Durham, NC (August 14, 2018) – Open Invention Network (OIN), the largest patent non-aggression community in history, announced today that its eight funding members – Google, IBM, Red Hat, SUSE, Sony, NEC, Philips, Toyota – have committed to rejecting abusive tactics in the enforcement of open source licenses by adopting the GPL Cooperation Commitment. The unanimous support of OIN’s funding members to this commitment reflects the strong belief that responsible compliance in open source licensing is important and that license enforcement in open source ecosystems comes with a cultural expectation that all parties will behave reasonably. OIN encourages each one of its over 2,500 licensees, as well as all participants in the open source community, to follow the example of the OIN funding members and adopt the GPL Cooperation Commitment.
“Consistent with OIN’s mission to provide freedom of action in Linux, we believe it is important to reinforce the principle that IP enforcement should be conducted in a manner that is rational and in consonance with the collaborative process that occurs in open source software,” said Keith Bergelt, CEO of Open Invention Network. “We encourage each OIN licensee committed to patent non-aggression in the core of Linux/Open Source Software to, in parallel, evidence clear and unequivocal support for the GPL Cooperation Commitment.”
Companies adopting the commitment now span geographic regions, include eight Fortune 100 companies, and represent a wide range of industries from enterprise software and hardware to consumer electronics, chip manufacturing to cloud computing, and social networking to automotive. The companies making the commitment represent more than 39 percent of corporate contributions to the Linux kernel, including six of the top 10 contributors.[1]
The companies, projects and developers participating in the GPL Cooperation Commitment have extended these rights because they believed it was right for the community and the open source ecosystems in which they participate and encourage other companies and developers to join them. To make the GPL Cooperation Commitment, or for more information, please visit https://gplcc.github.io/gplcc.
About Open Invention Network
Open Invention Network (OIN) is the largest patent non-aggression community in history and supports freedom of action in Linux as a key element of open source software. Funded by Google, IBM, NEC, Philips, Red Hat, Sony, SUSE, and Toyota, OIN has more than 2,500 community members and owns more than 1,300 global patents and applications. The OIN patent license and member cross-licenses are available royalty-free to any party that joins the OIN community.
For more information, visit https://www.openinventionnetwork.com.
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