Bonum Certa Men Certa

Software Patents Lobbyists Disguised as 'Open Source' Friends/Companies

SAP logo for Microsoft business partner



Summary: A warning about what's seemingly a media/PR campaign which paints SAP as a friend of Open Source; analysis of Google's patent policy and what it means to Open Source

SOMEBODY's latest PR campaign seems to be a ludicrous characterisation of SAP an Open Source friend (SAP is actually a longtime opponent of Open Source and ally of Microsoft). It is hard to tell exactly where this PR got seeded, but it's likely that Black Duck (with roots in Microsoft) had something to do with it because it coincided with a particular press release we mentioned here before [1, 2]. Right now we see Phil Odence (Black Duck) using IDG to promote his proprietary software company, which receives money from SAP (to scan for Open Source violations). His headline says: "Surprise! SAP is now big into open source"



“[N]ew trend? Talk opensource but collect patents protecting the underlying concepts?
      --Jan Wildeboer
What a bunch of baloney! SAP is mostly exploiting Open Source -- just like Apple does -- while it's also attacking it (not just in the past but also in present and we gave examples).

Google is a far more complicated (and multi-faceted) example because it does support software patents. This morning Red Hat's Jan Wildeboer warned about a "new trend" which he described as "Talk opensource but collect patents protecting the underlying concepts?"

Google and IBM nonchalantly do this (there are more such companies, but we give just two big ones for example) although to be fair, neither is an overly litigious company and they never attack Free/open source software using patents. Incidentally, The Source has this new post about "ranking Google":

Serious question here: what exactly has Google done that is detrimental to Free Software or Open Source? Google wasn’t even founded as an “Open Source company”, yet it makes a lot of contributions to FLOSS (albeit more so on the Open Source side than the Free Software side).

I’ll confess freely I don’t follow news about Google very closely – one reason being I don’t have Google classified mentally as a “threat”. I don’t really have them classified at the same level as Red Hat, but they are nowhere near Microsoft or Apple (or Novell, for that matter) in terms of offensiveness and harm wreaked on the FLOSS ecosystem.

In the context of corporations “friendly” to FLOSS, I would put Google somewhere between Canonical and IBM, with a slight edge to Google because of GSOC and Google’s clean approach to patents.


Google would be better off just actively working to end software patents, not simply accepting them as a given and participating in the broken system by filing for software patents. There are groups like the FFII which Google can support financially if its ultimate goal is elimination of software patents. This would not cost more than GSOC and it would help Free software enormously (all bases covered in one fell swoop).

Recent Techrights' Posts

Why We're Reporting Brett Wilson LLP for Apparently Misusing Their Licence to Protect American Microsofters Who Attack Women
For those who have not been keeping abreast
Stefano Maffulli and His Microsoft-Funded OSI Staff Are Killing the OSI and Killing "Open Source" (All for Money!)
This is far from over
Techrights Headlines as Semaphore
"If you are hearing this, thank you"
 
Gemini Links 01/04/2025: Games and More
Links for the day
Links 01/04/2025: Apple Fined $162M for Privacy Abuses, Disinformation Online a Growing Concern
Links for the day
Newer Press Reports Confirm That Microsoft Shuts Down 'Hey Hi' (AI) Labs Despite All the Hype
The "hey hi" (AI) bubble is not sustainable
Links 01/04/2025: Mass Layoffs at Eidos and "Microsoft Pulls Back on Data Centers" (Demand Lacking); "Racist and Sexist" Slop From Microsoft
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/04/2025: XKCDpunk and worldclock.py
Links for the day
50 Years of Sabotage and a Gut Punch to Computer Science (and Science in General)
Will we get back to science-based computing rather than cult-like following?
3 Months in 2025, 4 Waves of Mass Layoffs at Microsoft, Now Offices Shut Down Permanently
"A recent visit by the South China Morning Post confirmed that the office was dark, unoccupied, and had its logo removed."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 31, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, March 31, 2025
Links 31/03/2025: China Tensions, Bombs Falling in Myanmar After Earthquake
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/03/2025: Falling Out of Love With Tech, Sunsetting openSNP
Links for the day
R.T.O. at IBM in Texas and Atlanta (State of Georgia) Expected as "Soft Layoffs" Catalyst This Coming Year
It also sounds like more IBM layoffs are in the making
Law Firms Can Also Lose Their Licence for Clearly Misusing It
The bottom line is, never made the false assumption that because you can pile up SLAPPs in a docket you will not suffer from bad reputation or even get disbarred
Link between institutional abuse, Swiss jurists, Debianism and FSFE
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
LLM Slop Piggybacking News About GNU/Linux and Distorting It
new examples
Links 31/03/2025: Press and Democracy Under Further Attacks in the US, Attitudes Towards Slop Sour
Links for the day
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Privacy Fiasco in Detail: The OSI Does Not Respect Anybody's Privacy
The surveillance mafia that bans dissent or key people (even co-founders) with dissenting views
Gemini Links 31/03/2025: More X-Filesposting and Dreaming in Emacs
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, March 30, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, March 30, 2025
Links 30/03/2025: Security Breaches, Crackdowns on Dissent/Rival Politicians
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/03/2025: London Soundtrack Festival, Superbloom, gmiCAPTCHA
Links for the day
Phasing Out Vista 10 in Nations Where ~90% of Windows Users Still Rely on It
Recipe for another Microsoft disaster
The Cost of Pursuing the Much-Needed Reform/Shield Against Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs)
“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.”
The LLM Bubble is About to Implode, Gimmicks and Financial Shell Games Cannot Prevent That, Only Delay It
To inflate the bubble MElon is now doing the classic trick of buying from oneself for a fictional value
Links 30/03/2025: Contagious Ideas, Signal Leak, and Squashing Lousy Patents
Links for the day
Links 30/03/2025: "Quantum Randomness" and "F-1 Visa Revoked" in US
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/03/2025: US as a Threat, Returning to the WWW
Links for the day
Links 30/03/2025: Judge Blocks Dismantling Of VOA, Turkey Arrested Many Journalists
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, March 29, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, March 29, 2025