4 ms·

If the companies in OIN really wanted to help stop misuse of software patents why not just donate the patents to the public domain? The OIN itself seems to be e

If the companies in OIN really wanted to help stop misuse of software patents why not just donate the patents to the public domain? The OIN itself seems to be either a patent cartel or a distraction. > “Microsoft’s participation in OIN adds to our strong community, which through its breadth and depth has reduced patent risk in core technologies, and unequivocally signals for all companies who are using OSS but have yet to join OIN that the litmus test for authentic behavior in the OSS community includes OIN participation.” Companies are the ones creating patent risk by using the patent system to attack others. If you want to keep your secret sauce secret, then use trade secrets. They've basically signed non-agression pacts with themselves. Open Source has nothing to do with this outside of projects that dual license (which basically means that the code is not F/OSS). > “Microsoft sees open source as a key innovation engine, and for the past several years we have increased our involvement in, and contributions to, the open source community,” said Erich Andersen, Corporate Vice President and Chief IP Counsel Yeah, that sounds like "microsoft sees the value in leveraging the free time of thousands of developers as we can rope them in, now that many other companies have forged the way while directly trying not to be crushed by us". > Funded by Google, IBM, NEC, Philips, Red Hat, Sony, SUSE, and Toyota, OIN has more than 2,650 community members and owns more than 1,300 global patents and applications. Yeah, somehow none of those companies strike as companies that want patent wars to actually end. More optimistically, maybe this is a step in the right direction, a few steps before software patents are abolished all together.

wolco 8y ago
Let's discuss Redhat. I haven't heard of any aggressive patent position. But I do get the feeling they wouldn't shy away from a fight.
- hardwaresofton 8y ago
  RedHat is probably the least aggressive of the group patent wise given that the primarily support/innovate on top of F/OSS -- I actually considered making a note of that but didn't, and I should have. I think they're basically along for the ride so they can be involved in anything that has to use Linux and exert their will on/network with /collaborate with others in OIN.
  - dralley 8y ago
    Red Hat was a founding member of OIN and were, along with IBM, the primary movers behind getting it off the ground. "Along for the ride" is somewhat reductive. Disclaimer: Red Hat employee.
    - hardwaresofton 8y ago
      Though I did not know that they were the primary movers behind getting OIN off the ground, I didn't mean along for the ride as in they were last to get on, I simply meant "why they're participating at all". The point stands, however, optimistically, OIN is a step in the direction, so RedHat is to be thanked. Pessimistically, this is a great business move for them, for the reasons I've already stated. Also, with Redhat's projects and cloud offering (betting heavy on OpenShift), I can certainly see how it would be great to not have to worry about the variety of parts of things they're about to dip their toes into (as OpenShift is basically data center in a box -- they can't afford to be tripped up by something as small as FAT32). At this point, OIN is better than nothing, but no one has suggested to me why it isn't just a patent cartel. I don't disagree that it's beneficial to companies involved, but I'm not sure how much benefit it has to the community at large, or to companies that aren't inside OIN. While I don't agree with software patents, if a small company gets a few patents on truly new/innovative technology (the idealistic goal of the patent system) it seems if they try to enforce their patents on any company in OIN they might have to face down all of OIN. On the other hand if they join OIN they have less protection if Microsoft decides to copy their product. Again, I'd love to be wrong -- if this kind of situation is mentioned in any legal documents simple enough for laymen to read I'm game.
Iv 8y ago
If these companies lobbied instead to end software patents, they could be a thing of the past in a year or two.
seventhtiger 8y ago
That's not a fair assessment, specifically towards open source in Microsoft. Big closed-source corps, such as Microsoft, are often the biggest contributors to the open source projects they use. The free time of thousands of developers is not as efficient as a team of developers working full time under a PM. That's why I think it's really counter-productive when we call out those companies who are top contributors. We should recognize good when we see it and encourage more of it.
- giancarlostoro 8y ago
  They have full time employees working on VS Code who work remotely even. It's a pretty good gig. Even back in the mid to late 2000's Microsoft wasn't above hiring open source engineers to work for them. I remember IronPython's creator (or maintainer / both?) being hired by Microsoft for a full time gig. Funnily enough he tried to make IronPython to prove that the .NET Framework was an awful platform to make a language in and found out the opposite.
  - hardwaresofton 8y ago
    VS Code has business value for them in keeping them relevant. Visual Studio is one of their shining pearls, mostly because it's one of the only ways to use .NET Framework and C# coherently (assuming you're running microsoft to begin with since none of their stuff worked well on other OSes before mono and even after mono). They "weren't above" hiring open source engineers so they're clearly a good company? They hired a guy that happened to try and make python run on windows so they're awesome? What kind of logic is that? You have to take both of those eventualities super optimistically for that to be a plus -- pessimistically it just looks like they tried to ingratiate themselves and make python run on windows better so that more people would use windows. This is the company that put ads on user's login screens. BTW, the mono effort's patent status[0] (receiving a broadened patent "promise" from MS). A group of open source hackers bore the brunt of bringing their platform to other operating systems and the best they can do is a "patent promise" and the OIN "swearing to protect" mono as a project? I honestly don't even know what secret sauce could possibly be inside C#/.NET that would make me choose it in this day and age. Honestly why would anyone choose C# unless they had no choice but to run windows (in development or deployment)? [EDIT] I removed some of my comments on .NET Framework because I'm very biased against it. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_%28software%29#Mono_and_Microsoft's_patents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_%28software%29#Mono_and_M...
jzb 8y ago
Microsoft and others would be foolish to simply abandon their patents while today's patent system remains intact. That would probably also be a really good way to face a massive shareholder lawsuit. There are many companies still that are not part of OIN so Microsoft is allowed to use those patents if it has to as part of a legal strategy if they are sued for patent infringement by another practicing entity that isn't part of oin. The Microsoft of old certainly did a lot of harm to open source, or at least tried. However, companies are collections of people not monolithic entities that have a single consistent viewpoint forever. Its leadership has changed, and it has brought on many strong open-source proponents in positions of Authority or influence. I'm not saying that I "trust" Microsoft, but I do think that the company has evolved and can be a positive influence and contributor in open source. You also say that none of the founders of oin want the patent Wars to stop. I really don't think that that's true particularly if you look at Red Hat or SUSE, though I may be biased because I do work for Red Hat and have worked with Novell / SUSE. Microsoft is a corporation and it exists to make money. It does not and cannot operate on ideals alone.

