Compliance Toolkit

Sun's no-op announcement

Richard Stallman

Published: 01 Feb 2005 11:25 GMT

Consider, for instance, the company founded by ex-Microsoft executive Myhrvold, which cheerfully says it is spending $350m to buy up patents (not specifically in software) so it can go around threatening and bullying everyone else. Of course, these parasites don't like to describe their activities in such terms. Much as the mafia, when it threatens to attack local businesses unless they pay, says it is charging for "protection", Myhrvold's company prefers to say it is "renting out" the patents. It expects this investment in what we could call the "patent protection racket" to pay off handsomely. For that to occur, lots of people have to get bitten.

The danger of software patents is not limited to free software, which is why the opposition to software patents is not limited to free software developers. Everyone involved with computers, aside from the megacorporations, must expect to lose. For instance, proprietary software developers are much more likely to be the victims of patents than to have a chance to use patents for aggression. Although I don't think proprietary software is ethically legitimate, it is a fact that developers of proprietary software are in the same danger from patents, and many of them know it.

Then think of all the software that is neither free nor proprietary: private-use software, software developed for and used by one client. Most software is private-use software. The developers of this software can also be sued for using patented techniques, and so can the users of the software. Any software patent holder, including the pirates, can sue computer users as well as software developers. Threatening the users is a common technique for an unscrupulous patent holder to put the screws on a developer.

We can honestly thank IBM for agreeing not to sue us with 500 of its patents, and if Sun does likewise, we will be able to thank Sun too. But defusing a small fraction of the landmines in the field of software won't make it safe to walk around. We mustn't let these partial measures lull us into thinking that computing can tolerate the patent system. The battle against software patents, in Europe and elsewhere, must continue!

Copyright 2005 Richard Stallman
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