Linux's legal world after SCO

If you are a developer, you might consider helping out. You don't need to know everything there is to know about patents to contribute meaningfully. In fact, if you are a developer, you certainly know what would make a tagging system practical. The thing about working as a group is that no one person needs to know everything. You just contribute your piece and others will build on it. Join the email discussion list at its priorart-discuss Mailman page. There will be a meeting sometime in September at OSDL for all those interested in the software tagging project.

By the way, Microsoft has signed up as a member and sponsor of the New York Law School project, which was initiated principally by IBM and the USPTO. It's a testament to the fact that everyone, for different reasons, is aware that the current patent system isn't working well, and naturally everyone wants to direct the way reforms are decided. If your reaction to this is that the commercial interests will drown out community interests, then do sign up to participate and keep an eye on things. If you see anything, tell.

The OIN initiative is one of the most creative of the projects, and in my view it's a major factor holding the "Let's sue Linux into oblivion" crowd at bay. Why? Because OIN has patents, important, powerful patents, and if Linux is attacked, it will presumably use them. And OIN lets its licensees use its patents royalty free. Of course, you have to promise not to bring patent litigation against Linux or the Linux environment to be an OIN licensee. It's the carrot and stick approach. OIN is speaking a language that the business world understands. And so the Linux community is now a patent player, even though few in the FOSS community much cares for patents or ever wanted any.

Yes, it's sad that this is what it takes. But it's brilliant strategy, given that software patents are the current reality in the US. You work with what you have to work with. Some days you may wish corporate players had never discovered Linux and FOSS. But they did, and the good side of that same coin is that they bring with them money and skills. FOSS was a pleasanter world before SCO showed up, and it will never be quite the same as before the corporations showed an interest, but we can be glad that the large corporate entities that are now community members know how to counter threats on this level.

I think business players in the community can be made to understand that the one thing Microsoft can't embrace, extend and extinguish is FOSS values. You can trust the community, because it didn't write the software to do anything but honestly write the very best software it could. There are no hidden motives. No games. No lies. No underhanded marketing gamesmanship. It's pure software, written with love and for fun and in some cases to provide freedom to users. Nobody wrote Linux with the motive to destroy Microsoft, even if the reverse motivation might be true. And there is an honesty about the software. No FOSS developer would ever pretend that a browser was part of an operating system, for example. It's a different and more straightforward world.

And that difference is what businesses and governments and individuals can trust about FOSS. Values are its value add.

We need to thank Red Hat for proving that it can be done. They did it first, and it shut SCO's mouth, when it asserted that the GPL was damaging to the industry and the economy and claimed that no one could make money from Linux. Without saying a word, Red Hat's answer was to make a bundle, and it changed that discussion forever.

Finally, what has changed utterly is how the world views the GPL. The GPL isn't the only license that expresses values. Free and Open Source licenses are about values. But the GPL is the one that held SCO back. It's a license designed to thwart the SCOs of this world, and it did. So another big change from 2003, when this all began, is the heightened respect that the world now has for the GPL and for the foresight that its authors demonstrated. No doubt that is reflected in the broad interest currently being shown in drafting GPLv3 by individuals and corporations alike.

So here we are, a bit battle weary, perhaps, but also battle hardened. The Linux community turned out to be no 98-pound weakling. Proprietary companies know now they can't kick sand in its face and walk away unscathed. FOSS folks may not be litigious by nature, but it is known now far and wide that the community will take action to defend its code and its reputation, using the best weapons there are, the very same things that result in the wonderful software: intelligence, ingenuity, and the ability to use the Open Source method to quickly and effectively organize to solve problems.

SCO happened, and the Linux community not only survived, it rapidly organized effectively to counter the threat. The future may have its rough patches, but the community is now much better equipped legally to cope, and that alone diminishes the danger.