“Given the reality that software source code is human readable, and object code can be reverse engineered, it is difficult for software developers to resort to secrecy. Thus, without patent protection, the incentives to innovate in the field of software are significantly reduced. Patent protection has promoted the free sharing of source code on a patentee’s terms—which has fueled the explosive growth of open source software development.”

Not only is IBM enthusiastically pro-software patent, they say that patents are responsible for free software!

One fundamental difference is that IBM uses patents for an exclusionary purpose — shutting out competition — against a FOSS project and start-up, while Microsoft merely collects royalties without driving anyone out of business. If it were up to me, there wouldn’t be software patents and, consequently, no software patent royalties. But since software patents do exist, I focus on serious threats.

The companies that end up having to pay those royalties are typically pro-software-patent anyway. So they just get a taste of their own medicine. Two publicly known examples: Amazon and TomTom (both of whom now have to pay Microsoft).

Concerning mentionings of Microsoft on my blog, you can google up a number of them. For an example, I criticized the German court decision to uphold a Microsoft FAT patent. You can also find (on LinuxTag.org and a link is somewhere on my blog) my LinuxTag presentation, in which I discuss the Microsoft antitrust case on a couple of slides. And you can find a lot more mentionings, such as their lobbying for EU patent reform or their lobbying for software patents in New Zealand.

Since you talk about there many software patents, here’s a quote: “IBM wanted to point out that its total number of patents was larger than those from Microsoft, HP, Oracle, Apple, EMC, Accenture, and Google combined.”

Concerning SCO, are there any patent issues concerning them? I’m not aware of any. If there are any, please provide material to me and I’ll be sure to talk about them.

Can you cite some examples of when you have been critical of MS?

Or perhaps SCO?

If you are critical of software patents, you could not be silent when MS patents so very many software ideas, and threatens GNU/Linux.

Contrary to what the posting claims, I am not involved with the “Open Mainframe” initiative if what you mean is openmainframe.org.

Contrary to what the posting claims, I never claimed that IBM shot down the debate over software patents with its Bilski amicus brief. Instead, I said that it told the worst of all lies concerning software patents by claiming that they enabled FOSS to become popular.

I absolutely reject the accusation of launching “fatwas” against Oracle and IBM. Concerning Oracle, I didn’t oppose the merger — just the MySQL part of it. Concerning IBM, I raised the issue of them betraying their open source patent pledge. If they addressed interoperability in the mainframe context the way they want other vendors to act in their core business areas, I wouldn’t see a major difference between IBM’s use of sooftware patents versus that of other vendors with large portfolios.

Contrary to what the posting suggests, I don’t focus on the ownership of patents but on the way they are put to use.

I will address other issues over time, maybe in comments here, maybe on my own blog. Those were just some initial clarifications — not even necessarily the most important points to make, but the simplest ones to begin with.

I would NEVER associate myself with Tea partier’s who are just morally wrong – they seem to be against health care and for guns (not advancing humanity)

They only want freedom if it is insane freedoms not rational one.

I.E – most tea partier’s would be against giving the morning after pill for free (bit too much like scary communist medicine).

The T party people are not into working together for the benefit of mankind (as that is a bit – you know commie..), in fact that is almost exactly the opposite

I would guess you haven’t a clue about the Linux movement and you should stop watching Fox news which is damaging the human race more than rubbish like this.