Over at Computerworld there is this piece — How Open-Source Software Can Affect A Company’s Value This is like the second or third piece I have seen by these authors on the issue. I know they are probably trying to drum up business, but the consistency almost sounds like Jihad, and at a minimum is alarmist for no reason. I would direct the reader, go through the posting then come back here for the fisk.

My main argument to the whole article is — compared to what? Well as compared to commercial proprietary software is what. So lets take it on.

Open source has complex legal restrictions that can create copyright and patent compliance issues and corporate transaction challenges for companies that rely heavily on customized software or that distribute software to partners or customers.

Uh, so does using Microsoft code. Your company buys 500 copies of Project but a BSA audit finds you have 1100 copies in use, don’t think that free passes are in the offering. You’ll shovel out for the 600 additional licenses, the fine, the audit, and the legal fees. Last I checked I am not aware of a BSA audit for Open Office has ever occurred.

The Open Source Initiative standards group has approved nearly 70 open-source licenses, each with different terms. These licenses typically fall into one of two categories. The first is described as an attribution-type license, and it generally imposes few obligations beyond requiring that an acknowledgement of the authorship of the software be included in some manner, such as in source code comments and help files.

There are well over 4000 mainline products one can buy from personal computer single user use all the way up to mainframe multiuser OS’s. And those are just the popular ones. There are probably 5x that many that are used every day. And what’s important about that? Everyone of them has a EULA and not a one of them is ’standard’. They all have the stamp of the legal team that was hired to do the writing. It gets even worse when a major corporation is using 8 variants of a single class of product whose licenses have morphed over time. Each stands as its own use and restriction rules.

Now a company if they are smart would negotiate a comprehensive use agreement for all the products from a single vendor. The Fortune 10k do this all the time with companies like Microsoft, Apple, and IBM. It simplifies their work. But even so, there are can be outliers even in a comprehensive agreement that just did not hit the radar screen. Bottom line: It is not simpler staying with closed source either.

The second, more common and more demanding type of open-source license is the reciprocal-type license, also known as a “viral” or “copyleft” license. Reciprocal-type open-source license terms can be complex and ambiguous. Generally, any company that uses open source and either modifies or distributes it will need to have a thorough program in place to ensure compliance with the applicable licensing requirements.

More on What is Unsaid is Important Sometimes

This is so stupid I don’t even know where to begin. A company contracted with SF Muni to put geolocators on all their buses. Another company built a iPhone app to notify the user when the next bus is to arrive. The other company is suing for IP infringement not on where the bus IS but on the PREDICTION of when the bus is expected to be. Got that? –

We’ve had quite a few stories in the past about various public transportation authorities trying to stop others from creating iPhone apps that indicate train/bus schedule information. Often, the transit organizations claim intellectual property over the matter, saying that they want the ability to license the data themselves, or to sell iPhone apps themselves. This strikes many as being incredibly short-sighted. The core business of the transit groups should be to get more people using the trains and buses. Having good iPhone apps out there (often for free) would seem to get more people to use public transportation, and that benefit likely outweighs any money received from selling $5 iPhone apps.

However, a few people have sent in a story from San Francisco, where things are a bit more complex. The basics do seem to be the same, with a guy named Steven Peterson creating an iPhone app called Routesy to tell you when your Muni bus is arriving, only to have it shut down after complaints that it was violating intellectual property. Where it gets a bit more complex, is that it’s not the public transit authority, Muni, that’s complaining. In fact, Muni claims that it owns the data and says the public is entitled to use it (in fact, it claims to encourage it).

First of all this is a microniche market so small that I can’t even imagine that either party could afford the lawyers to engage in this. The filings alone would probably bankrupt them both.

Second this is why I like FOSS. The front end with multiple license types can be a problem. But the back end is generally simpler. You develop an application knowing you don’t own the baseline code only your expression or representation of the idea having used that code. Oddly, FOSS would not help in the situation above.The gripe the parties above have are outside the realm of what code base someone is using. It also points out that IP law is getting to the point of ridiculous.

Read the whole thing here.

This is for the technical recreational terrorist among us. You will need money and backing from certain social groups. You may or may not be aware but Apple has applied for a patent on what they call ‘pen gestures’.

Here is where the legal terrorism take effect. How many of those same gestures are prior art attributed to the American Sign Language? If there is but one, then fun could begin for a patent challenge. I leave up to somebody in the great ether regions to take up the challenge.

As you can tell I am getting pretty tired of seeing what are common social attributes being turned into profit centers. Sometimes there are things more important that need to be left undisturbed in the public square, profit be damned. This is one of them.