Re: [CODE4LIB] Patents and open source projects
Erik Hetzner erik.hetz...@ucop.edu MJ Ray wrote: Will people please stop suggesting that PTFS's attempts to register Koha trademarks in various jurisdictions are somehow because of inattention on the part of the Koha users and developers? It was my intention only to suggest that trademark issues were something that one needs to pay attention to, not that the Koha community had not paid attention to trademark issues. Thanks for clarifying the issue: I was unclear. OK, sorry, I'm probably a bit sensitive because of some of the crazier press coverage that we've had, suggesting that users or developers should have done various things - often contradictory - but like the old saying goes: the price of freedom is eternal vigilence. My personal opinion is that it wouldn't matter if friendly people had already registered it as a NZ trademark for whatever class covers software (and I understand someone has a similar trademark for it). Aome ratbags could still come along, register it for another class (books, perhaps), slip past the regulator by mistake and screw with the community for a while. Trademarks aren't quite as awful as patents, but they're not far off. Neither are as narrow and straightforward as copyright can be and are much more expensive to defend. They're a bottomless pit for resources and ideally private trademarks and patents should not be allowed for FOSS. Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and LMS developer, statistician. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire for Koha work http://www.software.coop/products/koha
Re: [CODE4LIB] Patents and open source projects
Just wanted to say thanks for the many responses. You all are right that this issue is not specific to library software in specific. It's not often that I hear such a resounding agreement from all responders!! -emily On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 12:53 PM, Erik Hetzner erik.hetz...@ucop.edu wrote: At Mon, 5 Dec 2011 08:17:26 -0500, Emily Lynema wrote: A colleague approached me this morning with an interesting question that I realized I didn't know how to answer. How are open source projects in the library community dancing around technologies that may have been patented by vendors? We were particularly wondering about this in light of open source ILS projects, like Kuali OLE, Koha, and Evergreen. I know OLE is still in the early stages, but did the folks who created Koha and Evergreen ever run into any problems in this area? Have library vendors historically pursued patents for their systems and solutions? I don’t think libraries have a particularly unique perspective on this: most free/open source software projects have the same issues with patents. The Software Freedom Law Center has some basic information about these issues. As I recall, the “Legal basics for developers” edition of their podcasts is useful [1], but other editions may be helpful as well. Basically, the standard advice for patents is what Mike Taylor gave: ignore them. Pay attention to copyright and trademark issues (as the Koha problem shows), but patents really don’t need to be on your radar. best, Erik 1. http://www.softwarefreedom.org/podcast/2011/aug/16/Episode-0x16-Legal-Basics-for-Developers/ Sent from my free software system http://fsf.org/.
Re: [CODE4LIB] Patents and open source projects
On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 5:18 PM, Erik Hetzner erik.hetz...@ucop.edu wrote: It was my intention only to suggest that trademark issues were something that one needs to pay attention to, not that the Koha community had not paid attention to trademark issues. Additionally, in the case of trademark in particular, it's ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL that once you find out about some ratbags, you begin to apply your attention with substantial vigor -- as it sounds like Koha has. Trademarks must be actively used and defended to remain valid. This can be hard for open-source projects, because defending trademarks involves lawyers and costs money. Not allowing trademarks and patents for FOSS is complex if they're allowed for software at all -- should someone reading a patent and providing a free implementation invalidate that patent? That's the exact opposite intent of patents. (Note: I think software patents should not exist at all.) If FOSS projects are immune to trademark suits, should I be able to start a competing open-source catalog and call it Koha or Evergreen? That seems like an undesirable outcome. -n
Re: [CODE4LIB] Patents and open source projects
