Posted on 08/06/2004 2:56:30 PM PDT by rdb3
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SAN FRANCISCO -- In his keynote address on Wednesday at LinuxWorld, IBM Senior Vice President of Technology and Marketing Nick Donofrio assured the Linux nation his company would not assert its formidable patent portfolio against the Linux kernel and strongly advocated others to promise the same. |
Donofrio's remarks were in response to a statement earlier this week from the Open Source Risk Management organization based on its research and initial analysis of patents that might affect the Linux kernel. A number of those patents were identified as being owned by several larger companies with strategic Linux-based strategies including IBM.
"I can say that as an ally that believes in the positive power that the Linux community is having on collaborative innovation, I can assure you we have no intention of asserting our patents against the Linux kernel, unless, of course, we are forced to defend ourselves," Donofrio said.
Donofrio threw out a challenge to the IT community to join together to establish procedures that avoid infringement claims and to also try to resolve them as they come up.
"When more people have access to the building blocks of innovation, it can inject a richer perspective to the creative process. When you combine all the diversity of the world in the open environments, it's a rather humbling thought," Donofrio said.
Donofrio said collaborative innovation figures to play a significant role in the future of IT and that Linux, various grid technologies, and the Internet will continue to be an influence there. He contended that countries around the world will have to find the right balance between collaborative innovation along with the respect for intellectual property as it applies to IT.
"For IBM's part, we pledge to do everything in our power to help stroke that balance. I can promise you that," Donofrio said.
The open movement, which Donofrio sees happening in many industries outside of computer software, is forcing people to rethink their various intellectual property models and to rethink where it is they can offer the most value to their respective users.
He contends this overall open movement has encouraged and enabled competition to continue thriving. Donofrio then made an open plea to governments and private businesses to "collectively sharpen" their focus on policies and practices that would serve to encourage and to support innovation.
"Why does innovation matter? Well, consider one issue that has been at the center of discussion for some time: job growth," Donofrio said.
He cited a recent economic study that stated some 91 million new jobs would be created in the coming years, but that it is yet to be determined in which countries most of those jobs would be based.
"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that many of the best jobs will go to those countries that create the most fertile environments for innovation," Donofrio said.
Donofrio then started preaching to the Linux choice saying that Linux and the open source community in general holds the potential to spark remarkable innovation because the technology is at once owned by no one but yet by everyone. It is this concept that will give it a major advantage compared with those still espousing proprietary platforms.
"The forces that cling to closed ways of doing things are doing nothing to advance innovation. When you box people in and create these artificial barriers to solving problems, you can't have [innovative] solutions spring forward," Donofrio said.
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Ed Scannell is an editor at large at InfoWorld. |
Wanna be Penguified? Just holla!
Got root?
Went to another optician, today, and noticed that their whole office system is based on Red Hat Linux.
The open movement, which Donofrio sees happening in many industries outside of computer software, is forcing people to rethink their various intellectual property models and to rethink where it is they can offer the most value to their respective users.
Yes; it is really bothering investors who have spent a lot of time and money on modeling future cash flows, based upon the old, till now, intellectual property models.
That is why Forbes and the Alexis de Toqueville funds (and donors) crowd is supporting SCO, at least in public.
The intellectual property people want every subroutine to be a royalty-due piece of sheet music, and probably the "music industry" does, too.
When the barn door was left open decades ago.
Over the last 5 decades, at any given time, the propability is high, that computer code will found to be identical among several hundred or even thousand authors, and, that their notes explaining their routines' designs, will also be identical.
Among two thousand computer engineers, or mechanical engineers, or electrical engineers, they are likely to produce identically, products, and descriptions.
Take two thousand engineers, give them the same widget, and have them write a description of it ... you are going to find a few dozen at the minium, whose wording is exactly the same ... and you'll probably find a few whose handwriting is a match.
IMHO
"...diversity of the world..."
"...collaborative innovation..."
"When more people have access to..."
That's a lot of Commie talk coming from Mr. IBM. Reminds me of Linux and Open Source.
Which means you don't know a damn thing about either.
It would be amusing if some enterprising individual were to implement a patented, strategically important IBM mainframe technology (ie. one that IBM derives significant revenue from) to Linux, and watch their lawyers' heads spin...
Do they have it in writing?
No?
It's an interesting problem. I have been miffed for many years that engineers and designers mostly get nothing for inventing the greatest things that people use every day. Yet hundreds or thousands of pierced/tatooed/cornrowed/coked-up "musicians" each get a nickle everytime some radio station plays the dissonant jangle that passes for "their music" these days.
Out of fairness and consistency, I think engineers, designers, and creaters of all kinds should be treated the same as musicians.
Use a tie-wrap, pay a penny. Use a ball-point pen, pay a penny. Use those intermittent wipers on your automobile windshield, pay a penny. You get the idea.
Either that or pay musicians and actors by the hour like everybody else.
Maybe I'm just upset because I never got a dime for inventing the "Walk-Man" in 1958.
What is a "kernel"?
Hey! Nothing wrong with cornrows. Nothing at all.
anti-IP links:
http://praxeology.net/anticopyright.htm
...and I know that you can run Linux in a mainframe LPAR.
looks like you are right.
What the heck does that mean? If using Linux means you are a commie I've been one since about 1991.
Nobody told me this. Do I have to give all the money I've made from Linux back? I don't think so.
| Golden Eagle | Do they have it in writing? No? |
| GeorgiaFreeper | They need to post a written document. |
Wow, such mistrust of IBM here! But then again, I guess you're used to Micr'soft.
The interesting thing is, y'all agree with Bruce Perens!
Not far enough?
Bruce Perens, an open-source advocate who says he expects a patent attack to shut down the open-source movement, called for even more in a response Wednesday. He said he wanted a signed covenant in addition to a pledge, and defense help if open-source programmers or users are sued.
"I would like to hear from IBM, HP, etc., that when the suits come, they're going to stand by me" when Microsoft sues, "not stand on the sidelines. I'm going to be in court about 10 days if no knight in shining armor comes to rescue me. After 10 days, I'm going to have to sign a settlement."
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