FOSS Patents: these days is the tenth anniversary of the launch ...

Ten years ago to the day, the first FOSS Patents weblog post went are living. (in the desk of contents on the correct aspect that you could also find an entry for January 2010, but that one was added because of this--and backdated so the contact kind can be listed in the back of all of the specific content material.)

once I discuss with readers at courthouses or on different events, I understand most people do not even know what the "FOSS" stands for. That capability Free and Open source utility, a "politically and philosophically appropriate" term that describes each persuasions of the same circulation. on the outset, the idea became indeed to focus on patent threats and assertions against open-supply courses corresponding to Linux. I at all times considered the Open Invention community (OIN) very skeptically because it seemed to part of the issue to a a number of times more advantageous extent than it turned into part of the answer. and i turned into aware about some threats nobody had pronounced on at the time. definitely, there is one that I hadn't written about within the greater than sixteen years for the reason that it was made, but with so a lot water beneath the bridge by now--and with Microsoft being a member in first rate standing of the open-source community this present day--i'm g oing to reveal it on this event:

In early 2004, Microsoft's patent licensing branch contacted MySQL AB, the at the beginning Finnish-Swedish and, at the moment, heavily Americanized open-sourced database enterprise (whose CEO i used to be advising at the time). What Linux turned into in evaluation to windows, MySQL turned into to Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, and IBM Db2. The term is never used a lot anymore, however again then the "LAMP Stack" meant Linux, the Apache webserver, the MySQL database, and one of the P languages (broadly speaking Hypertext Preprocessor, with a few people using Perl, and even Python): an open-source expertise stack powering greater web sites than every other similar configuration. MySQL had risen to popularity alongside Linux. It changed into a symbiotic relationship. Microsoft, of course, preferred windows + cyber web guidance Server + SQL Server + visual Studio (C# or visual simple).

What Microsoft--and again, the Microsoft of then isn't the Microsoft of now when it involves these sorts of issues--instructed MySQL (a company that had acquired tens of thousands and thousands of dollars of venture funding whereas Microsoft already had roughly 10,000 instances more advantageous supplies) turned into that they claimed to cling a patent that coated functionality on the very core of the MySQL database engine. From a application development perspective, a database engine is a relatively monolithic (as adversarial to modular) issue. If a person asserted a patent towards the simple structure of your engine, it may suggest that you just ought to practically delivery everywhere. you'd lose years.

Microsoft changed into clear about its demand: a 2% royalty on MySQL's (tiny) earnings. Two issues were not clear, despite the fact: even if Microsoft had an agenda to actually delivery a patent conflict towards open source and, in particular, the LAMP Stack, so that an preliminary royalty contract will not have been an amicable decision of an IP problem however could have been the beginning of the conclusion for MySQL and LAMP; and Microsoft declined to disclose that mysterious killer patent.

The challenge I simply outlined--that Microsoft would wage an all-out patent struggle against open source--was no longer basically paranoia. A Microsoft exec in charge of corporate strategy on the time had informed some Silicon Valley venture buyers a year or two earlier than that "if it involves worst with open source, [they'd] simply use some of [their] patents." So what become introduced as a shakedown may have been a concealed attempt at a shutdown.

Microsoft changed into the handiest enterprise on the time to have a controversy with Linux; the rest of the trade considered Linux as an opportunity of liberation from Microsoft dominance. When it came to MySQL, youngsters, two other essential patent holders--IBM and Oracle--probably had just the identical strategic motivation to assault the a success startup, as those businesses have been pro-Linux, however faced a disruptive-innovation chance from MySQL. whereas that might have been a big violation of antitrust legislation, one of MySQL's founders even feared that Microsoft, IBM and Oracle might have agreed to launch near-simultaneous patent attacks on them. and that they had simplest a really few patents (from a smaller startup that they had received)--probably of zero retaliatory cost.

MySQL didn't accede to Microsoft's demand, and Microsoft under no circumstances stepped up the force or sued. part of the intent may also very smartly had been (and in my opinion, definitely has been) that there were two things occurring within the european that Microsoft had to be cautious about. the eu commission going after Microsoft for its behavior in every other behavior; and the european's legislative bodies (Council and Parliament) were engaged on a Directive for the Patentability of laptop-applied inventions, i.e., application patents directive. concerns with the aid of the open-source neighborhood performed a crucial role in the political debate.

At some element MySQL was seriously given that making Microsoft's patent royalty demand public. We had already prepared an announcement, and it become going to be based round an open letter to european policy-makers urging them to abolish utility patents in Europe (though that do not have solved the problem for MySQL any place else, and it definitely generated most of its revenues in the U.S. anyway). We failed to improve the conflict, and in the end that became more advantageous for every person worried.

