Red Hat: Walking the Linux tightrope
Published: 19 Aug 2004 17:42 BST
How big a threat are the 238 patents out there for the future development of Linux?
We have a patent policy that says: we don't agree with patents. As a company we profess that and it's on our Web site. As an organisation, we are opposed to them, but on the other hand we have acquired patents through the 13 or 14 companies we have acquired. As far as those patents go, our position is that if you want to use them in software that is developed using the open-source model, then fine, you can use them without royalty. If they want to close it up and put it into a restricted proprietary business, then we aren't going to allow that. Bottom line: we are not going to propagate our patents any further.
That's our business philosophy on patents. Now, we also happen to use Linux, which at the moment is facing legal patent challenges from SCO and claims that it might even violate patents that are held by the likes of Microsoft and IBM. What do we do about that?
Do you think it's interesting that as the SCO case has begun to lose momentum, the issue of these other patents has suddenly come to the fore?
Isn't that interesting? There's always a fire engine to chase isn't there? It's a little frightening, but there it is.
On that front, we are a technology company, we are not a legal company. But we know that customers are concerned, so we have built something called the open-source assurance programme. The programme states if any code is found to be infringing anyone else's IP, we will take three steps: we will find out if anyone actually has a problem, will ask if we can hire the rights at some point, and if all else fails we will simply rewrite the code. We have a lot of good engineers, so we are confident we can replace any piece of code that we have to. So our solution is a belief in an engineering answer to a legal problem. We do, however, have a small legal fund when it's needed.
Are there really, genuine patent issues with Linux -- or is this all FUD that can be traced back to one place?
I will not promote any conspiracy theories, but you never know, right? We have no knowledge of that.
Munich claimed that its decision to temporarily suspend its migration of 14,000 desktops to Linux was down to fears over outstanding patents. What's your opinion?
It was on, then it was off, now it's back live again. But there are some real genuine concerns around patents.
Gartner claims it wasn't about patents, but about Munich reconsidering the TCO of Linux.
Our friends at Microsoft have done us a huge favour with their advertising campaign. If you ask me, they are fighting last year's battle. They are out there saying 'oh, yeah, that Linux isn't free -- look at the TCO, we can find ways you can actually save money using Windows'. No. 1, if they are making such a big deal about it, it must be important, right? And No. 2, they are helping to sell the message [that] we have to tell people, the thing we have to say to people every time we start; Linux is not free. If your time is worth nothing, then Linux is free, but most customers tell us that time is money and that they don't want to be OS experts.
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