

Taking a stand on open source and patents - yanw
http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2013/03/taking-stand-on-open-source-and-patents.html

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mindcrime
Great move by Google. And a good bit of timing, considering the PR beating
they've been taking the past couple of weeks. One wonders if that's simply
chance, or if they pushed this out when they did because of all the other
stuff.

I'm guessing it's the former, since it typically takes big companies a long
time to pull something like this together and fully execute it.

In any case, it's a good step for Google to suggest that they DO still take
openness seriously and are, more or less, still the "don't be evil" company we
all came to know.

~~~
purephase
Could you elaborate on the PR beating comment? I feel like I've been under a
rock lately.

~~~
dangoldin
I suspect the parent is talking about the Google Reader shutdown and the flack
they've been taking from the tech press.

~~~
mindcrime
Yes, but it wasn't just about Google Reader. A number of things happened (or
hit the news) in a short period of time, all of which damaged Google's
standing as the "Don't Be Evil Company" and hurt their credibility with
hackers and people who care about things like the Open Web and Open Standards.

I'm not necessarily saying the backlash was (or wasn't) justified, but it was
what it was, and I think this step by Google is a good thing in terms of
earning them a bit more trust with that crowd. Whether that's something that
actively care about, is anybody's guess.

~~~
yanw
As PR beatings go that one was pretty contained (mainly to the HN frontpage).

~~~
indubitably
I didn't get that impression, at least for me it seemed to be all over
Facebook and (oh, rich) Google News.

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RyanMcGreal
Reciprocal altruism (i.e. tit-for-tat in game theory) tends to lead toward
equilibrium and reduced conflict and aggression over time. Google's decision
to publicize and promote this stance is an encouraging development.

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RobAley
Read differently:

"Apart from a few patents listed, we hold a large arsenal of patents that we
won't rule out using offensively against both developers AND users of open OR
closed source software."

As a software developer and user, I'm not entirely comforted....

~~~
mindcrime
No, but to be fair to Google they do say:

 _"Over time, we intend to expand the set of Google’s patents covered by the
pledge to other technologies."_

Now that's not a specific promise, so you can argue how much it should count
for. But if you take it at face value, it seems reasonable to expect that they
will be adding to the list.

~~~
JoshTriplett
By comparison to other companies that have offered a blanket promise to not
sue Open Source software over _any_ patents, a promise that only covers a
vanishingly small subset of a company's patents seems woefully inadequate.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Is that common? I thought most of those things were limited to specific
"fields", (which usually translates into a specific list of specific versions
of specific packages).

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darkchasma
If you want to really draw a line in the sand google, open all your patents,
and I will forever support you and your products. Until then, this just feels
like lip service.

~~~
indubitably
But there are TEN patents!

What do you people want?

------
callenish
I think this is an impressive first step, and I love the flow-through that
future owners will be equally bound by the terms. Essentially, it gives a
permanent free license to use the patents in any open source projects, which
can only be an incentive for businesses to make their code open if they can.

I've often wondered, though, why there isn't a consortium to which all the
companies with "defensive" software patents can assign them, on condition that
if the company get sued for ANY software patent, the consortium will terminate
the license to the plaintiff for ALL the patents it holds. The consortium
could make that explicit in the license for software patents they offer (for
free) to everyone. Sue someone for a software patent and you lose all rights
to these others.

That would kill software patents dead in their tracks, I think. There are many
elements of that solution in this one announced by Google, but it would be far
more effective if every company who hated software patents but held them
anyway collaborated.

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eslaught
I don't understand this point:

"The Pledge remains in force for the life of the patents, even if we transfer
them."

I realize Google can claim whatever they want, but I don't see how they
enforce this pledge for other entities which inherit their patents. How does
the pledge actually bind (at a legal level) entities which inherit the
patents?

~~~
RyanMcGreal
They could make upholding the pledge a condition of transfer.

~~~
unavoidable
Yep. Contract law.

------
nailer
Google's promise is almost an exact copy of what Red Hat did in 2004 - see
'Our Promise' from <http://www.redhat.com/legal/patent_policy.html>

~~~
magicalist
Just FYI, they linked to that very page (and [1] [2]) in the post when talking
about precedent to this move.

[1] <http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/7473.wss>

[2] <http://openinventionnetwork.com/>

------
iand
What reasons could there be for not assigning all Google's patents to this
policy from day one?

I hope Google aren't going to pick and choose the areas they will allow FOSS
innovation to happen in.

~~~
zacharypinter
I suspect they're just being cautious with the legal side this early on. One
reason to be cautious about the patents under the pledge: there might be some
grey area in the language where say, a competitor could make hostile moves
against Google while still falling under the protection of the pledge via
shell companies.

Side note: isn't this already their internal policy? When has Google ever gone
after open source projects with any of their patents?

~~~
iand
They never have gone after FOSS projects, which makes it all the more strange
that they haven't been willing put all their patents under this. Presumably
they have no outstanding suits that would be affected.

~~~
zacharypinter
I don't know. They're trying to create a legal contract that binds them and
stays valid as long as the duration of the patent. I'd be pretty careful about
putting every patent available under that agreement until I was sure that it
couldn't be used against me in an unintended way.

------
andreyf
> Don't read on unless you are free to read patents, as usual.

What does this mean? Why wouldn't someone be free to read patents?

~~~
kefka
Those who knowingly violate a known patent makes them responsible for treble
damages.

This applies much more in the realm of software, because of the idiocy of
things like the XOR mouse patent, Amazon 1-Click, and many other obvious
'inventions' that aren't, but were provided patent protection.

~~~
iand
You need to prefix your statement with "In the USA" to give the right context.

