Sun has released the largest single group of patent innovations to the open source community. Developers now can access Sun's OpenSolaris related patents under the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) with the primary goal aimed at facilitating innovation and moving open source products and technologies to market faster.

Sun's new open source license is based upon the MozillaTM Public License (MPL), version 1.1. With the release of the OpenSolaris operating system platform under the CDDL, the open source community has immediate access to 1,600 active Sun patents for all aspects of operating system technologies that encompass features ranging from kernel technology and file systems to network management.

"As the largest business contributor to the open source community, Sun has always been an ardent believer in open standards and the open source process going back to the inception of this company," said Scott McNealy, chairman and CEO, Sun. "The release of more than 1,600 patents associated with the SolarisTM OS far eclipses any other vendor's contribution. Today represents a huge milestone for Sun, for the community, for developers and for customers."

Sun's decision to remove the intellectual-property rights of its software reaffirms the company's belief that license agreements are not as significant as the vendor who stands behind its products. In a company press release, Sun states that it is "leveling the playing field in key emerging markets and helping to revive an innovation system that is straining under a record number of patent filings globally. More markets are looking for ways to monetize their knowledge economy and patents are becoming the profit center. With growing attention on locking up intellectual property in countries like China - which has seen a five-fold increase in the number of patent filings from 1991 to 2001 - Sun is ensuring that software will be available to open source developers and that progress continues unabated."

With this move, Sun is addressing U.S. and international patent laws that have increasingly granted patents on broad, abstract processes, which in essence, limits innovation.

"By gaining access to these Solaris OS patents, participants in the open source community now have a tremendous opportunity to build unique and innovative technologies for a wide range of markets," said Stacey Quandt, senior business analyst, Open Source Practice Leader, Robert Frances Group. "An IP contribution of this magnitude has the potential to deliver exceptional value to developers and strengthens the overall open source community."

The hope is that by opening access developers will be relieved from the dangers of infringement and enabled to creatively innovate without reservation. With access to the intellectual property of the Solaris OS platform, OpenSolaris developers and customers will not have to be concerned with patent protection or indemnity from Sun and other participants in the OpenSolaris community for use of Solaris-based technologies.

Patents for Sun's newest technologies will be available under the open access program. One such technology, the SolarisTM Dynamic Tracing or DTrace, has its source code currently posted on the opensolaris.org Web site.

For more information on OpenSolaris, visit:

http://opensolaris.org [...read more...]

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