Open Source "State of the Union" address [LWN.net]

Open Source "State of the Union" address

Posted Aug 7, 2003 18:58 UTC (Thu) by josh_stern (guest, #4868)
In reply to: Open Source "State of the Union" address by proski
Parent article: Open Source "State of the Union" address

The author above made a thoughtful and interesting point.

That is that even if Linux is not for sale as a shrinkwrap
product, it may still have a legal identity as an integrated
product. When we consider that the greater diversity of
sources for various hardware drivers and the larger range
of patents that they might potentially infringe on, it is
worthwhile to ask whether Linux, the product, could
achieve greater legal insulation by separating drivers into
a different set of products - a kind of legal fireline to
prevent small fires from turning into big ones. This idea
deserves serious consideration on its merits.

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Open Source "State of the Union" address

Posted Aug 7, 2003 19:09 UTC (Thu) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

> various hardware drivers and the larger range
> of patents that they might potentially infringe on

I've haven't yet heard of a patent infringement within a driver.

The patent infringments of Linux that I've heard about are in the virtual memory and filesystem code. Not so easy to break out.

Anyway, it's the distros that will get targeted, they'd still have to include all the drivers.

Ciaran O'Riordan

Open Source "State of the Union" address

Posted Aug 7, 2003 20:37 UTC (Thu) by josh_stern (guest, #4868) [Link]

In the case of SCO, they are specifically targeting the Linux kernel as
an integrated product.

I'm afraid that Bruce may prove prophetic when his says that we
have only heard the very beginning of the patent wars.

Of course stuff like virtual memory is not something to be broken out,
but because device drivers interact with a huge assortment of different
'stuff' out there in the world, I believe there is more
potential for them to touch a wide range of patents - especially ones
that are not familiar to software developers. Suppose, for instance,
it turned out that some obscure individual had a patent on a certain
method of scheduling and driving ham radios using a computer device,
and he decided that Linux infringes on his method. In that case, it
would be a good thing if rich Linux targ^H^H^H^Husers with no ham
radio driver involvement had prima facie nothing to do with his claim.