scuzzman Posted January 13, 2005 Report Share Posted January 13, 2005 As it stands now, it appears as though Big Blue is opening up to the idea of open source:Big Blue collects about $1 billion a year in licensing fees from its hoard of 40,000 patents. So it came as quite a surprise to some on Jan. 11 when IBM pledged to make 500 of its software patents, valued at about $10 million, freely available to open-source software projects such as the Linux operating system and the Apache Web page server software. Why would IBM (IBM ) allow others to use its intellectual property free of charge? In a word: Microsoft (MSFT ). The move is central to IBM's efforts to fend off Microsoft and its Windows monopoly. While the computing giant will continue to innovate and gather new patents as aggressively as ever, at the same time it is stepping up efforts to bolster the world of open-source software. IBM figures that doing so will give it a leg up in selling the software and services that work with the open-source programs it helped develop.Original story here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted January 13, 2005 Report Share Posted January 13, 2005 A patent can be a liability rather than an asset to a company.There are annual fees to be paid on maintaining a patent and, for any multi-country* patent, this can amount to a very large amount of money. So, any intellectual property that is not being commercially exploited is just a drain on a company's resources and may just as well be offered to interested parties either under licence for a fee or allowed to lapse so that anyone could use it.I'm sure IBM are very wise in doing this as anything to stem the stranglehold that Microsoft has on the personal computer industry can do nothing but good for themselves and everone else. Let it not be forgotten that the Personal Computer was an IBM development. Gates et al just exploited an excellent invention with a less than perfect operating system.* note "multicountry" is deliberately chosen here as "international" in patent-speak has a specific meaning which is not what I intend to convey.This IBM release will most likely do us all a lot of good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scuzzman Posted January 13, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 13, 2005 Agreed without question - also, the open-source comunity has a lot to gain from this as well. For so long, because if IP rights and proprietary hardware, no-one could write drivers for some chipsets. This will aid immensly in Linux and BSD's ability to be compatible with more hardware. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
homecomputeraid Posted January 14, 2005 Report Share Posted January 14, 2005 You sound like you've had some experience with patent law -pops-! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted January 14, 2005 Report Share Posted January 14, 2005 You sound like you've had some experience with patent law -pops-!Yep! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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