“After the billions it spends to make its company the poster boy
for Linux, IBM said the last thing it wants to do is launch a
patent attack against the Linux kernel.“‘I can assure you, we have no intention of asserting our
patents against the Linux kernel… unless of course we are forced
to defend ourselves,’ Nick Donofrio, IBM senior vice president of
technology and mnufacturing, said during his keynote address to
LinuxWorld attendees here.“The same can be said of enterprise Linux vendor Red Hat, whose
CEO Matt Szulik told internetnews.com that companies like his
should be the ones to take care of indemnifying customers from
legal threats. To that end, the company expanded its Open Source
Assurance Program in a new partnership with Black Duck Software.
The deal highlights Black Duck’s protexIP product line, which helps
track and identify open-source code in development projects in an
effort to avoid any potential licensing compliance issues…”