The firm will grant "universal and perpetual access" to IP
related to over 150 open standards. Open standards are technical
agreements that help people writing software to ensure that it
works with other software.
The announcement will extend access to IBM inventions not only
to the open source community and other commercial developers, but
also to users and consumers of the technology.
"IBM is sending a message that innovation and industry growth
happens in an open, collaborative atmosphere," said Bob Sutor,
IBM's vice president of open source and standards.
"Users will adopt new technologies if they know that they can
find those technologies in a variety of interchangeable, compatible
products from competing vendors. We think customers will like this
added assurance for the open standards upon which they have come to
depend," said Sutor.
There is an exception to the grant of access to the technology:
it is closed to anyone taking legal action to block further
interoperability. IBM will not extend the access to anyone who is
suing someone else over patents necessary for interoperability in
the standards to which this technology relates.
The intellectual property concerned was available for free to
software makers before, but they had to apply to IBM for a
royalty-free licence from the company. "This move clarifies and
makes more consistent the intellectual property usage rules,
encouraging even wider implementations of open standards," said a
company statement. "IBM hopes that others companies and
intellectual property holders make similar commitments."
Sutor commented on the announcement on his blog, saying that
such action, if followed by other firms, could make for better
software all round.
"I believe such positive, constructive actions regarding
intellectual property are the preferred routes to accelerate the
shift to better products and services for customers via open
architectures," he said.