Ironically, I had (or there was) some trouble with the term MyLibrary@NCState. Granted, the term was originally a variation of My Netscape, My Yahoo, and My Deja News, but all sorts of things followed it, like MyiLibrary, the Google Books My Library, and then there was a ALA thing. I'm not necessarily saying MyLibrary was the leader here, but an example of how trademarks (monikers) can be used, abused, and morphed. --Eric Morgan
Re: [CODE4LIB] Patents and open source projects
I once got a cease and desist letter from a legal firm defending someone's trademark for metadata. I mean, seriously. Perhaps obviously, I ignored it. It's still in my files somewhere. Roy On Dec 6, 2011, at 6:31 AM, Eric Lease Morgan emor...@nd.edu wrote: Ironically, I had (or there was) some trouble with the term MyLibrary@NCState. Granted, the term was originally a variation of My Netscape, My Yahoo, and My Deja News, but all sorts of things followed it, like MyiLibrary, the Google Books My Library, and then there was a ALA thing. I'm not necessarily saying MyLibrary was the leader here, but an example of how trademarks (monikers) can be used, abused, and morphed. --Eric Morgan
Re: [CODE4LIB] Patents and open source projects
I too got a cease and desisted letter almost twenty years ago. I wrote a CGI script that would calculate the phase of the moon. I called it LunaTick. The letter was from a lawyer defending a trademark for a fishing lure. --Eric Morgan
Re: [CODE4LIB] Patents and open source projects
I have heard that it's best not to acknowledge receipt of such letters at all. Can anyone confirm or deny that? -- Mike. On 6 December 2011 14:46, Roy Tennant roytenn...@gmail.com wrote: I once got a cease and desist letter from a legal firm defending someone's trademark for metadata. I mean, seriously. Perhaps obviously, I ignored it. It's still in my files somewhere. Roy On Dec 6, 2011, at 6:31 AM, Eric Lease Morgan emor...@nd.edu wrote: Ironically, I had (or there was) some trouble with the term MyLibrary@NCState. Granted, the term was originally a variation of My Netscape, My Yahoo, and My Deja News, but all sorts of things followed it, like MyiLibrary, the Google Books My Library, and then there was a ALA thing. I'm not necessarily saying MyLibrary was the leader here, but an example of how trademarks (monikers) can be used, abused, and morphed. --Eric Morgan
Re: [CODE4LIB] Patents and open source projects
Over 15 years ago I got a threatening letter because I created a guide called Library Jargon and offered it up via FTP, gopher and email. Some rinky-dink company claimed they had a trademark and copyright to it. I wrote them back after doing a search via gopher on the tphrase in question and found over 200 other documents with the same title. I sent the search results to them and never heard from them again. Bill Drew -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Roy Tennant Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2011 9:46 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Patents and open source projects I once got a cease and desist letter from a legal firm defending someone's trademark for metadata. I mean, seriously. Perhaps obviously, I ignored it. It's still in my files somewhere. Roy On Dec 6, 2011, at 6:31 AM, Eric Lease Morgan emor...@nd.edu wrote: Ironically, I had (or there was) some trouble with the term MyLibrary@NCState. Granted, the term was originally a variation of My Netscape, My Yahoo, and My Deja News, but all sorts of things followed it, like MyiLibrary, the Google Books My Library, and then there was a ALA thing. I'm not necessarily saying MyLibrary was the leader here, but an example of how trademarks (monikers) can be used, abused, and morphed. --Eric Morgan
Re: [CODE4LIB] Patents and open source projects
On 6 December 2011, at 9:46 AM, Roy Tennant wrote: I once got a cease and desist letter from a legal firm defending someone's trademark for metadata. I mean, seriously. Perhaps obviously, I ignored it. It's still in my files somewhere. We had a variation in Ontario back in the 90s when a businessmen working with libraries heard the phrase virtual library pass my lips in conversation. Next thing I knew, he thought he had trademarked it. I try never to use the phrase these days, and he left the library market. I can't begin to recall which of you I heard it from first. Walter Lewis Halton Hills
Re: [CODE4LIB] Patents and open source projects
