Patent wars. Episode 1. The Phantom Menace

    Author: Ilya Stechkin

    Let's talk about exactly what changes the community is waiting for ahead of the meeting of the Board of Directors of the OpenStack Foundation , which is scheduled for January 28. All 24 directors (including two from Mirantis) will gather in order to discuss, in particular, the commercial ecosystem of this non-proprietary platform, as well as the principles of the existence of several similar solutions in the core of the project (big tent). But perhaps the main topic of the council will be the problem of intellectual property, which may seem strange, because we are talking about an open source environment.

    New occasion for the old holivar


    Typical holivar - author's software versus open. The arguments are also traditional: both for customers and developers. The consumer of the software product has to choose: reliability versus flexibility, guaranteed functionality against creative search for solutions among like-minded people (the second option makes sense to discuss only if there are technical competencies on the customer’s side), the ability to shift responsibility to the developer (a very significant argument ) against the need to participate in the search and implementation of solutions. It is also not easy for developers to decide which is better: a simple commercial model, but a highly competitive market and the need to constantly “step on the throat of their own song” or the freedom of creativity while constantly looking for ways to earn money.

    However, it seems that OpenStack managed to “cross the bulldog with the rhinoceros” (including with our help): on the one hand, create a fairly stable product, convenient for deploying the cloud and then managing it ( Fuel ), the project is flexible (not by chance, in the Mirantis OpenStack 6.0 release, special attention was paid to plugins) and convenient for testing ( Tempest , Rally ), which has the ability to include powerful tools from the outside ( Sahara: hadoop clusters in OpenStack) It would be an exaggeration to say that OpenStack has already become an enterprise solution, but it seems to have come close to this. Evidence of this is the beginning of patent wars. Well, people in suits and ties appearing at annual summits are also a sure sign that technology is emerging from adolescence, growing up and attracting the attention of a respectable audience, and not just enthusiasts of the development process.

    Proprietories of all countries unite


    As Jodi Smith writes in a blog post on our company’s official website ( the link is the English text), there is concern that high-tech companies that make money by winning litigation on intellectual property protection may pay attention to OpenStack. There are precedents(here is also a link to an English source. It is not necessary to read. This is a proof-link). Let the call have not yet sounded: the proprietary of all countries - team up to fight OpenStack, and the management of the OpenStack Foundation, and the community are forced to think about how the ecosystem as a whole is protected in case of further patent disputes. And there is no doubt that as the technology “ripens”, there will be more such disputes, no one seems to have. Technology, like people, is losing allies, becoming independent market players. It seems that OpenStack has also come to participate in the great battle of the dough with evil.

    They have patents or us?


    Participation in patent litigation is expensive. With the help of licensing fees, vendors can strangle small high-tech companies, thus managing market conditions. In this regard, a difficult question remains to be solved: how to defend oneself against “patent trolls”? In fact, the question is even more complicated: should the management of the fund focus on combating patent risks and protecting members of the OpenStack community, or should the contributors (individual programmers and companies involved in the development of the platform) have to defend themselves? There are no answers yet. But there are fears that “patent wars” may be “civil”. Do not forget that among the participants of the OpenStack community there are large companies that are competitors to each other.
    OpenStack, following the example of the Linux ecosystem, uses the Open Invention Network (OIN ) to protect against “patent trolls” . Judging by the fact that today Linux is the basis of most cloud platforms, this protection mechanism can work. Indeed, ten years ago, the very existence of Linux was in question precisely because of patent disputes. However, there is no consensus among members of the community regarding the use of this legal defense mechanism. Many are concerned that the lawsuits may continue, and the source of the threat will be the company-contributors. So, three companies ( HP , Oracle , and Symantec) only partially accepted the terms of the OIN, agreeing that they do not apply to their future inventions. Thus, they have access to all the achievements of the community and at any time can use them to create products that are not subject to OIN. By patenting a particular development, these companies can attack OpenStack. The question is whether they will.

    I would like to believe that common sense and understanding of the benefits of the community for the business of each of its participants will prevail over short-term interests. It is likely that this will also be facilitated by the creation of the very commercial ecosystem of the platform that was mentioned at the beginning. If it will be clear to everyone what are the mechanics of profit from “joint acquired property”, it is unlikely that anyone will refuse to replenish this property further. In the end, questions about the division of property arise when one of the spouses is not able to fulfill marital duty. Perhaps none of the players in the IT market will want to admit their own creative impotence. Yes, in such a scandalous way. Of course, you can "fill up" the project now, tear the created ecosystem into patents and drag your prey in its beak.

    Reason for optimism and credit of trust


    A few paradoxical conclusions from the current situation. Firstly, what is happening is clearly an occasion for optimism for OpenStack users. Whatever the situation as a result of the discussions, already today each of the project participants (the activity of the participation of contributors in the project can be viewed here ) benefited tremendously from it. This also applies to breakthroughs in the field of solving scalability problems, reliability and safety of products existing within the OpenStack ecosystem. If you have not tried to implement your cloud strategy using OpenStack - it's time to do it.
    From here follows a second unexpected conclusion: OpenStack needs not only the interest of the developers (this goal has been completely achieved), but the credit of trust from the sites implementing this technology. It is especially important to achieve this understanding among Russian companies. Judge for yourself: today this ecosystem is independent of a specific vendor. Developers from Russia, China, India, Korea, USA, Western Europe contribute to the project ... The principle of “vendor agnostic” (independence from a particular manufacturer) is what makes OpenStack an ideal solution for implementing cloud strategies by domestic companies of various levels ( from hosting providers and telecom operators to global government projects such as telemedicine,

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