wolco 8y ago

Let's discuss Redhat. I haven't heard of any aggressive patent position. But I do get the feeling they wouldn't shy away from a fight.

hardwaresofton 8y ago
RedHat is probably the least aggressive of the group patent wise given that the primarily support/innovate on top of F/OSS -- I actually considered making a note of that but didn't, and I should have. I think they're basically along for the ride so they can be involved in anything that has to use Linux and exert their will on/network with /collaborate with others in OIN.
- dralley 8y ago
  Red Hat was a founding member of OIN and were, along with IBM, the primary movers behind getting it off the ground. "Along for the ride" is somewhat reductive. Disclaimer: Red Hat employee.
  - hardwaresofton 8y ago
    Though I did not know that they were the primary movers behind getting OIN off the ground, I didn't mean along for the ride as in they were last to get on, I simply meant "why they're participating at all". The point stands, however, optimistically, OIN is a step in the direction, so RedHat is to be thanked. Pessimistically, this is a great business move for them, for the reasons I've already stated. Also, with Redhat's projects and cloud offering (betting heavy on OpenShift), I can certainly see how it would be great to not have to worry about the variety of parts of things they're about to dip their toes into (as OpenShift is basically data center in a box -- they can't afford to be tripped up by something as small as FAT32). At this point, OIN is better than nothing, but no one has suggested to me why it isn't just a patent cartel. I don't disagree that it's beneficial to companies involved, but I'm not sure how much benefit it has to the community at large, or to companies that aren't inside OIN. While I don't agree with software patents, if a small company gets a few patents on truly new/innovative technology (the idealistic goal of the patent system) it seems if they try to enforce their patents on any company in OIN they might have to face down all of OIN. On the other hand if they join OIN they have less protection if Microsoft decides to copy their product. Again, I'd love to be wrong -- if this kind of situation is mentioned in any legal documents simple enough for laymen to read I'm game.

Iv 8y ago

If these companies lobbied instead to end software patents, they could be a thing of the past in a year or two.

seventhtiger 8y ago

That's not a fair assessment, specifically towards open source in Microsoft. Big closed-source corps, such as Microsoft, are often the biggest contributors to the open source projects they use. The free time of thousands of developers is not as efficient as a team of developers working full time under a PM. That's why I think it's really counter-productive when we call out those companies who are top contributors. We should recognize good when we see it and encourage more of it.

giancarlostoro 8y ago
They have full time employees working on VS Code who work remotely even. It's a pretty good gig. Even back in the mid to late 2000's Microsoft wasn't above hiring open source engineers to work for them. I remember IronPython's creator (or maintainer / both?) being hired by Microsoft for a full time gig. Funnily enough he tried to make IronPython to prove that the .NET Framework was an awful platform to make a language in and found out the opposite.
- hardwaresofton 8y ago
  VS Code has business value for them in keeping them relevant. Visual Studio is one of their shining pearls, mostly because it's one of the only ways to use .NET Framework and C# coherently (assuming you're running microsoft to begin with since none of their stuff worked well on other OSes before mono and even after mono). They "weren't above" hiring open source engineers so they're clearly a good company? They hired a guy that happened to try and make python run on windows so they're awesome? What kind of logic is that? You have to take both of those eventualities super optimistically for that to be a plus -- pessimistically it just looks like they tried to ingratiate themselves and make python run on windows better so that more people would use windows. This is the company that put ads on user's login screens. BTW, the mono effort's patent status[0] (receiving a broadened patent "promise" from MS). A group of open source hackers bore the brunt of bringing their platform to other operating systems and the best they can do is a "patent promise" and the OIN "swearing to protect" mono as a project? I honestly don't even know what secret sauce could possibly be inside C#/.NET that would make me choose it in this day and age. Honestly why would anyone choose C# unless they had no choice but to run windows (in development or deployment)? [EDIT] I removed some of my comments on .NET Framework because I'm very biased against it. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_%28software%29#Mono_and_Microsoft's_patents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_%28software%29#Mono_and_M...

jzb 8y ago

Microsoft and others would be foolish to simply abandon their patents while today's patent system remains intact. That would probably also be a really good way to face a massive shareholder lawsuit. There are many companies still that are not part of OIN so Microsoft is allowed to use those patents if it has to as part of a legal strategy if they are sued for patent infringement by another practicing entity that isn't part of oin. The Microsoft of old certainly did a lot of harm to open source, or at least tried. However, companies are collections of people not monolithic entities that have a single consistent viewpoint forever. Its leadership has changed, and it has brought on many strong open-source proponents in positions of Authority or influence. I'm not saying that I "trust" Microsoft, but I do think that the company has evolved and can be a positive influence and contributor in open source. You also say that none of the founders of oin want the patent Wars to stop. I really don't think that that's true particularly if you look at Red Hat or SUSE, though I may be biased because I do work for Red Hat and have worked with Novell / SUSE. Microsoft is a corporation and it exists to make money. It does not and cannot operate on ideals alone.