Google has joined the fight to save Linux from an army of patent-waving Microsoft lawyers.
With Redmond threatening to collect royalties from Linux users and distributors across the industry, claiming that the open-source operating system violates 235 of its patents, Google has thrown its considerable weight behind the Open Invention Network (OIN), a consortium of companies bent on protecting open-source software from legal attack.
All OIN members – including big names such as IBM, NEC, Novell, Philips, Red Hat, and Sony, as well as Google – agree not to use their Linux-related patents against each other, and all have free access to a collection of additional open-source-related patents purchased by the consortium as a whole.
From ActiveWin.com
