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Microsoft Joins OIN; Open-Sources its Patent Portfolio

posted by martyb on Wednesday October 10 2018, @10:53PM   Printer-friendly
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.

Original Submission

 
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  • (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.

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