Bonum Certa Men Certa

Red Hat's Legal Department Was 'Closed-Source'

Transparency is needed at all levels

Yesterday we wrote very quickly about Red Hat's settlement and why it was a bad idea in retrospect. The argument made by Béranger is that they fed the trolls -- the patent trolls. Further, he writes: "Now, I don't think Red Hat was paid by those patent trolls. Going forward to invalidate the patents would still have entitled Red Hat to ask for damages, and the public image of Red Hat would have been even better: hey, software patents can be invalidated, and here's Red Hat doing it! But, IF Red Hat was indeed paid to shut up, THEN this is even criminal! It's like making profits on the expenses of other operating systems (the BSDs, Solaris, whatever) not covered by this settlement!"



“The word "settlement" is often an embellishment, a euphemism.”This surely brings back some memories of Novell, but a comparison would be totally invalid. Either way, it serves as an example and precedence to entice more patent trolls and give them just what they want. Settlement = extortion. The word "settlement" is often an embellishment, a euphemism.

SCO too had Microsoft and Sun license UNIX from them (it later turned out to be in vain) just after they had sued IBM and others. All can be done purely for legitimacy. Both Sun and Microsoft could benefit from it. In the case of Microsoft, it was not only an opportunity to inject money; Microsoft went further and arranged a BayStar investment in SCO.

It's the same with Trend Micro, which cross-licensed quite recently... with IBM. Ironically enough, in response to this, Barracuda then had to buy patents from IBM, which probably cost a lot. Trend Micro used IBM for legitimacy, so in that sense, IBM was part of this messy business. Had they never dealt with software patents, perhaps none of this would come abound. Here is what Barracuda's CEO, Dean Drako, said quite recently:

"I would much rather spend my time and money and energy finding ways to make the Internet safer and better than bickering over patents."

The claims made above about Red Hat exposing Solaris and BSD seems to be contradicted by Groklaw:

Most of the agreement is typical language, but Tiller explains the parts that are specific to this agreement, which is groundbreaking. It's living proof that the GPL can function as intended, and without compromise, while still dealing with US patent law.

[...]

Even such code distributed by Novell and Sun Microsystem is covered. Is that not refreshing? Note also that "Red Hat Product" includes "predecessor versions" of any Red Hat Products, including versions Red Hat or its employees had no involvement in developing. When you think about the Novell-Microsoft patent deal, what a contrast! That covered only Novell's paying customers, and deliberately excluded the rest of the community. Red Hat, with a deeper understanding of the GPL and the community's interests, in contrast responds with a very creative, GPL-compatible agreement that reflects how the community has always worked -- competition on merit, not on exclusion or proprietary moves.


The press release contains this ugly bit.

Payment

Section 3 of the agreement is entitled “Payment,” but the material on this issue has been redacted here. This is because the parties agreed that this term must remain confidential.


What is this? BECTA and Microsoft? The equivalent of a Memorandum of Understanding [1, 2, 3, 4]? Novell too redacted the hell out of its formal agreement with Microsoft.

More analysis of this comes from Lisa Hoover, whose report ends with:

The 22-page document [PDF] contains affadavits and documents that outline the terms of the agreement, however specifics on any payments that changed hands have been redacted because "the parties agreed that this term must remain confidential."


Sean Michael Kerner found some bits of this deal discomforting as well.

How can you be transparent about a settlement without discussing money? How much is a patent worth today? I certainly would want to know and I'd bet millions of others would too.

[...]

This is a fantastic thing. Now if Novell had been as community minded when it struck its patent covenant deal with Microsoft the biggest patent threat hovering over the Linux community as a whole IMHO would just go away.


From user 'sandholm' at Tux Machines:

Isn't this moot?

Submitted by sandholm on Tue, 07/15/2008 - 11:17.

This is an interesting way for RedHat to try and "save some face", after their "secret" payoff to Firestar on a patent that was dubious from the start. Now that Sun has requested the Firestar patent be invalidated, and considering the response from the PTO: http://lwn.net/Articles/289747/ I guess this is the only way that Redmond...Er...RedHat has figured to try and save some respect.


Linux Journal rightly gives credit to Sun.

Just over a month ago, we brought you the news that Red Hat had washed its hands of long-term patent litigation with Firestar Software over object-oriented software and relational databases. We now learn the deal came just a month too early, as last week the Patent and Trademark Office invalidated the patent in question — the result of a "brother-in-arms" effort by Red Hat competitor Sun Microsystems.

[...]

As for Sun and the Open Source community, it's a victory for striking down one more prohibitive proprietary roadblock, as well as a protection for all from similar prosecution.


Jonathan Corbet has a good and comprehensive summary too.

Red Hat's initial press release claimed that this settlement demonstrated the company's commitment to standing up for the community in the face of patent trolls, and stated that it would discourage any future such cases. At this point it seems fairly evident that Sun has made a better show of standing up for the community and discouraging future cases. What Red Hat has done, though, is to show us how future patent problems could be resolved in the absence of obvious prior art. If one must pay the troll, one would do well to come out with an agreement like this one and, at least, keep the troll away from the rest of the community. Whether patent holders who actually have a legal leg to stand on will be willing to agree to such a settlement remains to be seen; the nature of the game is such that, unfortunately, we are likely to get an answer to that question sooner or later.


There are no easy answers here. For sure, what Sun managed to achieve was more valuable than what Red Hat had done. What Novell did was just selfish in every way.

