Novell-Red Hat Conundrum: What's a FOSS Supporter to Do?

[ Thanks to Jmaguire for this link. ]

"This is not a random example. It could have occurred last week, except that those involved chose to avoid presenting the community with such a dilemma.

"I am referring to the request for community help in the IP Innovation LLC et al vs. Red Hat Inc. et al suit. This patent case concerns three patents on multiple workspaces (AKA virtual desktops) -- a common feature of GNOME, KDE, and other GNU/Linux desktops. The defendants are looking for prior art -- that is, evidence that the multiple workspaces existed before the patents were filed. Such evidence could make the patent invalid and therefore stop the case.

"The idea that software patents are dubious and stifle innovation is widely accepted in the FOSS community. The Free Software Foundation's End Software Patents campaign, for example, enjoys almost uncritical support in the community. For this reason, it is unsurprising that the request was widely publicized, and met with dozens of intelligent responses. Typical coverage was found on Slashdot, which used the headline, "Red Hat Enlists Community Help To Fight Patent Trolls.""

Complete Story

Related Stories:

• KDE 4.2: Ten Tips for Getting Started(Feb 24, 2009)
• Debian GNU/Linux 5.0: Flexible and (Almost) Free(Feb 19, 2009)
• OpenOffice.org Base: Creating basic databases and tables(Feb 19, 2009)
• Seven Ways that GNU/Linux Tops Vista(Feb 17, 2009)
• Looking Inside Microsoft's Open Source Repository(Feb 11, 2009)
• KDE on Windows: Subversive, but Useful(Feb 04, 2009)