:ONLamp: Patent Pools Offer Open Source A New Incentive--And a New Source of Power
ONLamp: Patent Pools Offer Open Source A New Incentive--And a New Source of Power Dec 9, 2005, 01 :00 UTC (0 Talkback[s]) (13016 reads) (Other stories by Andy Oram)
"It's been talked about for years, and now there are well-endowed and well-researched organizations claiming to offer open source software some protection from patent lawsuits. The very announcement of these efforts--even before they have a chance to prove successful--are an historical watershed for open source and free software. For the first time you get back something tangible for open-sourcing. And this leads to another key change in the terrain: it now becomes critical how "open source" is defined, and who has the power to define it.
"The two patent pool projects concerned here--open source's shining knights in armor--are the Patent Commons Project and the Open Invention Network..."
