December 6, 2022 — Amazon Web Services (AWS) has long benefited from the innovation arising out of the Open Source community. In a blog by David Nalley, the President of the Apache Software Foundation & Board of Director for the Internet Security Research Group, he states, “Amazon is committing its entire patent portfolio to the body of patents that are free to use with OIN’s defined Open Source projects. Once OIN agrees to protect a piece of software, all members are granted royalty-free, community patent licenses for the use of that software. By adding our patents to the pool, we are helping to reduce the risk of patent aggression for companies that innovate with Open Source.”
He adds the membership is also a statement that AWS is committed to protecting and fostering Open Source. All OIN members promise they won’t use their patents against each other with respect to Open Source Software (OSS) covered under the umbrella of OIN. OIN protects essential Open Source technologies included under its Linux System definition which includes 3,730 software packages.