IBM And Sony Form Linux Alliance

An anonymous reader writes "CNN is reporting that IBM, Sony, and Philips are creating a Linux adoption group. Called the 'Open Invention Network', it is intended to protect vendors and customers from patent royalty fees while using OSS." From the article: "Patents owned by OIN will be available without payment of royalties to any company, institution or individual that agrees not to assert its patents against others who have signed a license with OIN, when using certain Linux-related software. Traditionally, patents have been pursued for two primary reasons -- to defend one's own intellectual property or for barter to trade in cross-licensing agreements to gain access to other companies' patents. OIN represents a new form of cross-licensing that its backers say could spur innovation. "

A matter of trust...

[harrkev]

This certainly seems like a good idea, but am I the only one that thinks that seeing Sony in this list is rather out of character, especially given Sony's recent actions?

cost of a license

[Jah Shaka]

interesting... so how much is a license and are we protected against license costs in the future?

""Patents owned by OIN will be available without payment of royalties to any company, institution or individual that agrees not to assert its patents against others who have signed a license with OIN"

Potentially awesome

[Ryvar]

The idea of an anti-patent patent trust is as old as the hills, but to see this much corporate clout behind it was unthinkable not five years ago. It feels like there's been a sea-change and I like it. More important than helping IBM and Sony fight Microsoft, if this idea gained momentum it could seriously roll back a lot of the current technical stagnation on account of software/algorithm patents.

Color me cautiously hopeful.

--Ryv

Re:A matter of trust...

[strider44]

Probably not. However you're forgetting how big a company Sony is. Just think of IBM - on one hand they are fighting against Microsoft through Linux and their servers and services, but on the other hand they are manufacturing chips for Microsoft's brand new console. They're all companies, not a single person. It's not personal, it's business. Noone involved in the rootkitting is also involved in this Linux alliance.

Re:Everione's invited :-)

[wpiman]

These three companies make their money in services and hardware-- ie. not software. I can't possibly imagine Microsoft joining given this. It would be like Microsoft and Oracle starting a group which would give out free hardware, and use the Open source community for free services (obviously hard to do). These hardware and service companies would want nothing to do with it.

Re:A matter of trust...

[EulerX07]

Hell, I'm sure the "Sony Consumer Electronics" groups has regular disagreements with the "Sony Music" group.

Re:cost of a license

[Anonymous Coward]

Software patents are not acceptable, these companies and others pushing for a stable ABI (binary drivers) are attempting to co-opt linux. To accept this patent pledge we would first have to accept that software patents are acceptable, they are not. If these companies are not prepared to mount legal challenges to patentability of software, this is at best an empty and worthless gesture, at worst an attempt to undermine copyright protection for software authors.

Re:A matter of trust...

[altoz]

I'm sure Sony employees are just as outraged as the rest of us are about the rootkit. Fact of the matter is that the entertainment moguls (music, tv, movies) are in a completely different division doing idiotic stuff. Think about it, if MIT had one professor that ran a criminal record on his students, there would be other professors on campus that would be outraged. Same thing here.

Re:A matter of trust...

[div_2n]

Yet as a consumer I can only judge the company as a whole and not the individual divisions since I have no idea how deep the evil streak runs and don't want to chance that some other product or service is equally as nasty.

what happens

[sad_]

what would happen if sony (or any other company, sony just taken by example) suddenly decides it was a bad idea to begin with and leaves this organisation?
will they be able to sue all the projects that made use of sony patents or will the patents used during the period a company was member stay 'free of use'?

Re:A matter of trust...

[xtracto]

Saying IBM or Sony is like saying United States of America. Are you talking about Texas or Hawaii or Massachusettes?


As a non-USA citizen I often think of USA as Geroge Bush and its government actions. I mean, that is the image you guys give to the world, it does not matter if you are trying to save the dolphins from the tuna nets down there... it is the overall image you give that counts.

Same thing for companies, look at Microsoft. They have several nice technologies and research (and its main CEO donates a hell lot of money to charity), but overall, their image is baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad as in really really bad.

Sony has got multiple personality disorder

[SmallFurryCreature]

Most obvious is that japanese sony != american sony. Secondly is that hardware sony != content sony.

Content sony only cares about pushing its wares but so does hardware sony. Hardware sony does not want people to not buy their hardware because it is to crippled while content sony does not want people to use their hardware to duplicate their content.

Then you got japan sony coming from a slightly different culture then the american "lets sue" sony.

But what I think is at the heart of this is the Sony that does not want to be owned by Microsoft. While the internet tv might not have happened I am sure there are people at sony that would dearly love the idea of them producing the "next pc". It is the only possibly explanation for Linux on the playstation sold by sony itself. They can't make a single cent profit on it. So why do it if not for learning wether it can be done?

Might it someday be possible to buy in the store a non-ms computer? Worse perhaps a computer that is not like today's pc's at all but far closer to say, oh a mobile phone?

MS has really screwed over every single company it has dealt with and the IBM Sony's of this world would dearly like to see a future were MS can't dictate so many terms.

It is basic economy. When your supplier controls you you are not in control. At the moment it is MS that control the PC and PC makers like sony don't like that.

So it is not out of character at all. Sony is just trying to get maximum profit. MS being toned down a bit means that sony can better dictate the terms, the terms probably being "we want more cash".

Simple really.

Sounds like a feud to me.

[crovira]

"having nothing to do with someone because their brother did something you don't like" sounds like a recipe for a long term feud if the people are popular enough.

After a few centuries, the people "having nothing to do with someone" are long dead but the feud remains. I know that the French are still around but for the life of me I can't figure out why. And I'm originally a Quebecois, a French speaker.

Human memory runs broad, not deep. That's why I don't trust it. Its too easy to forget exactly why anything.

That's why there are all those statutes and jurisprudence and "the rule of law." This can only work if the laws are written down (not carved on your back at the whim of some blood thirsty uber-lord and his sons [for some reasons its always sons. The girls in the family really take it in the shorts.)

This is another reason a distrust anything written by Microsoft. NONE of the documents originally produced my M$ Word 1.0 are still legible. But the ones I wrote in WordPerfect can still be opened and can be read in WordPerfect. (Ahhh the advantages of a persistent [and maybe open] document file format.)