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If Microsoft is doing this selflessly, then why aren’t they simply putting their patents into the public domain? Consider the open innovation network as a kind

If Microsoft is doing this selflessly, then why aren’t they simply putting their patents into the public domain? Consider the open innovation network as a kind of club, with good intentions. When a company like Microsoft joins it might seem like the pinnacle of success, but with it really means is that the club has become a mafia. It won’t be long before OIN uses its patent leverage to affect control over the behavior if its members. Think about it for a minute… Why wouldn’t such a group or simply convince corporations, like Microsoft, to put their patents into the public domain? If you have to join a club to gain access to something, but it’s not really open source and it’s not really some kind of charitable contribution. Another way of looking at this is, Microsoft has just one goal, being a publicly traded company, which is to increase the share price of its stock… Why are people so stupid always constantly fall for the same tricks, believing that such companies do anything that is actually charitable?

ohthehugemanate 8y ago
No one suggests they're doing it selflessly. They're doing it because they get more value out of the IP by sharing and collaborating, than they do by litigating. Like so many OSS evangelists have said for the last 20 years: open source isn't about charity; it's actually a better way to develop. I think you raise a good point about the public domain. Why wouldn't the GNU licenses just force users to put their works into the public domain? Because public domain software isn't copyleft. "Joining a club" in this case is just signing an agreement (for free) that compels open access to your entire patent portfolio. The OIN agreement is a copyleft-style patent club, similar to the GPL. You get unlimited, royalty-free access to my software, but you must agree to offer similar access to everyone, too.
- itsreallyme 8y ago
  > ...GNU... That’s not a valid comparison. If Microsoft was licensing their patents under GNU (if that was possible), we’d be talking about something different entirely, but they’re not actually open sourcing them in any way at all... they’re entering into a contract to trade them like Pokemon cards with a consortium that will actually, eventually become a monopoly. Once they become a monopoly with enough leverage, they will inevitably agree to change their terms to be more hostile to the rest of the world. Open source software offers usage under some kind of license for essentially nothing in return, not “you can use our software if you make all of your software open sores as well”. I’m gonna leave this comment here so that I can come back and reference it in an article that all right 10 years from now when everybody is talking about how this consortium effectively took over the world of IP and how it’s too bad nobody could see that snowball when it was near the top of the hill still. Here’s another thing to consider: given the right terms, which the constituents of this consortium could agree to, this IP monopoly (read: mafia) could even use their IP to collectively sue basically everyone (the cross section of that many patents will overlap with much more IP in the world, creating an economy of scale nobody can compete with).

ohthehugemanate 8y ago

No one suggests they're doing it selflessly. They're doing it because they get more value out of the IP by sharing and collaborating, than they do by litigating. Like so many OSS evangelists have said for the last 20 years: open source isn't about charity; it's actually a better way to develop. I think you raise a good point about the public domain. Why wouldn't the GNU licenses just force users to put their works into the public domain? Because public domain software isn't copyleft. "Joining a club" in this case is just signing an agreement (for free) that compels open access to your entire patent portfolio. The OIN agreement is a copyleft-style patent club, similar to the GPL. You get unlimited, royalty-free access to my software, but you must agree to offer similar access to everyone, too.

itsreallyme 8y ago
> ...GNU... That’s not a valid comparison. If Microsoft was licensing their patents under GNU (if that was possible), we’d be talking about something different entirely, but they’re not actually open sourcing them in any way at all... they’re entering into a contract to trade them like Pokemon cards with a consortium that will actually, eventually become a monopoly. Once they become a monopoly with enough leverage, they will inevitably agree to change their terms to be more hostile to the rest of the world. Open source software offers usage under some kind of license for essentially nothing in return, not “you can use our software if you make all of your software open sores as well”. I’m gonna leave this comment here so that I can come back and reference it in an article that all right 10 years from now when everybody is talking about how this consortium effectively took over the world of IP and how it’s too bad nobody could see that snowball when it was near the top of the hill still. Here’s another thing to consider: given the right terms, which the constituents of this consortium could agree to, this IP monopoly (read: mafia) could even use their IP to collectively sue basically everyone (the cross section of that many patents will overlap with much more IP in the world, creating an economy of scale nobody can compete with).