Open Invention Network

[Michael Jung]

Hello,

I've just read an article on Linux Weekly News, which I guess might be 
interesting for Wine: http://lwn.net/Articles/178673/ (How Mono got into 
Fedora)

I'll try to summarize: Basically, Novell bought Commerce One when they went 
bancrupt. Commerce One had some important patents related to XML webservices. 
Novell donated those to a newly formed organization called "Open Invention 
Network". OIN gives royalty free licences to companys and individuals who 
agree not to sue certain open source projects for violating their patents in 
turn. (http://openinventionnetwork.com/pat_linuxdefpop.html - Wine is 
currently not on the list).

The interesting thing is the following. If a project, which is on this list, 
is sued for patent infringment, then it is allowed to use the OIN patents in 
a countersuit.

I hope this isn't old news. Perhaps Wine should apply to get on OIN's "Linux 
definition" list?

Bye,
-- 
Michael Jung
mjung at iss.tu-darmstadt.de