Consortium launches 'LinuxDefenders'

Computerworld - Open Invention Network, which buys patents related to the Linux operating system and licenses them royalty-free, today launched a program aimed at encouraging open-source developers to document information about their work so that it can be easily read and used by patent offices and lawyers.

The Durham, N.C., intellectual property company said the new Linux Defenders Program (registration required) will provide funds to help developers pay to upload documentation about their code to sites like IP.com, a patent database. Keith Bergelt, CEO of OIN, called IP.com the main source of information for patent officials and others researching the viability of a proposed patent.

"You don't have to write a book [about your work]," said Bergelt. "You could put your ideas in bullet form or one very long blog-like sentence."

OIN will also aid developers going the potentially costlier and more lengthy process of submitting their own patent applications, he added.

The program, said Bergelt, will make it easier for patent holders and users to defend against claims by so-called "patent trolls" as well as from Microsoft Corp., which has claimed that Linux violates its patents. To date, Microsoft has not attempted to legally prove that assertion.

"Our activities by their very nature are a deterrent to Microsoft or any other company to engage in hostile action or rhetoric," he said. "We didn't acquire our existing patent portfolio by accident."

OIN was created in 2005 by a consortium that includes open-source advocates like IBM, Red Hat and Novell, along with NEC, Royal Philips Electronics and Sony, and today owns more than 150 Linux-related patents. Firms that license OIN's patents must agree in return not to use them against Linux vendors or users. Licensees include Google, Oracle and Alfresco Software.

OIN first announced in August that it was creating a pool of Linux patents. Bergelt this week said that the Linux Defenders program has several challenges, especially in convincing the many open-source developers who oppose the patent system in general to participate.

The second major challenge is in helping developers figure out who deserves credit for inventions made in the communal process of developing open-source software. "It is sometimes tricky, creating a discrete zone for what you and what others invented," he said.

LinuxDefenders.org carries on some of the work promoted by the former Open Source Development Labs, which ran on online library of open-source patents that was also designed to allay concerns about patent lawsuits. The patent library was apparently discontinued after the OSDL merged with the Free Standards Group in early 2007 to form the Linux Foundation.

The Linux Foundation and the Software Freedom Law Center are co-sponsors of the Linux Defenders program.

Linux Defenders will compete with and complement work under way at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the SourceForge open-source hosting Web site and the Groklaw site. The latter site is active with messages and postings from open-source enthusiasts, many of whom have done extensive amateur research into cases like the ongoing SCO battle to prove that it owns Linux code.

Bergelt said that even as OIN continues its primary mission of buying patents, it is also "directing invention" of Linux technologies by funding research at various universities, including the University of Vermont.

Read more about open source in Computerworld's Open Source Knowledge Center.