Bonum Certa Men Certa

European Lesson About Novell's Software Patents, Germany Seemingly Continues to Allow Software Patents

German flag



Summary: How S.u.S.E. turned from an opposer of software patents into an extension of Novell which legitimises them in Germany (where software patents continue to challenge Europe's status quo)

Henrik Ingo from Finland writes about software patents as "a bad legacy to leave behind". He partly refers to MySQL and to Sun, whose patent portfolio got absorbed inside another company. For about three years we've heard the excuses from Novell apologists who told us that Novell's software patents are a good thing because of OIN, but now that Novell's patent are likely to be sold, the following analysis is worth some attention:



What neither of these gentlemen pointed out is that this is exactly what happened also with Sun. It wasn't widely mentioned in public, although Mr Piana does single out patents as his first motivation to help Oracle clear the Sun acquisition. (Personally his fear that Microsoft would be allowed to buy any piece at all of Sun was in my opinion always just completely unrealistic (for the same reasons Oracle was in trouble), but I'm willing to give him a point about patent trolls offering to buy Sun's patents.) Other than that it wasn't spoken about (and journalists reporting on the case were mostly nowhere near the real issues anyway) but also other FOSS personalities who took Oracle's side did mention in private conversations with me that for FOSS in general and Linux in particular, it was absolutely vital to make sure that Sun's Unix and other patents would not fall into the wrong hands.

A personal observation is that it seems that particularly the lawyers of our community subscribed to that way of thought, whereas the "hacker" types like Stallman of FSF, Karsten Gerloff of FSFE, Alan Cox of the Open Rights Group, etc. came out clearly on the side of us where we argued that MySQL should not have been allowed to be acquired by it's main competitor. (I should add that within the MySQL community, essentially old MySQL AB employees and other external contributors, the party lines followed completely different logic than in the broader FOSS community, and patents played no role whatsoever in people's opinions.)


Let's keep an eye on Novell in the coming weeks. Those many patents it has might even be passed to pro-software patents lobbyists (if not patent trolls) like IBM, which supported Novell's acquisition of S.u.S.E. and also the patent deal with Microsoft. As the following news article reminds us, Novell is very IBM dependent, not just Microsoft dependent.

Despite struggling through Q2 of 2010 with a US$12m drop in net income on the same period last year, Novell continues to plough optimistically forward into the mainframe market with its support for the IBM System z Series.


The 451 Group has just correctly stated that Novell "is placing less emphasis on the Linux and open source technologies" -- an argument we made many times before. To quote this within context:

While the company is placing less emphasis on the Linux and open source technologies that represented the bulk of the former Open Platform Solutions business unit, open source is no less important to Novell.


Open Source was never important to Novell, but it viewed this as a marketing opportunity and failed when it sidled with Microsoft and therefore repelled many clients who liked Open Source. They just took their business elsewhere. S.u.S.E. was popular among the European crowd where it originally came from, but why would anyway pay Novell extra for software patents that make Microsoft richer? And why in Europe where those patents are not even legal? Novell dared to advertise those software patents specifically in Europe and Groklaw got hold of reports. Shame on Novell for promoting software patents in Europe (also around the time of the major directive). Novell is at least partly responsible for pushing into Europe the notion that software patents can or should be considered there.

"Software to process telephone calls [are] patentable in Germany," shows [PDF] the president of the FFII, Benjamin Henrion. This bizarre case is predating the Siemens case [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] and even Microsoft's latest FAT ruling in Germany. What is going on in Germany?

“Software to process telephone calls [are] patentable in Germany”
      --Benjamin Henrion, FFII
German patent lawyers drool over any patent in a field that they specialise in. The Bastian Best blog is no exception. He gives a new example from Apple, one from Google (in German), and another tidbit about Apple (also in German). For those who do not remember, Apple is a patent aggressor that even assaulted Linux with software patents. HTC is fighting back, but it surrendered to Microsoft. According to some news sites, HTC grows with an acquisition (also here). Not that it would affect the patent case, but still...

Recent Techrights' Posts

Representing and Speaking for Animals
If I ever choose to take this matter to tribunal with animals-centric NGOs on my side, it'll get some press coverage for sure
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About "Linux", Slop Images in VentureBeat, Linux Foundation Spam Made With LLM Slop and Slop Images
The only relief or upside - if any exists - is that the pace of slop was down a bit this week
Richard Stallman (RMS) Talk in Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress Will be Remote
This past week RMS received lots of accolades online
Links 28/08/2025: Chatbots Distorting/Fabricating History and Also Driving Suicide
Links for the day
 
Links 29/08/2025: Arti 1.5.0, War on Public Health (CDC), and Slop 'Bros' Made to Pay for Their Mass Plagiarism
Links for the day
No, 4Chan is Not Fighting for You by Lawyering Up Against Ofcom (UK)
Don't mistake proto-fascists for people who "fight for you". They don't.
Downlplaying the Impact of "UEFI 9/11" is a Losing Strategy
we won't publish much whilst on holiday
In Many Places in the World Vista 11 "Market Share" is Going Down, Not Up
In some countries Windows is already down to third place or lower
More Microsoft-Connected Layoffs, at Least Third Time This Month! (Also Another Death on Campus)
Microsoft as a "gaming" company is where studios, projects, games, and even developers come to die
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, August 28, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, August 28, 2025
Gemini Links 29/08/2025: Poems, Games, and Java 25 Performance
Links for the day
Links 28/08/2025: Greenland 'Interferences' by US and Skinnerboxes to Get Banned in Korean Schools
Links for the day
The Register MS (Run by Microsoft Operatives): Free Software is Putin, Hence Evil and Dangerous
The current editor in chief is an American Microsofter, the previous one went to work for Google (US)
Gemini Links 28/08/2025: Back in Japan and Why "Hacker News" Sucks
Links for the day
A Much-Needed Wake-up Call to Users of Wordpress.com, Blogspot, Substack and All Those Other Outsourced (and Centralised) Platforms
There are several lessons in there
The UEFI 9/11 - Part II - Campaign of Censorship and Defamation Against Critics
In dictatorships, humour serves an important role. It's tragic.
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Resists Software Freedom, Even by Attacking Its Own
The OSI is compromised
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, August 27, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Slopwatch: linuxsecurity.com, Slopfarms in Google News, and More
Some readers of ours end up sending us links that are from slopfarms, not realising those are slopfarms
Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Katrina Memories and Google Versus Software Freedom
Links for the day
Links 27/08/2025: Police Against Media Freedom in the UK, Energy-Hungry Countries Targeted by China
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows Fell to All-Time Lows in Egypt This Summer, Vista 11 Adoption Decreases While GNU/Linux Increases
Vista 11 is going down rather than up
Links 27/08/2025: Microsoft Demoralises Staff With Slop Demands, Leaving Mastodon Explained
Links for the day
12 Hours Ago The Register MS Published a Fake (Paid-for) Article, But This One for a Change Did Not Promote a Ponzi Scheme
There are also Free software alternatives, but they don't pay The Register MS for "synthetic" so-called 'journalism'
More People Need to Call Out and Put a Stop to Serial Sloppers
Unless slopfarms are stopped, people will read and share Microsoft propaganda made by chatbots
Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Headphones and Tartarus
Links for the day
Morale at Microsoft is Terrible (Proprietary Plagiarism Machines Have No Future, LLM Slop is a Bubble)
The slop sceptics/critics are going to have lots of "told you so" moments
GNOME "governance issues, staff reduction, etc." amidst Albanian whistleblowing and women trafficking
Notice the connection to Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) and GNOME
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, August 26, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, August 26, 2025