SearchEnterpriseLinux: Big Blue Defends Open Source Patent Offering

[ Thanks to Peter Parker for this link. ]

"What kinds of changes do you expect to happen in the open source community due to the release of these patents?

"Charles King: Hard to make specific predictions without running through the patents one by one, but I'm optimistic about the move for number of reasons. IBM stated that this is the first step and that it will continue its commitment to deliver additional patents like this or open additional patents in the future. In the announcement, they pointed out the patents involved in many of the cases were for technologies that are used in current open source and Linux developments. Also significant is the fact that the market has gotten pretty sensitized with the issued around IP in the last year... especially given suits and IT issues cropping up on regular basis..."

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