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Duct tape is the world's most versatile invention. It makes ducts airtight, holds car parts together, patches holes in canoes and keeps rock musicians from tripping over wires onstage. It rips easily, holds firm even underwater and provides a quick fix for almost any emergency. But sometimes, duct tape fanatics go too far. You can buy wallets made entirely of duct tape. Some even make clothes out of it. The same is true with open-source licensing. It has many useful applications, but it is easy to get carried away.
One hopes that Mr Albert shows more attention to substance and research on behalf of his clients than he's showing in this column. The institute in question in Australia is not Cabria, but CAMBIA. The statement that something 'is not clear' should state 'it is not clear to me because I have not made the slightest effort to find out'. Anyone who wants to see the substance behind loose rhetoric, please go to www.bios.net at which not only are the license concepts and community concepts spelled out, but the formative documents of the activity (called the BIOS Initiative) and its community innovation space, BioForge are described in some detail. Also, on this site - as a fundamental tool to understand patents and their implications - is the largest, free, full-text database of patents in the world, including US, European, Australian and PCT (international applications) in OCR's full text form, as well as INPADOC, the world patent status database. And the Patent Lens, CAMBIA's IP transparency efforts, includes comprehensive 'claims' landscape analyses of key technology areas. This will be expanded most likely to make analyses of blocking in software that could hijack or torpedo the OS movement.
Also on our www.bios.net site, are disclosures of 'kernel's of patented technology that will seed the development of Open Source toolkits as tangible examples of using IP not to exclude but to impose covenants and grantbacks onto licit, inclusive community activities.
Its troubling that intellectual property professionals shoot from the lip without doing relevant research. Googling is not hard, nor is reading. Understanding, however, does take some intellectual generosity of spirit.
I encourage informed discussion about mechanisms to craft innovative communities and the elaboration of 'protected technology commons' spaces. The concepts and strategies we're 'duct-taping' together with serious effort by skilled and informed IP professionals, scientists, policy and innovation specialists and good hearted citizens are critical not ony for life sciences to have more humane and productive impacts, but will be similarly critical in the software community.
Also on our www.bios.net site, are disclosures of 'kernel's of patented technology that will seed the development of Open Source toolkits as tangible examples of using IP not to exclude but to impose covenants and grantbacks onto licit, inclusive community activities.
Its troubling that intellectual property professionals shoot from the lip without doing relevant research. Googling is not hard, nor is reading. Understanding, however, does take some intellectual generosity of spirit.
I encourage informed discussion about mechanisms to craft innovative communities and the elaboration of 'protected technology commons' spaces. The concepts and strategies we're 'duct-taping' together with serious effort by skilled and informed IP professionals, scientists, policy and innovation specialists and good hearted citizens are critical not ony for life sciences to have more humane and productive impacts, but will be similarly critical in the software community.