It surely cost Sun some time and effort. Imperfect solutions seem necessary as long as the payment system is absolutely broken. The next post will discuss further perversion of the law by intellectual monopolies.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Richard Stallman is Usually Right Because He Thinks "Outside the Box"
he is able to observe society (mores and norms) as somewhat of an outsider
The Week to Come
Planning ahead
LLM Slop Has Only Been a Boon for Misinformation Online
The very same companies that were supposed to maintain quality (again, not limited to Google with PageRank) are now actively participating in generating and spreading slop
When They Tell You It's Free, Does That Mean No Charges (If So, Who's Paying and Why)?
there's "no free lunch"
 
Nonfree Software in My Bank, by Richard Stallman
Updated 8 hours ago
Links 28/07/2025: Science, Health, and Conflicts
Links for the day
Gemini Links 28/07/2025: Healthy Self-Image With Autism and a "New Life"
Links for the day
Links 28/07/2025: COVID-19 Sped up Brain Aging, "Circumvention is More Popular Than Compliance"
Links for the day
LWN Has Been Down for a Long Time, Another Casualty of LLM Bots?
Time will tell. How much time though?
Slopfarms Versus 'Linux' (and Against People Who Write Real Articles About GNU/Linux)
LLM slop in slopfarms by Brian Fagioli and Redazione RHC
Gemini Links 28/07/2025: Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray and Running pkgsrc in a FreeBSD Jail
Links for the day
Microsoft Turns News Sites Into Spamfarms
Is the site The Register MS the next IDG?
The Register MS/The Register US
On Saturday I contacted them for a comment (before issuing criticism)
Hacking revelations at Vatican Jubilee of Digital Missionaries
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 27, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 27, 2025
We're Going to Focus Less on the Molotov Cocktail-Throwing Microsofters and More on Patents
We can get back to focusing on what we wanted to focus on all along
Just Trying to Keep Web Sites Honest (Journalistic Integrity)
the latest articles in LinuxIac are real
Links 27/07/2025: Political Affairs, Data Breaches, Attacks on Freedom of the Press
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/07/2025: Hot in Japan and Terminal Escape Codes
Links for the day
Links 27/07/2025: More Microsoft Layoffs Coming, Science and Hardware News
Links for the day
Links 27/07/2025: FSF Hackathon and "Hulk Hogan Was a Very Bad Man"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/07/2025: DAW Mixer Chains and Simple Software
Links for the day
The Register MS is Inventing or Giving Air Time to New Conspiracy Theories so as to Distort the Narrative As High-Profile Agencies Fall Prey to Microsoft Holes
But the problem is holes, i.e. Microsoft making bad products; the problem is Microsoft
Most Editors at The Register Are American, Including the Editor in Chief, a Decade-Long Microsoft Stenographer (Writing Prose to Sell Microsoft)
It's not easy to tell where the site is based (we tried) because it's hiding behind ClownFlare and CrimeFlare hasn't been well lately
Pushers of systemd Rewrite History (Richard Stallman Said UNIX "Was Portable and Seemed Fairly Clean")
Unlike systemd
"New Techrights" Soon Turns 2 (A Few Days Before the FSF Turns 40)
We have a lot more to say about LLM bots
When Silence Says So Much
Garrett, a 'secure' boot pusher, will need to defend himself in the UK High Court
The Register in Trouble
There is not much that can be done at this point
Trajectory of The Register: From News Site/s Into "B2B"... and Into Microsoft Salespeople
Something isn't right at The Register
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 26, 2025
Misinformation in Social Control Media
Social control media passes around all sorts of tropes
Slopwatch: Fake Linux 'Articles' and Slopfarms With "Linux" in Their Names/Domains
throwing bots at "Linux" to make some fake articles
Links 26/07/2025: Amazon Shutdown in China, Russian Economy Slows
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/07/2025: History of Time (1988) and Gemini Games
Links for the day
Links 26/07/2025: 50 Percent Tariffs in Amazon, Dying Intel Offloads Network and Edge Group (NEX)
Links for the day
Doing My Share to Tackle Online Slop and SPAM
Trying my best to 'fix' the Web
Blaming Programming Languages for Users' and Developers' Bad Practices
That's like blaming cars for drivers who crash into things
Slopwatch: Fakes, FUD, Duplicates, and Charlatans Galore
The Web as we once know it is collapsing. Some opportunists try to replace it with low-quality slop.
The Register UK Seems to Have Become American and Management is Changing (Microsofter as Editor in Chief)
The Register 'UK' is now controlled by the Directions on Microsoft guy
Many People Still Read Techrights Because It Says the Truth, Produces Evidence, and Does Not Self-Censor
Unlike so many other sites
The Register is Desperate for Money, According to The Register
I decided to check how they're doing as a business
Microsoft Finally Finds a Use Case for Slop?
Create low-quality chaff to shift the media's attention?
Microsoft Windows Lost 400 Million Users in a Few Years, Why Does The Register Double Down on Windows With New US Editor?
days ago they hired a new US editor
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 25, 2025
For Libel Reform One Must First Bring (or Raise) Awareness to the Issues and Their Magnitude
I myself know, from personal experience
Links 26/07/2025: Rationed Meals in the US and TikTok Repels Investments (Too Toxic)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/07/2025: "Bloody Google" and New People in Geminispace
Links for the day
Response to Solderpunk (Father of Gemini Protocol) About the Gemini Community
Solderpunk responds to non-sequitur
HTML and the Web Used to be Something a Child Could Learn, "Modern" Web is a Puzzle of Frameworks, Bloat, and Worse
When the Web was more like Gemini Protocol