IBM Claims Software Patents Promoted Open Source Software?
from the but-how? dept
The folks over at Slashdot point us to an interesting tidbit buried in IBM's amicus brief for the Bilski case, where the company claims that software patents helped drive open source software development:Patent protection has promoted the free sharing of source code on a patentee's terms--which has fueled the explosive growth of open source software development.The original report linked above conveniently drops the "on a patentee's terms" which makes for a better story, but is a bit misleading. It's that clause that explains what IBM means by this claim, though it shows absolutely no substantiation of the claim, whatsoever. And that's because even with that clause added back in, it makes no sense. At all. Yes, software patents may make some developers more willing to share code with others... but that's got nothing to do with open source development or the growth of open source software. The situations where a patent makes a developer more comfortable showing source code are clearly cases of proprietary software, where the developer/patent holder is worried about the software being copied. With open source software, there's no such "worry" because that's actually a feature of the system.
So why does IBM simply get to make stuff up in a filing for the Supreme Court?
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Filed Under: bilski, open source, patents, software
Companies: ibm
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Can't make my mind up about IBM
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friends close, enemies closer
Once corruption is root in a company in some form, be it lack of ethics, or otherwise, you have to expect it will continue even if the source is gone.
Examples: most industries overall: apple, ibm, intel, ms, GM (cars and the cereals), at&t, rogers, time warner, comcast, best buy, the list goes on and on. Heck, those are some of the *worst*, but far from the only. Is it really any surprise? How many of those companies do not do things on a regular basis that are totally illegal or basically are detriments to society at a benefit for themselves?
I mean, we live in a society where it is legal for a corporation (but not an individual) to take a bribe. Nothing stops the corporation from paying the individual.
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I have to agree with IBM
I'll agree with that. Software patents pissed off so many programmers that they switched to open source just to get away.
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Re: I have to agree with IBM
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Re: I have to agree with IBM
Especially early on, some developers were so pissed off, the sight of someone implementing proprietary software caused direct aggro. Still holds true for many.
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HEY IBM! What about Microchannel Architecture - I'm SO GLAD it's in common use today because you had it patented - that helped innovation alright - it helped *others* innovate something OTHER THAN MCA - like ISA, PCI, etc.
Oh and don't forget that wonderful OS called "OS/2" - IBM's always been 'on top' of things.
I think it will go down in historical record that IBM was certainly one of the top ten companies that screwed up their own potential and made some of the worst business decisions of all time. I mean - they had the hardware market in their lap - until they got greedy with MCA.
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Re:
Unfortunatley, only slightly.
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bingo
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This sort of argument is deeply cynical, like claiming AIDS is a benefit because it reduces the danger of famine.
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IBM
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Re: IBM
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One of the reasons apple fell behind IBM (and PC's) is because IBM didn't do a lot to enforce proprietary rights on their hardware, where as apple/MAC did, and PC's allowed anyone to develop operating systems and develop software on the operating systems. Hence people developed Linux and all sorts of apps and operating systems which built value into the hardware and mac/apple fell behind.
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Makes sense to me
MS Office was a very prominent productivity package for a long time. Sure, there was StarOffice and KOffice for UNIX and Linux, but none really had the development team like Microsoft. That was how OpenOffice.org began (or actually spawned from StarOffice). Now there's OpenOffice which is open source.
This has been seen lots of times with FTP programs as well. If there is a proprietary program that costs a lot of money and performs a task many need, you can bet someone (or team) will come up with an open source alternative.
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Which is why I noted it was "buried" in the filing. But, um, that doesn't address the point, does it? Just saying "it's not integral" doesn't explain why such an outright lie is in the filing.
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