened and what is happening, the OIN just tries to create its own legend by claiming that it helped TomTom (although the announcement makes it clear to me that TomTom lost) and I don't see that the OIN has changed Microsoft's calculus thereafter. After TomTom, Microsoft collected patent royalties from a number of other companies, on Linux, including much more significant companies than TomTom (examples: Amazon, Salesforce, HTC, ...).
Pure propaganda Posted Nov 15, 2010 18:55 UTC (Mon) by jejb (subscriber, #6654) [Link]
> You're doing everything to reaffirm my impression that your comment was pure propaganda, including that you make a completely false claim about something having been said that was never said. This shows you run out of facts-based arguments, so you present untruths. [...] The first part is right as a coincidence but doesn't mean any causation.
So now irregular logic follows irregular verbs. I say A implies B you say A preceded B but does not necessarily imply it (which is a possible construction) and then conclude therefore it's completely false that A could ever imply B.
> But the "acknowledged indirectly" part is absurd. Here's the announcement that was made. There's nothing whatsoever in it that would suggest an acknowledgment of the OIN's role. Nothing at all.
If it were in the press release it would hardly be indirect. It was actually in an unpublished exchange between the parties.
> So unless you can present evidence for what you claimed, you can't be considered a reliable source of information in this context.
Right, so you can make baseless insinuations about Red Hat and any other organisation that doesn't happen to agree fully with you, but others have to have hard evidence to support their positions.
> Let me assure you that my criterion for the OIN's effectiveness is not related to the abolition of software patents but to what you say: does it protect the Linux and open source ecosystem from patent threats? And looking at what has happened and what is happening, the OIN just tries to create its own legend by claiming that it helped TomTom [...]
You don't have to take my word for it; just google for "+tomtom +OIN +patents" that will pull up most of the analyst commentary ... although most of them probably won't get past your disagrees with my position filter.
I'm rather curious, though, why you expend so much effort venting spleen against OIN. If it's so ineffective as you claim, then surely it's just another example among many of big corporations wasting big bucks to no effect? If you secretly suspect it's effective and thus damaging to the cause of patent reform by shielding us from its effects, why not look at it in a different way: The fact that a shield like this has to be constructed at fairly massive expense is surely useful evidence of the brokenness of the current system.
Pure propaganda Posted Nov 15, 2010 19:01 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]
<blockquote><i>If it were in the press release it would hardly be indirect. It was actually in an unpublished exchange between the parties.</i></blockquote>
If such myths, absolutely unverifiable and anything but credible, are all that OIN can bring to the table so far, then that's insufficient for an organization that's spent north of $100 million on patent acquisitions. On what basis do you claim to know this kind of unpublished exchange? And if the OIN (as you claim, which I don't believe at all) helped TomTom, why couldn't it help Amazon, Salesforce, HTC etc.? Either the OIN has something in its hands that changes Microsoft's calculus -- and then it would work in all those cases -- or, which is the way I view it, it doesn't.
By saying you know something that's completely unverifiable you turn this into a "trust me, trust me" kind of story. Again, "trust me, trust me" isn't sufficient after spending so much money. For a total cost north of $100 million, there should be a verifiable success story in place after five years.
Pure propaganda Posted Nov 15, 2010 19:03 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]
Also, what you call analyst commentary isn't anything serious. Which analysts do you mean? GroklXX? They've always supported anything IBM has ever done with patents. Who else? Any independent, knowledgeable patent professional? I haven't seen any serious analysis supporting the OIN's propaganda.
Please stop Posted Nov 15, 2010 21:13 UTC (Mon) by kfiles (subscriber, #11628) [Link]
Mr. Muller, could you please continue your acerbic dialogue elsewhere, such as on your own blog?
The discussions at LWN are usually characterised by their brevity and cordiality. There are other forums where different customs hold sway.
I read the LWN comments through their RSS feed, which has been unreadable lately, due to being swamped with the high noise-to-signal ratio of the patent arguments. Please keep the responses brief and on-point, and accept that no amount of heated discourse will change everyone's minds.
Please stop Posted Nov 15, 2010 21:19 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]
@kfiles:
There is a feature that allows you to disable all comments from particular users. I know it's available to those reading the discussions on the LWN website. For an RSS feed you may need to find a similar situation, depending on how programmable/configurable your reader is.
You complain about certain characteristics of those discussions but I can't see why you blame me. I made one comment initially. It resulted in lots of additional comments, many of which were partly or even mostly off-topic. It doesn't make sense to me that you single out me as the target of your criticism.
Pure propaganda Posted Nov 15, 2010 21:26 UTC (Mon) by stumbles (guest, #8796) [Link] I see, still smarting over the spankings you have gotten at Groklaw. Your childishness is belied by your lameness over using "GroklXX".
