Software Patents Against GNU/Linux Again
Patent extortion against OpenShift and Red Hat Enterprise Linux
THE mainstream media and even "Linux" sites barely talk about this anymore, but that does not mean that it stopped being an issue. Some days ago "Red Hat file[d] suit after tech firm targets IBM, Google and Amazon" and even though initially it sounded like IBM aggression using software patents (it does happen a lot) the full story involves patent extortion over OpenShift and RHEL:
In one targeting Canadian software company VirtaMove, Red Hat states that it is “imminently threatened with patent litigation” over its OpenShift technology, as VirtaMove has filed infringement cases against Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN), Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) and IBM (NYSE: IBM).
In another suit, Red Hat accuses Competitive Access Systems of Texas — a firm that holds patents but doesn't appear to develop software — of trying to “extort an unsupported and unreasonable license” from the company regarding its Red Hat Enterprise Linux platform.
Well, it isn't going to happen, but one can hope that IBM will start "lobbying" against software patents instead of lobbying for them while at the same time (itself) blackmailing companies, including Twitter.
The above isn't a new problem because back in 2007 a Microsoft-connected troll called Acacia sued both Novell and Red Hat over Linux graphics. Hard to believe 17 years have passed since then. We wrote many articles about that at the time. █