The Open Invention Network (OIN) aims to protect the Linux ecosystem and open-source software from patent claims, has introduced the OIN 2.0 program, and expanded the list of packages covered by the agreement to not assert patent claims and to allow free use of certain patented technologies.
The list of components in distributions that fall under the definition of the Linux System, covered by the agreement among OIN 2.0 participants, has been expanded by 561 packages. Notable new packages include AOSP 15, Eclipse Che, Eclipse GlassFish, Eclipse Theia, Grafana, Kea DHCP, Percona Server, Zabbix, bird, borgbackup, distrobox, erlangm, libxml++, ntfs-3g, openWRT, opendaylight, openharmony, opentofu, pcre3, PowerDNS, pure-ftpd, sudo-rs, transmission, vtun, wireguard-tools, xz-utils, as well as many libraries in Go, Python, and Rust.
The definition of the Linux System now encompasses 5,181 packages for OIN 2.0 and 4,530 packages for the previously active OIN initiative. Notable open projects covered by the patent agreement include the Linux kernel, the AGL (Automotive Grade Linux) platform, and Android, KVM, Git, nginx, CMake, PHP, Python, Ruby, Go, QEMU, Kubernetes, KVM, Lua, LLVM, OpenJDK, WebKit, KDE, GNOME, QEMU, Firefox, LibreOffice, OpenStack, Qt, systemd, X.Org, Wayland, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.
A key feature of the OIN 2.0 program is the shift to a tiered model of monetary contributions, which will allow for jointly funding the mission to protect the Open Source ecosystem from patent risks. The main idea of OIN 2.0 is to provide companies benefiting from open-source software with an opportunity to participate in the collective effort of patent protection. The amount of contribution depends on the income of the company — larger enterprises will contribute more than medium-sized companies, while small organizations and individuals can access patent protection for free.
Funds collected from OIN 2.0 participants will enable the provision of relevant patent protection as the ecosystem grows, attract new participants, monitor patent threats to open projects, and protect community members facing patent claims.
The old OIN protection program remains in effect, but it only applies to the previous edition of the package list and does not cover new packages introduced in the updated extended list. To obtain extended protection that includes packages from the 13 change list and future updates, it is necessary to join OIN 2.0 by signing a new license agreement.
Participants in OIN are committed to not making patent claims and grant permission to use patented technologies in projects related to the Linux ecosystem free of charge. The OIN includes over 4,000 companies, communities, and organizations that have signed a patent sharing license agreement. More than 100 companies have joined the OIN 2.0 initiative, including Alibaba, Amazon, Ant Group, Canon, Canonical, Fujitsu, Google, IBM, Red Hat, Meta, Microsoft, NEC, Nissan, Olympus, OVHcloud, Philips, Sony, SUSE, TD Bank Group, Toshiba, Toyota, and Yokogawa Electric.
Companies that sign the agreement gain access to the patents held by OIN in exchange for a commitment not to file legal claims for the use of technologies employed within the Linux ecosystem. Among other things, as part of joining OIN, Microsoft granted OIN participants the right to use more than 60,000 of its patents, agreeing not to use them against Linux and open-source software.
The OIN patent pool includes over 1,300 patents. Among these, OIN holds a group of patents featuring some of the earliest mentions of dynamic web content creation technologies, which preceded the emergence of systems like Microsoft ASP, Sun/Oracle JSP, and PHP. Another significant contribution was the acquisition in 2009 of 22 Microsoft patents that had previously been sold to the AST consortium as patents related to open-source products. All OIN participants have the opportunity to use these patents free of charge. The validity of the OIN agreement was confirmed by a ruling from the U.S. Department of Justice, which required consideration of OIN's interests in the patent sale deal involving Novell.
Source: opennet.ru
