[Ecommerce] Re: Novell to use patents to "protect open source"

[Philippe Aigrain]

This announcement is from a weeks ago. It is used by pro-patents lobbies in
Europe to argue that  free / open source software (F/OSS) and software
patents are compatible, and thus there is no problem with making software
patentable. Understand (in my opinion):
- Companies such as IBM and Novell can have both a software patent portfolio
mangament strategy and an opportunistic use of open source
- Independent and small firm innovators can't (whether they do F/OSS or not).
Some small firms can fool themselves about their ability to play also the big
game, but wait for the first true litigation
- Software patents would not fully kill F/OSS (it can resist by means of
community solidarity, at least assuming that the preventive enforcement
police is not going berzerk). However, software patents will be an obstacle
for the most innovative F/OSS (often arising from individuals and
non-for-profit usage), and put at risk the benefits society can get from
F/OSS, for instance by slowing down deployment in risk adverse organisations
(administrations for instance).
--
Philippe Aigrain