[Cumbria] Legal development of free software

[Nick Hill]

Michael Saunders wrote:
> On Fri, 14 Mar 2003, Nick Hill wrote:
> 
> 
>>I am concerned that companies such as Microsoft will succeed in
>>killing their competition- free and open source software.
> 
> 
> Don't be. This was more of a worry in 1998/99, when Linux was just
> starting to appear on Microsoft's radar, but now there's far, FAR too
> much investment (not just financially) in open source software.
> 
> IBM, Red Hat etc. aren't going to sit around and let Microsoft try to
> spoil things; equally, Sun, Intel, AMD, Oracle et al. have varying
> levels of involvement in open source code and won't be tolerant.
> 
> When the world's biggest computer company (and a traditionally very
> conservative one) is putting $1 billion into Linux development, it's a
> sign that Linux and OSS is here to say. The Internet pretty much runs
> on Apache, Sendmail, BIND etc. -- they're not going away.

There are several issues here. I will number them and deal with each in 
turn:
1)How will the proposals affect large corporations such as IBM.
2)How will the proposals threaten the continued existance of the free 
software we already have.
3) Will the proposals change the findamental nature of free software
  If 3) then what will be the effect on The method of free software 
production/ debugging and our freedoms?

1) IBM is a large corporation. It has deep pockets. It has a large 
patent portfolio. IBM say they get ten times more benefit from their 
patent portfolio than what they receive through licensing revenue. (This 
was quoted in the Wall Street Journal. I can get details). In effect, 
the patents IBM holds allows it to keep in a market by cross licensing 
technology with other players. If a small company (I will use small 
company synonymously with an individual from now on) does not have the 
leverage of patents in a marketplace, established players in the market 
can exclude the new entrant. If a new entrant has a patent on new 
technology which the existing players don't have, then the new player 
will need to totally avoid using any existing patented ideas curently 
used in the area to avoid having to cross-license with the established 
players. The chances of a new player in a market being able to do this 
are virtually nil in a fast moving technology area. A new entrant with 
new technology will therefore still have to compete with established, 
rich players. An exception is Dyson, but he entered a long established 
area where relatively little technology used in the market was patented. 
Most was patent-expired.

 From this, it can be seen that IBM, through these proposals, will gain 
far more control of free software. Small companies will no longer be 
able to continue in the marketplace. No-one will be able to safely 
program, extending and improving free software, even at the simplest 
level, without risking infringing a patent. IBM has a great advantage. 
If someone tries to attack IBM for patent infringement, IBM will likely 
find a patent the attacker is infringing and offer to cross license. The 
  only recourse to a small company will usually be to go bankrupt/ exit 
the market. IBM will, effectively, inherit free software. What we know 
of as free software will no longer be so as we will no longer have the 
freedoms which makes free software different from proprietary software, 
except being able to read how it works. This is little use if you are 
not actually allowed to write and release software.

2)How will the proposals threaten the continued existance of the free 
software we already have?
There are many ideas in free software which have been patented 
somewhere. For example, there are many tecniques to do with discrete 
cosine transformations patented. These tecniques are used extensively in 
Jpeg, MPEG sound and video, Ogg vorbis sound. Due tot he problems with 
searching for abstract ideas in a patent database, it is very difficult 
to know whether the tecnique you are using has been patented. Often you 
will only know when a patent holder tells you to scrap your project or 
go bankrupt. Therefore, a general acceptance of software patents will 
prevent free software from being able to support any multimedia format 
which is less than 20 years old. Not knowing a patent exists is no 
defence against a patent suit.  As far as apache goes, there are new 
tecniques evolving allt he time whcich a competent web server 
application must support to remain competitive. Unless apache comes 
under the total stewardship of a very rich corporation such as IBM, it 
will cease to be competitive soon.

3) Will the proposals change the findamental nature of free software? 
Yes. Free software gets it's power through an involvement of a large 
number of people. It is estimated there are 500,000 people who 
contribute to the body of free software. Peiople debug, make patches, 
feed these patches back to the body of the project for everyone to 
benefit. If people cannot write and share their efforts, the system will 
crumble. A small company will no longer be able to set about writing a 
new application, applet or other software without the backing of a major 
patent holder. Free softare will efectively cease to exist. I predict 
Linux as we know it, will become another SCO, under the exclusive 
stewardship of IBM, to do with it as they wish. Free software will not 
be the only casualty. Proprietary software from small firms such as 
Opera Software will have the same trouble. This si why 400 European 
firms (Including Opera Software) are supporting the work to fight 
software patents in Europe, with 140,000 signatures from individuals. 
Despite this, Arlene McCarthy is pressing ahead with her Evil plans.

Our freedoms we enjoy with free software will be curtailed to the point 
under a software patent regime that free software might as well not 
exist. The method of production, the sharing of effort, the distributed 
debugging, the small company/ individual programming, the competition 
will all stop.

> 
> 
>>There is a real and current danger that free software will,
>>effectively, be outlawed by the introduction of extended
>>state-sanctioned monopolies.
> 
> 
> It'll never be "outlawed". As said, Linux, *BSD, OSS etc. is now way
> too important to large companies for anything very serious to happen.
Free software will not be outlawed overtly. The systems and 
infrastructure which feed and enable free software to grow will be 
outlawed, effectively killing free software.

> 
> Microsoft may be powerful, but can you imagine such "outlawing"  
> actually happening? Somebody telling Amazon, Google, Yahoo! etc. that
> they must close business to replace all their servers? Some poor sod
> visiting IBM, Sun and others, asking them to halt their millions of
> bucks and research and switch to Windows?
> 

IBM will be laughing. They will have a system, once free now 
proprietary. They will be able to use free software to leverage in their 
business model without threat of competition. Free software can 
currently be used by IBM's competitors as well as IBM themselves.

The small people with the smallest of voices will be crying. If they are 
not being head now, then how much will they be heard once their society 
has crumbled?

> Software patents are generally horrid things and Microsoft will no
> doubt try to slow the pace of Linux development with them, but IBM,
> Sun, Red Hat etc. have a LOT of clout and won't just sit back and
> watch a convicted monopolist (with a few supportive individuals) try
> to destroy the Free Software world.
> 

They are.

> Microsoft are struggling to get a hold on all this. They're not evil,
> just overly-aggressive and too focused on short-term money-making. The
> days of expensive shrink-wrapped boxed software are slowly coming to
> an end, and MS realises this -- it's why they're utterly saturating
> their Xbox product with money (projected losses of $750m/yr and
> growing), in order to get a foothold in a more lucrative market.

Microsoft are poring money into Xbox because their investors expect 
Microsoft's revenues to continue growing according to the historical 
chart. Microsoft's share price reflects the expected future growth rate. 
Microsoft will not be able to rely solely on desktop/ tablet/ mobile 
phone/ pda software to continue growing at their historical rate.

> 
> Very large and powerful companies are supporting Linux directly, and
> many more have a significant investment (time, money and manpower) in
> all this free code.

IBM would benefit if the projects they are poring money into were 
effectively proprietary. Perhaps IBM know this already??