Support it and make it hell for everyone.

Any patent IBM holds is not a threat to open source development. They have a very clear policy on the matter. If what you are doing does not restrict them from using your application IBM have no patent claim against you.

Yes charging money for it IBM classes as restricting.

Even if IBM went anti software patent where would it really get us. Anti-software patent means they cannot attack closed source companies with software patents. Effectively allowing a 1 sided attack against open source. Yes Open source would lose.

To beat software patents is a multi path attack.

We need offensive on two fronts. 1 front inside the rules like IBM is doing making software patents too costly to support for closed source companies so they start calling for them to be destroyed. 2 front trying to get the rules changed threw political work.

Yes you might not like IBM game plain. Really it is a effective one.

Defensive publications of what Open Source is doing will reduce areas where patents can be taken out.

Take a closer look at IBM. It is not a pure proprietary software company. They are Dependant on open source to sell hardware they cannot afford to see it destroyed. So yes they will defend open source they have even bought patents out right so open source projects can keep on going. Yes patents that were not for any of there current or future products.

Of course being a commercial company profits for share holders is important. IBM basically sees software patents as a way to make money. With IBM rules against attacking open source they are really a big problem for those who think patents will destroy open source.

If you want to develop open specification hardware you can also freely use IBM’s patents as well. There patent rules are quite simple you want secrets pay. If you don’t want secrets its free.

By the way, IBM is a proprietary software company and a defender of software patents. It still successfully misleads many people, maybe thanks to marketing.

http://lwn.net/Articles/308806/ KSM feature Linux Developers are bring back from the graveyard. Problem is since when it was first put forward and now Vmware now holds a patent on the issue. KSM could be delayed by years because of the Patent feature if Vmware wants to fight. Yes Linux kernel has the prior art of prior development. Problem here is that using that prior art takes time and can be disputed since it was never registered.

Battle has to be held on many sides. Linux Defenders is doing the one section that is required. Defense filings on important features that might get shelfed for one reason or another so in future Linux world can do them without head aches.

Now of course placing defense filings even if they don’t perfectly cover the issue if they can be shown to be linked to a prior art that does it makes disputing the age of the prior art harder. Defense filings are not black and white limits. Defense filings have more traps than someone can dream on trying to create a new patent on top of.

We have to be able to win in the current patent system. Not just always be losing out. Of course does this mean stopping pushing for the patent system to be scrapped. Of course not.

Also IBM does not apply patents against open source developers or uses. So yes IBM is looking at using patents as a wrecking ball against closed source development. Same reason lot of closed source development backed software patents.

Please remember IBM is IBM. They will do anything to get profit without doing major harm. Microsoft talked about software patents as a way to crush open source. IBM is looking the other way.

Lets see how this plays out. If IBM wrecking ball is bad enough other closed source companies might decide they have to get rid of patents to live.

IBM plays a far better long term game than most companies. Closed source wanted software patents so IBM is going to profit from them. Who are we to argue. If people are too dumb to see that what ever they can use against open source could equally be used against them its not our problem.

Open Source supporting companies should be embracing software patents just from the pure damage side they can do to there closed source competition. Old rule cannot beat the join them.

I will hopefully publish my interview with OIN’s CEO tomorrow. It’s them who approached me and they should definitely have decent answers. I support “Linux Defenders”, but we can go beyond it. Volunteers can do better and I’m not the only one feeling this way.

Because of the existing precedent, removing software patents will require the introduction of explicit legislation. That will take time, probably many years to undo the damage from the lobbying by intellectual monopoly advocates such as yourselves.

Until then, helping he USPTO track down prior art in publicly available open source software will greatly reduce the number of patents the software development industry will have to concern itself with.

Richard Stallman created the GPL in part to address the extension and abuse of the copyright system by vendors. The result today is a massive body of collected work ( well over 70% of Open Source software is L/GPL’ed ) that is far too tempting for the same type of vendors not to incorporate in their own products and services. Many vendors are also finally getting their collective heads around the idea that developing in a copylefted commons can be really beneficial.

The GPL uses the existing rights granted by copyright legislation as a double edged sword. The collective efforts under the Defend Linux project should be seen the beginnings of the forging of a new set of swords. ( see Rule #1 : vendors lending legal support )

What Defend Linux does is indicate to any vendor or even IP troll initiating an action against a open source project will result in their entire IP portfolio is going to be put under the closest scrutiny. Given the quality of most software patents, it will act as quite a deterrent.

That does not mean that open source projects can just ignore patents, copyrights, trademarks and EULAs. Projects such as Mono are doubly dangerous because of the possibility Microsoft can claim that re-implementations of DotNet in C# can violate Microsoft’s copyrights ( remember, unlike examples such as Unix, Posix and Java., not all of DotNet has been submitted by Microsoft as a standard ).

Companies based on free software should be attacking the legitimacy of software patents, not filing their own.