Oddly, about 5 years later Microsoft really tried to take care of MySQL's independence. Oracle become in the process of acquiring sun Microsystems, which had bought MySQL the outdated yr for $1 billion. whereas sun desired MySQL's business to develop, there have been motives to count on Oracle quite simply desired to manage it as a way to eliminate a aggressive threat. Microsoft and SAP (even if basically involved about Java in the beginning) have been the two large complainants, and MySQL's founder, Michael "Monty" Widenius, became the third complainant, with assist from me. So MySQL's founder and that i ended up in an alliance with Redmond about 5 years after we had notion Microsoft would probably use patents to wreck it.

If no longer for that ancient Microsoft patent hazard towards MySQL--16 years beneath wraps--, I may not ever have gotten worried with patent policy in the first place. and that i had it very a good deal in intellect once I launched FOSS Patents. at the moment, I already knew that Microsoft wasn't always a foe (as the Oracle-sun merger review showed). actually, I felt that some FOSS americans, might be because they bought funding from the likes of IBM and Oracle, weren't being fair: they turned a blind eye to some other big tech organizations' (especially their fiscal backers') questionable patent dealings and professional-software-patent lobbying, but even when Microsoft had decent intentions in certain areas, they checked out anything Microsoft did or introduced like Sherlock Holmes with a magnifier glass and, if all else failed, without problems made up concerns that weren't warranted. a part of the FOSS Patents agenda turned into to focus more on organizations whose patent abu se acquired much less attention, however "deserved" extra. the primary huge story right here changed into the 2d post ever: on an IBM possibility against an open-source mainframe emulator.

This blog's center of attention evolved dynamically. in reality, just about 4 weeks earlier than I launched FOSS Patents, Apple had filed its first patent infringement complaint in opposition t an Android machine maker (HTC). Android became essentially the most heavily-attacked piece of open-supply application that year as Oracle sued Google (a case that later became only a copyright dispute as Oracle's patents failed in court), Microsoft sued Motorola, Motorola sued Apple (which countersued using mostly the same patents as against HTC), and the following yr Apple sued Samsung.

Of the roughly 2,300 FOSS Patents posts I've written so far (additionally, there have been a couple of guests posts), roughly sixty three% (1,456 posts) went live in the years 2011-2013, the three years through which the "smartphone patent wars" have been raging on a really large scale. with the aid of 2014 that they had already subsided, and in 2014 numerous disputes got here to a partial or complete conclusion.

With these Android companies countersuing, my litigation reporting conveniently had a mobile focal point (and sometimes even gaming consoles). If I had expected that, i would have named the blog "cell Patents" or "telephone Patents."

basically, "FRAND Patents" would have made even more experience. I already took a clear position against injunctions over ordinary-elementary patents in 2010. And a number of years later, a analysis In motion/BlackBerry legal professional accused me, after a Mannheim trial, of getting "devalued" SEPs and that companies had been slicing again on their standardization actions (absolutely not proper, as all of us comprehend now with the benefit of 2020 hindsight).

greater lately, this blog has well-nigh been an "automotive" blog, most effective as a result of motor vehicle makers are at present those that SEP holders like Nokia basically are searching for to prey on.

So there's doubtless no aspect in ever renaming a blog, a great deal less when it's as smartly-referred to as this one. i am very grateful for having so many loyal readers, and a few particularly crucial individuals in the trade in addition to within the judiciary, executive and (to a lesser diploma) legislative branches of executive. I in fact am.

there may be one factor I had envisioned for the tenth anniversary that I haven't found the time for: a remodel. This blog nonetheless uses the "Blogspot" platform's customary weblog design. Blogspot grew to be Google's "Blogger" service, and undoubtedly helps more fashionable layouts. youngsters, due to the fact that I have manually entered and edited all of the HTML tags here from the outset, it's slightly dangerous to swap to a more moderen design (I ran a test and the outcome looked awkward)--I or a person i'd pay for it could need to go over 2,000+ posts and make countless manual adjustments. on the other hand, it will possibly ensue later this 12 months--actually sometime earlier than the competencies 20th anniversary :-)

there were times when i was significantly seeing that discontinuing this weblog, or handing it to another corporation, similar to an IP-focused publishing business. however in recent years there had been some in reality unique developments--and that i've found a way to keep running a blog whereas continuing to run an app construction company (i could have a brand new game to announce this summer season).

a few of you encouraged me to retain going--even some who have reasonably distinctive positions on SEPs or on patent coverage in customary. Thanks for that, too. i'll preserve sharing my honest observations and opinions with all of you for fairly some more time!

observe @FOSSpatents

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