Nate Vack njv...@wisc.edu [...] Not allowing trademarks and patents for FOSS is complex if they're allowed for software at all -- should someone reading a patent and providing a free implementation invalidate that patent? That's the exact opposite intent of patents. (Note: I think software patents should not exist at all.) Mathematics is not patentable, at least here and at least so far, so yes, if the full implementation in software alone is obvious, it clearly isn't a valid patent. If FOSS projects are immune to trademark suits, should I be able to start a competing open-source catalog and call it Koha or Evergreen? That seems like an undesirable outcome. As I understand it, if you did, even without a trademark, you would still probably be committing a range of civil offences, including passing off and various advertising or trade descriptions offences, in English law at least. The main thing a registered trademark brings to that party is criminalisation (and so the ability of government agents to prosecute autonomously, at the taxpayers' expense and regardless of the wishes of project contributors) and I feel that's neither necessary nor desirable. Hasn't this happened already, though, with Liblime starting some competing Kohas and using trademark registrations to back up their failure to rename their forks? (Although most of us call them LAK, LEK and LK, to try to reduce the confusion.) Which brings me to a question which probably people here can help to answer: are there similar civil offences of passing-off, misleading advertising and trade misdescriptions in the US? Thanks, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and LMS developer, statistician. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire for Koha work http://www.software.coop/products/koha
Re: [CODE4LIB] Patents and open source projects
Joann Ransom writes LibLime Koha is not Koha. The rest of the community use Koha. Misunderstanding of this issue is wide-spread. Case in point http://lists.webjunction.org/wjlists/web4lib/2010-September/052195.html Cheers, Thomas Krichelhttp://openlib.org/home/krichel http://authorprofile.org/pkr1 skype: thomaskrichel
Re: [CODE4LIB] Patents and open source projects
On Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 3:36 PM, Thomas Krichel kric...@openlib.org wrote: Joann Ransom writes LibLime Koha is not Koha. The rest of the community use Koha. Misunderstanding of this issue is wide-spread. Case in point http://lists.webjunction.org/wjlists/web4lib/2010-September/052195.html That was pretty unrelated to this issue, Thomas. -Ross.
[CODE4LIB] Patents and open source projects
A colleague approached me this morning with an interesting question that I realized I didn't know how to answer. How are open source projects in the library community dancing around technologies that may have been patented by vendors? We were particularly wondering about this in light of open source ILS projects, like Kuali OLE, Koha, and Evergreen. I know OLE is still in the early stages, but did the folks who created Koha and Evergreen ever run into any problems in this area? Have library vendors historically pursued patents for their systems and solutions?
Re: [CODE4LIB] Patents and open source projects
On 5 December 2011 13:17, Emily Lynema emily_lyn...@ncsu.edu wrote: A colleague approached me this morning with an interesting question that I realized I didn't know how to answer. How are open source projects in the library community dancing around technologies that may have been patented by vendors? We were particularly wondering about this in light of open source ILS projects, like Kuali OLE, Koha, and Evergreen. I know OLE is still in the early stages, but did the folks who created Koha and Evergreen ever run into any problems in this area? Have library vendors historically pursued patents for their systems and solutions? Of course this is a problem that goes much further than just open-source library software. Informed consensus seems to be that EVERY non-trivial program, whether open or closed, violates multiple software patents, and that this is pretty much inevitable due to the absurdly broad nature of many such patents. There is not much that anyone can do about this (beyond campaigning for patent reform). The whole software world gets by due to a combination of Mutually Assured Destruction (all the big companies hold massive patent arsenals that they say they won't use in a first strike) and general Not Being Evil, but the existence commerical patent trolls damages this balance. Linus Torvalds is among many who very expressly do not do any research on what patents their software might infringe on, because damages are much higher if it can be shown that you *knowingly* violated a patent. Really, the whole system is not merely broken but completely twisted. -- Mike.
