Open-Source Movement Gets Boost

The open-source software movement has received some substantial boosts recently. Free Patents Following IBM's donation of 500 patents for use by open-source software developers and programmers, Sun Microsystems recently announced that it would follow suit by offering over 1,600 patents for use. In addition to benefiting the open-source software movement, the donators are expected to benefit from an improved market share resulting from the increased number of developers working with the patented technology. For additional information, see the news item in a previous issue of E-TIPSâ„¢ (Vol 3, No 5, August 18, 2004), "IBM Commits to Not Using Patents Against Linux". Legal Protection With the rise in the amount of open-source software being developed and distributed, fear has increased that more companies will claim that their intellectual property has been incorporated into open-source software without consent. Although companies that distribute open-source software under the General Public License cannot be held liable for intellectual property infringement in regards to the open-source software, users and developers of the software are open to attack. In response to this issue, a number of companies, including IBM, HP and Intel, have joined forces to form Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), which has contributed $4 million to set up the Software Freedom Law Center, a legal centre based in New York for non-profit, open-source projects and developers. This is not the first legal assistance project OSDL has been involved in. Previously, OSDL set up a $10 million defense fund for Linux creator Linus Torvalds and users of Linux that might be sued by The SCO Group, a small company that claimed IBM contributed SCO code to Linux without consent. For an article on the establishment of the Software Freedom Law Center, visit: http://trends.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/02/03/2022212&from=rss; and http://makeashorterlink.com/?N21713E6A. Summary by: Sue Diaz