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darxius
I definitely think this is a step in the right direction. Its more true to
spirit of patents anyways and hopefully will draw more attention to patent
trolls in the future. Good move by Google.

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pessimizer
If Google wanted to sue open source mapreduce, it would have to sue the entire
internet. Very easy patents to give up.

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askimto
So they've pledged to do what they've already been doing?

~~~
ajross
In the legal world, that's not meaningless. Simply because one hasn't (yet!)
attempted to aggressively assert patents doesn't constitute a defense if one
decides to in the future. This might (though it's still not a contract, and I
didn't click through to read the terms).

~~~
mindcrime
Exactly. IANAL, but from what I've heard from people who are, the basic
premise behind these kind of pledges is Estoppel[1]. The basic gist of it, as
I understand it, is that you can't go around screaming something in public and
treating it as the truth ("anybody can use this patent and we won't sue you")
and then later come back and contradict that ("you are violating our patent,
pay up"). IOW, promises, made publicly like this, do count for something, even
if there's no explicit contract.

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel>

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tiedemann
If Apple, MS, Samsung, Sony and other large patent-holding companies dare go
along I for one welcome our new Google overlords.

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DanWaterworth
If Google or a future holder did sue an open-source project for the
infringement of one of these patents, how would this pledge hold up in court?

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salmonellaeater
What happens when a smaller company makes such a promise, then later they are
acquired or sold? If the acquirer is a big amoral company, I wouldn't count on
them upholding the promise. And as more and more companies take advantage of a
'safe' technology they think they can't get sued over, the patent gets juicier
and juicier as an acquisition target.

~~~
mcintyre1994
I'm not completely sure how it works, but I'd have thought an acquisition of a
company with patents involves transferring them patents to the new owner? In
that case, they're protected according to Google.

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outside1234
This is a great move. They are simultaneously acting open while also reserving
the right to shut down iCloud with a patent suit if Apple sues them in the
future. :)

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recoiledsnake
>At Google we believe that open systems win. Open-source software has been at
the root of many innovations in cloud computing, the mobile web, and the
Internet generally

Except for Google Maps, GMail, Google Search, Google Apps, AdSense, AdWords,
Reader, Code Search, News, or pretty much any of their web apps or which make
them money. In those cases, proprietary closed source wins.

~~~
magicalist
There's a link in the very line that you're quoting that goes to an article
that discusses "open systems" and "open-source software" as distinct things,
and addresses the benefits of open systems and an open-source stack, even when
building closed-sourced software. You may disagree completely with the
arguments in the article, but at least it's trying to engage in the subject,
which is more than can be said for your sound-bite answer to the first two
sentences of the linked blog post.

At no point does your quote say that open-source always wins, or that all
things should be open-source, so it's like you didn't read even those two
sentences. It always seems a bit artificial when people trot out "middlebrow
dismissal", but geez...

~~~
cooldeal
>There's a link in the very line that you're quoting that goes to an article
that discusses "open systems" and "open-source software" as distinct things

This is what it says about open systems.

>Another way to look at the difference between open and closed systems is that
open systems allow innovation at all levels — from the operating system to the
application layer — not just at the top. This means that one company doesn't
have to depend on another's benevolence to ship a product. If the GNU C
compiler that I'm using has a bug, I can fix it since the compiler is open
source. I don't have to file a bug report and hope for a timely response.

From that it appears that they're conflating "open systems" and "open source
software", not drawing a distinction like you're claiming.

>At no point does your quote say that open-source always wins, or that all
things should be open-source, so it's like you didn't read even those two
sentences.

From the same link that you site, Google says this:

>We believe that open is the only way for this to have the broadest impact for
the most people. We are technology optimists who trust that the chaos of open
benefits everyone. We will fight to promote it every chance we get.

>Open will win. It will win on the Internet and will then cascade across many
walks of life: The future of government is transparency. The future of
commerce is information symmetry. The future of culture is freedom. The future
of science and medicine is collaboration.

~~~
magicalist
> This is what it says about open systems. ... > From that it appears that
> they're conflating "open systems" and "open source software", not drawing a
> distinction like you're claiming.

Well it says a good bit more than that. It's certainly not conflating; his
argument appears to be that open source is a component of "open systems" (he
also calls out "open standards" and "open information" as other components,
and explicitly doesn't require all three).

>> _At no point does your quote say that open-source always wins, or that all
things should be open-source, so it's like you didn't read even those two
sentences._ > From the same link that you site, Google says this: >> _We
believe that open is the only way for this to have the broadest impact for the
most people. We are technology optimists who trust that the chaos of open
benefits everyone. We will fight to promote it every chance we get._ >> _Open
will win. It will win on the Internet and will then cascade across many walks
of life: The future of government is transparency. The future of commerce is
information symmetry. The future of culture is freedom. The future of science
and medicine is collaboration._

Those aren't contradictory statements.

Just to be clear, I'm certainly not saying that the "open" article is a
perfect crystallization of open-source/open-web/open-whatever philosophy, nor
would I say that Google has lived up to all the ideals in that article.

"Open systems" remains a poorly defined term at the end of that article
(though the individual concepts fare better), the paragraphs on why google has
closed-source software is awfully tilted to the "people will game these
systems if they are open source" without mentioning the myriad other reason
you might (and they do) keep source closed, and the open standards section is
a bit prickly these days (I personally don't think _not_ maintaining an RSS
feed reader is a blow to standards, as others do, but I remain disappointed
that G+ is not a federated system (or moving to one), for instance).

All that said, the original comment remains facile (and not even that, as the
statement "Open-source software has been at the root of many innovations in
cloud computing, the mobile web, and the Internet generally" is trivially
true, even (or especially) for the products mentioned).