Re: [CODE4LIB] Patents and open source projects
Emily Lynema emily_lyn...@ncsu.edu A colleague approached me this morning with an interesting question that I realized I didn't know how to answer. How are open source projects in the library community dancing around technologies that may have been patented by vendors? We were particularly wondering about this in light of open source ILS projects, like Kuali OLE, Koha, and Evergreen. I know OLE is still in the early stages, but did the folks who created Koha and Evergreen ever run into any problems in this area? Have library vendors historically pursued patents for their systems and solutions? In short: bad patent laws are a problem, but not unique to FOSS. I think we're dancing around technologies that may have patents in the same ways that all developers do: basically, we avoid famously patented tech and try to use well-known libraries as much as possible (safety in numbers, at the cost of chilling some innovation), but hoping that we don't pass too close to any submarine patents. The worrying one I've seen recently has been 3M and SIP. It took quite a few rounds on the SIP 3 message boards before (as I understand it) we were assured that no patents held by 3M would necessarily be infringed by implementing SIP 3. 3M accused Envisionware but I don't remember the detail or know the current situation. I probably ask more questions about this than many, even though I work for a software developer and am fortunate to work in a country where mathematics - which includes software - is explicitly excluded from patents. Hope that informs, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and LMS developer, statistician. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire for Koha work http://www.software.coop/products/koha
Re: [CODE4LIB] Patents and open source projects
Emily Lynema emily_lyn...@ncsu.edu how are open source projects in the library community dancing around technologies that may have been patented by vendors? There's a parallel question: how are for-profit companies addressing the multiple violations of FLOSS licenses inherent in contemporary code? There's probably GPL code in most for-profit software products these days, used in ways that violate the licenses. (There's probably other FLOSS licenses used in license-violating ways all over the place as well, but GPL is one of the most restrictive and is very common.) Overly broad patents are a problem with the system. Violations of the GPL are simply a ubiquitous problem involving a not-so-problematic license. We really are in a big dance of mutually assured destruction, as Mike said. -Deborah
Re: [CODE4LIB] Patents and open source projects
IMHO, the idea of intellectual property on things that can be duplicated without any sort of degradation -- like software -- is absolutely absurd and bogus. --Eric Morgan
Re: [CODE4LIB] Patents and open source projects
On 5 December 2011 14:34, Eric Lease Morgan emor...@nd.edu wrote: IMHO, the idea of intellectual property on things that can be duplicated without any sort of degradation -- like software -- is absolutely absurd and bogus. --Eric Morgan No argument there. But arguably even worse is that independent reinvention is no defence when it comes to patent infringement. Which is crazy, since 90% of what a typical programmer does during a day IS independent reinvention of techniques. -- Mike.
Re: [CODE4LIB] Patents and open source projects
Just a quick reply about Kuali OLE and Kuali projects in general. All Kuali Foundation apps are released under the Educational Community License v 2.0 - http://www.opensource.org/licenses/ecl2.php. Kuali OLE and many other Kuali apps use a firm called Black Duck to make sure we are current with all open source licensing that occurs within our codebase - they perform professinoal services audits of the code - http://www.blackducksoftware.com/services/professional-services One of the reasons that OLE joined in with the Kuali Foundation is because of the intellectual property support that is available to Kuali projects in terms of making sure that all of our code remains open under the ECLv2 and that others can not just take the code and try to assert IP rights over it. I hope this answers your questions about Kuali OLE. Thanks Robert ** Robert H. McDonald Associate Dean for Library Technologies and Digital Libraries Associate Director, Data to Insight Center-Pervasive Technology Institute Executive Director, Kuali OLE Indiana University Herman B Wells Library 234 1320 East 10th Street Bloomington, IN 47405 Phone: 812-856-4834 Email: rob...@indiana.edu Skype/GTalk: rhmcdonald AIM/MSN: rhmcdonald1 On 12/5/11 8:17 AM, Emily Lynema emily_lyn...@ncsu.edu wrote: A colleague approached me this morning with an interesting question that I realized I didn't know how to answer. How are open source projects in the library community dancing around technologies that may have been patented by vendors? We were particularly wondering about this in light of open source ILS projects, like Kuali OLE, Koha, and Evergreen. I know OLE is still in the early stages, but did the folks who created Koha and Evergreen ever run into any problems in this area? Have library vendors historically pursued patents for their systems and solutions?
