Software patents in Europe 1676

That is precisely why the large patent holders sign protection contracts with each other, which allow firms like Microsoft and IBM to use the patented technologies of the other participating companies. What this prevents is the patent war you mentioned but only between the companies with patent portfolios large enough to qualify them as partners in the mutual protection scheme. M$ is afraid of IBM's patents and vice versa, so they agree to stay out of each other's way. It's a kind of legal collusion.

On the other hand these contracts - and the business logic behind them - do not protect the small firms, including open source projects, who are not part of the deal. It's open game for them, which is why in Europe right now the business is sharply divided on this issue, with large firms lined up on the pro-patent side and thousands of small firms on the anti-patent side. They know that if the presently proposed directive becomes law in the EU, then the small firms will be like deer in the headlights, and it is their blood alone that will be shed.

Just like IBM got

IBM will probably protect Linux, per se, but only insofar as IBM protects their own investment in the project. Additionally, Big Blue will almost certainly see a patent attack on open source as an opportunity to co-opt as many o.s. projects as they can, bringing the projects under IBM's influence and control. This will take place gradually, but the price of protection is high. Forget any of your o.s. ideals; from that time on, the movement will have to serve the commercial needs of its sponsor(s). Otherwise, IBM et al would find itself protecting technologies in compebreastion with its own products. Why should anyone protect MySQL, if they are trying to sell a database product themselves?

and Open Source. Novell also. Sun also.

The strategy, as in any compebreastive situation, is divide and conquer. The big boys will carefully target isolated projects, avoiding the "clusterf***" you mentioned. They will pick off o.s. projects one at a time, and, unless some very big enbreasty (e.g. the U.S. government) sees the danger and cares at all about the outcome, there will be no effective defense against the vast legal teams of the large software corporations.

I'm telling everyone here in COLA that the situation is dire, and I am amazed that no one in COLA besides myself is sounding any alarm at all. What in the world is everyone doing here? Is COLA really so narrow in its scope that it can't see any of this happening?