Pure propaganda Posted Nov 15, 2010 21:31 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] the spankings you have gotten at Groklaw. I don't know what you mean by that. There have been baseless accusations and I'm aware of GroklXX occasionally talking about me in the News Picks column and in the forum. So "smear" would be more appropriate than "spankings". In connection with the OIN and TomTom, GroklXX is the only site that I know that has repeatedly (even recently) supported the OIN's effort to claim victory when the announcement made it clear who ended up having to pay and when non-OIN licensees got their settlements similarly quickly, except for Motorola, which is obviously a case of a different profile than the others were.
Pure propaganda Posted Nov 15, 2010 22:14 UTC (Mon) by jejb (subscriber, #6654) [Link]
> Also, what you call analyst commentary isn't anything serious.
Ah, right, so you proactively define anything I might happen to quote as not serious.
> Which analysts do you mean? GroklXX? They've always supported anything IBM has ever done with patents.
I've no idea what you've got against groklaw. I might not agree with some of their analyses, but I've always found them to be an invaluably useful site for doing the tedious drudge work of gathering, transcribing and publicising what went on inside various court rooms which it would otherwise be very difficult to get.
> Who else? Any independent, knowledgeable patent professional? I haven't seen any serious analysis supporting the OIN's propaganda.
Eben Moglen is the most recent one on record with such an analysis, but I think you've already got them blocked in your disagrees with me filter.
Pure propaganda Posted Nov 16, 2010 5:17 UTC (Tue) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]
OK, so the only answers you've provided to the question of what you meant by "analyst commentary" in favor of OIN (in connection with TomTom) are GroklXX and Eben Moglen. Both are known to have been loyal to IBM ever since (GroklXX even favors patent aggression by IBM against open source), and IBM is OIN's largest owner. In Eben Moglen's case, the "analysis" is made even more partial by the fact that his SFLC also claimed credit for helping TomTom.
Concerning the "tedious drudge work of gathering, transcribing und publicising what went on inside various court rooms", that's obviously a kind of activity of GroklXX with which I don't have any problem. The problem is once GroklXX provides "analysis", which always comes down on IBM's side even if that means to praise patent aggression and which is often fundamentally flawed. On TomTom, GroklXX hasn't really provided any information that would buttress the claims OIN made. GroklXX just parroted OIN's propaganda and told people they must believe it. Then, GroklXX always tells people to believe anything an IBM entity or affiliate wants them to believe.
Pure IBM/Red Hat propaganda Posted Nov 15, 2010 19:35 UTC (Mon) by linuxrocks123 (guest, #34648) [Link]
The cases of people licensing patents from Microsoft for use on Linux are pure propaganda moves. Microsoft and company X want to do a cross-licensing arrangement, company X happens to use Linux, and Microsoft trumpets the fact that "company X licensed our Linux patents". Maybe Company X wanted Microsoft patents for something entirely different, maybe money actually flowed from Microsoft to company X, who knows. Linux is entirely incidental to the deal, but Microsoft uses the situation for its anti-Linux propaganda.
No court has ever upheld a Microsoft patent against Linux, or any patent for that matter. Ignore the Microsoft propaganda.
---linuxrocks123
Red Hat's Secret Patent Deal and the Fate of JBoss Developers (Gigaom) Posted Nov 15, 2010 9:55 UTC (Mon) by djzort (guest, #57189) [Link]
Heres an idea - RedHat should stop trying to suck the dregs from the left overs of Sun's Java drink, and create a middleware eco system based on a language(s) that are actually FOSS.
Red Hat's Secret Patent Deal and the Fate of JBoss Developers (Gigaom) Posted Nov 15, 2010 11:56 UTC (Mon) by ledow (guest, #11753) [Link]
And how would that avoid patent litigation?
Red Hat's Secret Patent Deal and the Fate of JBoss Developers (Gigaom) Posted Nov 15, 2010 13:10 UTC (Mon) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link]
parrot FTW!
Brad Kuhn's coments on Bruce Perens' article Posted Nov 16, 2010 5:54 UTC (Tue) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] Brad Kuhn's comments on this clearly state what some people didn't want to come to terms with post-Bilski: only legislation can do away with software patents, it won't happen in the courts. He's also right with pointing out that Google, Red Hat and similar companies are more interested in obtaining more software patents of their own than actually fighting for abolition, but without such companies taking action, the FOSS movement can't make a successful lobbying effort.
Brad Kuhn's coments on Bruce Perens' article Posted Nov 16, 2010 23:41 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
I would think that it would be very effective should Google do this (Red Hat is not as known to general public). However, how could they do this when their whole business is founded on keeping their pagerank patent out of everyone else's reach? It is quite obvious they actually support software patents.
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