Re: [CODE4LIB] Patents and open source projects
On Dec 5, 2011, at 9:47 AM, Mike Taylor wrote: …since 90% of what a typical programmer does during a day IS independent reinvention of techniques. Yes, I concur, most certainly. I often say to myself, I've really only written about three or four original computer programs. All the hundreds of others are simply variations on themes. -- Eric Lease Morgan
Re: [CODE4LIB] Patents and open source projects
At Mon, 5 Dec 2011 08:17:26 -0500, Emily Lynema wrote: A colleague approached me this morning with an interesting question that I realized I didn't know how to answer. How are open source projects in the library community dancing around technologies that may have been patented by vendors? We were particularly wondering about this in light of open source ILS projects, like Kuali OLE, Koha, and Evergreen. I know OLE is still in the early stages, but did the folks who created Koha and Evergreen ever run into any problems in this area? Have library vendors historically pursued patents for their systems and solutions? I don’t think libraries have a particularly unique perspective on this: most free/open source software projects have the same issues with patents. The Software Freedom Law Center has some basic information about these issues. As I recall, the “Legal basics for developers” edition of their podcasts is useful [1], but other editions may be helpful as well. Basically, the standard advice for patents is what Mike Taylor gave: ignore them. Pay attention to copyright and trademark issues (as the Koha problem shows), but patents really don’t need to be on your radar. best, Erik 1. http://www.softwarefreedom.org/podcast/2011/aug/16/Episode-0x16-Legal-Basics-for-Developers/ Sent from my free software system http://fsf.org/. pgpzvpOQEi9B4.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: [CODE4LIB] Patents and open source projects
At the Drupal project, we actively work to inform folks of license infringement, and monitor released derivative works -- mostly modules -- to insure that they are including the GPL v2 license. We also work with the Software Freedom Law Center to address issues that are beyond our scope. Drupal is, to the degree possible, trademarked, but neither the Drupal Association, nor Dries Buytaert, Drupal's creator hold any patents on its functionality. Thanks, Cary On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 9:53 AM, Erik Hetzner erik.hetz...@ucop.edu wrote: At Mon, 5 Dec 2011 08:17:26 -0500, Emily Lynema wrote: A colleague approached me this morning with an interesting question that I realized I didn't know how to answer. How are open source projects in the library community dancing around technologies that may have been patented by vendors? We were particularly wondering about this in light of open source ILS projects, like Kuali OLE, Koha, and Evergreen. I know OLE is still in the early stages, but did the folks who created Koha and Evergreen ever run into any problems in this area? Have library vendors historically pursued patents for their systems and solutions? I don’t think libraries have a particularly unique perspective on this: most free/open source software projects have the same issues with patents. The Software Freedom Law Center has some basic information about these issues. As I recall, the “Legal basics for developers” edition of their podcasts is useful [1], but other editions may be helpful as well. Basically, the standard advice for patents is what Mike Taylor gave: ignore them. Pay attention to copyright and trademark issues (as the Koha problem shows), but patents really don’t need to be on your radar. best, Erik 1. http://www.softwarefreedom.org/podcast/2011/aug/16/Episode-0x16-Legal-Basics-for-Developers/ Sent from my free software system http://fsf.org/. -- Cary Gordon The Cherry Hill Company http://chillco.com
Re: [CODE4LIB] Patents and open source projects
Erik Hetzner erik.hetz...@ucop.edu 1. http://www.softwarefreedom.org/podcast/2011/aug/16/Episode-0x16-Legal-Basics-for-Developers/ Basically, the standard advice for patents is what Mike Taylor gave: ignore them. Pay attention to copyright and trademark issues (as the Koha problem shows), but patents really don’t need to be on your radar. Will people please stop suggesting that PTFS's attempts to register Koha trademarks in various jurisdictions are somehow because of inattention on the part of the Koha users and developers? Any project can always suffer from some ratbag try to register its name as a trademark, regardless of it being a historic treasure (in NZ, so I'm told) or in use in commerce by others before them. That doesn't make the ill-gotten registration valid: it should just make it a nuisance for a short while until the rightful users gain or overturn the ratbags' registrations. Hell, someone tried to register Linux as a trademark once, didn't they? The alternative is to pay the protection rackets (also known as trademark registrars) before it's a problem, rather than spend that money creating projects that are worth defending. Spend today, or gamble and maybe spend tomorrow? It's a choice. Hope that informs, -- MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op. http://koha-community.org supporter, web and LMS developer, statistician. In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Available for hire for Koha work http://www.software.coop/products/koha
