Sunday, 12 June 2011

TomTom joins Linux patent group

The Microsoft accused TomTom has joined the Open Invention Network, a
group of companies and patents shall be available for anyone who
promises no patent claims against Linux in them.

The Open Invention Network criticized earlier legal action against
Microsoft at the end of February TomTom put in motion, and claimed
that this shows that the softwarereus a hostile attitude towards Linux
and open source community. Microsoft last week in turn by TomTom was
indicted, has said that the patent not the start of a broad legal
campaign against Linux has to be understood.

TomTom is currently being sued by Microsoft over its application of
several patents, several of which are Linux-related. According to
Jeremy Allison, leader of the Samba project, Microsoft's suit is an
attempt to undermine the GNU General Public Licence (GPL) that
underpins the relevant patents.

The patent group says the accession of TomTom welcome. The Dutch
company, that its navigation systems using the Linux kernel, hopes the
membership a positive contribution to the development of Linux and the
underlying community, where everyone has benefited from TomTom. The
Open Invention Network has over 275 patents for free use and has
collected next to the TomTom support including Red Hat, Novell,
Google, Philips and Sony.

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