Patents and Open Source
Two stories have cropped up this week about IBM and patent-issues.
The first is from Greg Aharonian of the
Internet Patent News Service who
discusses the implications of using a Open Source product
which includes IBM patents given IBM's history of vigorously
defending its patents even when they are included in open protocols.
The second is from
ZD Net which claims IBM would like to see the Linux license changed
to take more patent issues into account, so that it feels legally
protected if it provides 24x7 support and tweaks the code.
The article concludes by listing potential new Linux ports.
The GPL
does discuss patents (see the GPL preamble for explanation).
somebody else
and Linux Weekly News contributed links.
update The
Kernel mailing list has some debate on this, ranging from
people who would like to work something out with IBM (so that
the free software community can use arithmetic compression,
and other IBM patents for free), to people who argue that if
IBM does not want to play by our rules (freedom), it should
go make its money somewhere else. A list of patents currently
restricting us as well as
a prediction of the demise of the patent system were posted.
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