Open Source Weblog

Kuhn’s letter to the FOSS development community continues: ““A careful examination of Microsoft's Patent Pledge for Non-Compensated Developers reveals that it has little value. The patent covenant only applies to software that you develop at home and keep for yourself; the promises don't extend to others when you distribute. You cannot pass the rights to your downstream recipients, even to the maintainers of larger projects on which your contribution is built.”

We already pointed out that while the romantic image is of Linux being created by many individual developers working for the common good, the vast majority of Linux development is done by developers paid or sponsored by Linux-friendly vendors.

Not only is the offer of limited scope, it is also not to be relied upon, according to Kuhn. “Microsoft has explicitly reserved the right to change its terms at any time in the future. A developer relying on the pledge could wake up any day to find it revoked,” he writes.

“It's worse than useless, as this empty promise can create a false sense of security. Don't be confused by the illusion of a truce; developers are no safer from Microsoft patents now than they were before. Instead, Microsoft has used this patent pledge to indicate that, in their view, the only good Free Software developer is an isolated, uncompensated, unimportant Free Software developer.”

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