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Sun Grants Global Open Source Community Access to More than 1,600 Patents
SANTA CLARA, Calif., Jan. 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today announced the largest single release of patent innovations into the open source community by any organization to date, marking a significant shift in the way Sun positions its intellectual property portfolio. By giving open source developers free access to Sun(TM) OpenSolaris related patents under the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL), the company is fostering open innovation and establishing a leadership role in the framework of a patent commons that will be recognized across the globe. "As the largest business contributor to the open source community, Sun has always been an ardent believer in open standards and the open source process going back to the inception of this company," said Scott McNealy, Chairman and CEO, Sun Microsystems, Inc. "The release of more than 1,600 patents associated with the Solaris(TM) OS far eclipses any other vendor's contribution. Today represents a huge milestone for Sun, for the community, for developers and for customers." Sun's goal in offering access to these patents is to help facilitate innovation and help users get new open source products and technologies to market faster without having to obtain patent licenses from Sun. The new approach underscores Sun's belief that license agreements for software are not as significant as the company who stands behind its products. Sun is also addressing current issues and increased scrutiny in U.S. and international patent law which has increasingly granted overly broad patents on abstract processes. In removing the emphasis on intellectual-property rights as an inhibitor to innovation, Sun is leveling the playing field in key emerging markets and helping to revive an innovation system that is straining under a record number of patent filings globally. More markets are looking for ways to monetize their knowledge economy and patents are becoming the profit center. With growing attention on locking up intellectual property in countries like China -- which has seen a five-fold increase in the number of patent filings from 1991 to 2001 -- Sun is ensuring that software will be available to open source developers and that progress continues unabated. "By gaining access to these Solaris OS patents, participants in the open-source community now have a tremendous opportunity to build unique and innovative technologies for a wide range of markets," said Stacey Quandt, Senior Business Analyst, Open Source Practice Leader, Robert Frances Group. "An IP contribution of this magnitude has the potential to deliver exceptional value to developers and strengthens the overall open source community." Addressing the patent system that is under siege, Sun's pledge of open access reduces the quagmire for developers who previously had to walk through a minefield to avoid infringement and enables them to confidently produce derivative works without fear of reprisal or patent claims. Radically reducing risks associated with using and developing open source software, Sun is firmly standing behind our products and the worldwide development community. Armed with access to Solaris OS platform intellectual property, OpenSolaris developers and customers alike no longer need patent protection or indemnity from Sun's and other participants in the OpenSolaris community for use of Solaris-based technologies under the CDDL and OpenSolaris community process. By releasing the OpenSolaris OS platform under the CDDL, the open source community will immediately gain access to 1,600 active Sun patents for all aspects of operating system technologies that encompass features ranging from kernel technology and file systems to network management, to name a few. Patents for Sun's newest technologies, such as the anticipated Dynamic Tracing technology, will also be available under the open access program. Historically, Sun has contributed more code to open source initiatives than all other organizations with the exception of UC Berkeley, and remains committed to providing engineering support for Apache, Mozilla, Gnome, OpenOffice, Grid, JXTA, ODSL and other open source projects. Previously, Sun donated the source code of StarOffice(TM) software, which drives the OpenOffice suite bundled with most versions of Linux and was awarded a Product Excellence Award at the 2004 LinuxWorld Conference & Expo for Best Productivity/Business Application. About Sun Microsystems, Inc. Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision -- "The Network Is The Computer(TM)" -- has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com . NOTE: Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Solaris, StarOffice and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. FOR MORE INFORMATION: Mark Richardson 650-257-4038 Sun Microsystems, Inc. mark.richardson@sun.com Jill Ratkevic 415-365-0482 Bite Communications for Sun Microsystems |
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Comments (7)
You can not use those 1600 patents in any GPL'ed software, so they pose a risk to Linux rather than a benefit. A risk in the sense that they could contaminate the "minds" of linux of developers that read the Solaris code.
As usual SUN is full of it
Sun gives the selected group of OpenSolaris Developers immunity against patent attack from Sun and that was required for Sun to even be able to harbour the hope of getting any outside developers.
Those 1600 patents are restricted to Sun's CDDL only. This is a very paltry offer in comparison to IBM's patent pledge, which applies to any OSI compliant license and not to a specific one.
Sun is trying to pull an Apple here.
Apple released the bare core of Mac OS X to the community under the APSL. By doing so, Darwin became largely uncombinable with other FOSS code and as such it kept strict ties to Apple.
From a strictly technological point of view Darwin may very well be innovative, but looking practically at it, it is a Nix that emulates the BSD userland.
Darwin got a small developers community and some of those seem to hope to be able to recreate Mac OS X. Darwin simply has not yielded anything other than an undistinctive YAN (Yet Another Nix). The only true beneficiary is Apple. They got a community that maintains their base OS for free and Apple makes the big bugs with the closed Aqua GUI layer.
I expect Sun to do the same here. Just release the uninteresting tidbits to the community and make For Pay Solaris something different than OpenSolaris. It is just outsourcing development of their base OS to an OpenSolaris community.
I expect Java to go CDDL as wel. (Don't know if they can relicense future OpenOffice.org releases under the CDDL.) This way Sun could make an endrun around the current FOSS community and become centerstage of the FOSS world through sheer volume of their codebase and therefor CDDL license dominance, or so they think.
That way the community would wash it for me and I wouldn't have to do it myself.
That's what communities based around companies boil down to. We do their laundry and they let us wear a few nice shirts.
-Steve Bergman
So, you won't do my laundry? :p
please overnight UPS your dirty laundry to
Peragrin 1234 Microsoft Way Hell, NY 12345
Your laundry will be cleaned by our expert techs, and returned to you in a small box.
Please note we aren't responsible for damaged and missing items. don't ask for a signature as no one here signs anything.
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Hmm. I wonder if we can convince Microsoft to donate some patents as well so they don't look like total Scrooges? Or would it be more effective to simply point them out as tightwads to others?