"Large patent portfolio owners seem to be in a particularly generous mood these days. A few weeks after IBM announced it was giving away 500 patents, Sun jumped on the bandwagon by announcing that it is releasing more than 1,600 patents associated with the Solaris OS, a move they describe as eclipsing any other vendor's contribution.
"While IBM's patent release was generally well-received by the open source community, Sun's move has so far been viewed with suspicion by some, including its competitors, IBM, Red Hat and Novell..."
