Re: Article: IBM wants to "clean up the license" of Linux

Alan Cox (alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk)
Sun, 20 Dec 1998 03:41:49 +0000 (GMT)

> The problem: if IBM supplies 24x7 support for Linux, they will want
> to tweak the code to help their customers. No problem, and it falls
> under the GPL of course. What if IBM uses an IBM patent? It would be
> very bad (from their point of view) if that somehow gave everyone
> rights to the patent.

That I can understand. I'm still of the opinion all the abusers of software
patents in the US ought to be nailed to trees but I can see the sanity of
making the GPL require the patent is granted to GPL'd software only. That
protects its value in the legacy (grin) proprietary software market. That
doesn't seem too unreasonble an idea.

Alan

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