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Linux Foundation Lives in a Fool’s Paradise

Linux Foundation (LF) chief Jim Zemlin needed hand-holding after IBM waved some of its patents
By Maureen O'Gara
Article Rating:
April 8, 2010 04:15 PM EDT
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 4,237

Linux Foundation (LF) chief Jim Zemlin needed hand-holding after IBM waved some of its patents under the nose of open source mainframer TurboHercules, particularly those two allegedly penalty-free patents IBM pledged to the open source community five years ago, so he turned to LF board member Dan Frye, VP of open systems development at IBM.

Frye thereupon repeated part of IBM's 2005 pledge closing his e-mail with the words "IBM stands by this 2005 Non-Assertion Pledge today as strongly as it did then. IBM will not sue for the infringement of any of those 500 patents by any Open Source Software."

According to Zemlin that means "all of us can breathe easy - IBM remains true to their word."

Jim, Jim, aside from being at variance with IBM's other official statements, he didn't say IBM wouldn't assert its patents - even those magic 500 - like it did. And he didn't say it wouldn't sue TurboHercules or any open source company for that matter using any of its zillion other unpledged patents.

You willing to bet Linux or MySQL or some other big OSS projects don't infringe hundreds or thousands of IBM patents beyond the list of 500, maybe even some of the 171 other unpledged patents and applications sent to TurboHercules?

See here.

Published April 8, 2010 – Reads 4,237
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More Stories By Maureen O'Gara

Maureen O'Gara the most read technology reporter for the past 20 years, is the Cloud Computing and Virtualization News Desk editor of SYS-CON Media. She is the publisher of famous "Billygrams" and the editor-in-chief of "Client/Server News" for more than a decade. One of the most respected technology reporters in the business, Maureen can be reached by email at maureen(at)sys-con.com or paperboy(at)g2news.com, and by phone at 516 759-7025. Twitter: @MaureenOGara

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