Andrew 'Tridge' Tridgell and Software Patents
Open Source developers such as Tridge feel targeted by software patents but they want to cool down the actual threat. Tridge is afraid of a large software patent astroid but thinks he can circumvent most patents. It all depends on whether it is possible to do so. So the debate has to sides: a) they do not need patents and regard them as a threat. b) Talking about the threat also creates the impression that Open Source was under attack, contributes to FUD which unsettles their customers.
- Samba developer
2005-04-13 US Interview Newsforge: 'Tridge' on joining OSDL, Samba4, patents, and bad predictions NF: ... do you believe software patents are proving to be a significant threat to open source software development and use? Tridge: They are certainly a very significant threat, but I am less fearful of them than I was a year ago. What has changed is that I have learned some more about patent analysis and the methods of working out exactly what a specific patent really means and how to avoid it. I still think that software patents are an extremely bad idea, and that we could easily be hit by "the big one" that has the same sort of effect on the free software community as a large asteroid hitting Earth, but I also understand a little better the techniques that can be used to avoid specific patents, which gives me some hope that we can weather the storm long enough for the world to come to its senses and change the current patent system. NF: What is being done to prevent patent infringement concerns, or even associated perception issues, from bogging down open source software projects? Tridge: A lot is being done in terms of analysis of specific patents, plus there is a fantastic effort being put in by the free software community in Europe to raise the profile of the issue and try to prevent software patents [from] becoming ubiquitous. There have been some setbacks in that effort, but at least the issue is getting some attention. I don't think that the open source projects are being bogged down by this issue at all. It is something that is being actively addressed, but it doesn't cause development to stop, or even significantly slow it down.
