Open Source Critical To Competition Say Regulators

Simon Phipps wrote:The DoJ and FCO have jointly agreed that Novell's patents are a threat to open source that needs neutralising.

Published 17:53, 20 April 11

News just broke jointly from the US Department of Justice and the German Federal Cartel Office that they have directed CPTN to change the way they acquire Novell's software patents so that the open source community is protected.

This is landmark news for the software freedom community. The Open Source Initiative (where I am a director) and the Free Software Foundation both submitted opinions to the DoJ. Both agreed that the acquisition of Novell's patent portfolio by a consortium comprising Apple, EMC, Microsoft and Oracle presented a threat to the ability of open source software to promote strong competitive markets. It seems the DoJ and FCO agreed with them.