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Microsoft Joins OIN; Open-Sources its Patent Portfolio

posted by martyb on Wednesday October 10 2018, @10:53PM   
from the what's-the-catch dept.

DannyB writes:

Microsoft open-sources its patent portfolio

By joining the Open Invention Network, Microsoft is offering its entire patent portfolio -- with the legacy exception of its Windows and desktop application code -- to all of the open-source patent consortium's members.

Before Microsoft joined, OIN had more than 2,650 community members and owns more than 1,300 global patents and applications. OIN is the largest patent non-aggression community in history and represents a core set of open-source intellectual-property values. Its members include Google, IBM, Red Hat, and SUSE. The OIN patent license and member cross-licenses are available royalty-free to anyone who joins the OIN community.

This is maybe the biggest Microsoft news since Microsoft "acquired" The Linux Foundation nearly two years ago in Nov 2016.

Also at Ars Technica.

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Original Submission

• Beneifts of OIN are cancelled by Azure Advantage Beneifts of OIN are cancelled by Azure Advantage (Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 11 2018, @02:27AM (1 child)

  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 11 2018, @02:27AM (#747259)

  The benefits of this move, aside from PR and spin, are negated by their Azure Advantage program [pcworld.com].. There are two reasons for that. The first is that OIN only applies to patents that Microsoft is granted. If a non-practicing entity, nominally a patent troll, waltzes in with their own patent, OIN cannot help. The second reason is that Microsoft is in the practice of off-loading patents, a method known as "spring licensing [redmondmag.com]". That means that when Microsoft sells off a patent grant, they add in a clause indemnifying their own customers and only their own. Who is left to attack then? Non-Microsoft cutomers. How can OIN help? It can't because Microsoft sold the patents. Can't anyone counter sue, especially for cross-licensing? Nope, these are non-practicing entities. The have no reason to and even if they did they have no tangible assets being just a shell company. If you fight you lose money and if you win in court, the shell company vanishes in a cloud of greasy black smoke and you're still out your money.

  Joining OIN would have been a great symbolic move well before Azure. Now it is just Microsoft finding a clever way to fuck with Free and Open Source software users while getting positive PR from the obsequious and ignorant trade press.

  So yeah pull the other one, Bill, it's got bells on it.

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• Re:Beneifts of OIN are cancelled by Azure Advantag (Score: 4, Informative) by maxwell demon on Thursday October 11 2018, @04:54AM

  by maxwell demon (1608) on Thursday October 11 2018, @04:54AM (#747289) Journal

  Joining OIN would have been a great symbolic move well before Azure.

  Even before, it would not have been a great symbolic move:

  • OIN members do not grant the patents to everyone but only to other OIN members. You are not a member? You still can be sued.
  • It only covers a specific list of projects. Reuse the code in another project, and you can be sued. Moreover, only modified versions with maintainers mentioned on their web site are covered; if you aren't and fork the project, you can be sued.
  • A member can leave OIN; when doing so, the patent license ends.

  In other words, OIN is actively harmful to Linux.

  --
  The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.

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