06.11.08
Red Hat Pays Intellectual Monopoly Money
Red Hat settles 2 patent lawsuits filed against it
[…]
Financial terms of the settlements were not disclosed.
Red Hat Vice President Rob Tiller said the company is still defending itself against a third patent complaint filed in October 2007 by IP Innovation LLC and Technology Licensing Corp.
Remember what IP Innovation might really be [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10].
Red Hat will soon host its own summit and it will have ‘friends’ like Novell nearby. Maybe it can ‘thank’ Novell for pushing further the software patents agenda.
Imagine if the Los Angeles Lakers held a fan rally in Boston, right in the Celtics’ back yard. That’s the situation facing the open source industry, where the Red Hat Summit starts June 18 right in Boston — roughly 15 miles from Novell’s corporate headquarters.
Any more discouraging news from the land of mathematical patents? █
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.
Miles said,
June 11, 2008 at 9:56 am
Interesting that Red Hat did not fight the allegations and instead chose to settle.
Needs Sunlight said,
June 11, 2008 at 10:02 am
The Reuters link at the beginning of the post above is more or less devoid of information *and* will disappear soon.
CNet, among others, gives more information about what the patent trolls are on about *and* is likely to stay on the web for a while:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9965682-7.html
Miles said,
June 11, 2008 at 10:38 am
Nice that Red Hat made sure its customers were protected in the settlement. Have to respect that.