Linux founder launches attack on software patents
3 February 2005
Linux founder Linus Torvalds has attacked software patents, claiming they are a "problem" for the open source community.
Speaking at a panel discussion at a Linux summit in California, the open source pioneer expressed concern about the possible effects of patent lawsuits or licences on the development of open source software.
Linux is a freely available alternative to Microsoft's Windows and relies on a community of programmers for its development. Open source principles allow others to use and modify software without having to pay licence fees.
"Are software patents useful? That's pretty clearly not the case. Software patents are clearly a problem," Mr Torvalds told the OSDL Linux Summit.
There are between 150,000 and 300,000 registered software patents in the US, but companies are starting to open their files. IBM has made 500 of its patents freely available and other IT giants are expected to follow suit.
However, there is a growing concern that some companies could use patents to force smaller firms to buy expensive software licences. Many open source developers believe a slew of patents should not have been granted. Speaking at the same meeting, Mitchell Kapor, chairman of the Mozilla foundation, warned that Microsoft could use patent lawsuits in the future.
"If totally pushed to the wall - because their business model no longer holds up in an era in which open source is an economically superior way to produce software...of course they're going to unleash the WMDs," Mr Kapor is reported as saying.
Apply for your free web assessment - get a complete health check and optimisation action plan from Weboptimiser, the experts.
Related news
|
|
Leading brand search engine marketing since 1996
Founded in 1996 as an SEO company, Weboptimiser is today one of the Internet marketing sector's best-known and most respected search engine optimisation (SEO) and pay per click (PPC) search engine marketing companies.
With a unique portfolio of brand-friendly services, including usability, contextual advertising and web analytics, a pioneering methodology that covers all 4 stages of interaction between a web site and its visitors, we make our clients sites faster, smarter, busier and more profitable.
