Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse in the world of software patents, a reliable source sent me this response from Steve Jobs about a patent pool that's forming and aiming to nail the open source codecs projects. It's enough to make the weak at heart go weak in the knees and stop working on open source projects.
Here is Steve Jobs' response to the letter from Hugo Roy:
From: Steve Jobs
To: Hugo Roy
Subject: Re: Open letter to Steve Jobs: Thoughts on Flash
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2010 06:21:17 -0700
All video codecs are covered by patents. A patent pool is being assembled to go after Theora and other "open source" codecs now. Unfortunately, just because something is open source, it doesn't mean or guarantee that it doesn't infringe on others patents. An open standard is different from being royalty free or open source.Sent from my iPad
Does this mean that patent holders are going to launch an all-out war on open source projects?
Yes. I'm afraid so.
Beware open source programmers. As snipers like to say, "If you see red, you're dead", which here means something along the lines of, "If Apple and other patent holders decide that you've infringed on their patents (whether you have or not), they'll stop your project and possibly seek damages (money) from you.
'Tis a sad day indeed for those open source projects.
'Tis sadder still for the hundreds of dedicated programmers and thousands of adoring fans behind these projects.
I guess if you want to innovate, you have to work for a big company and let them have the profit and you might get your name buried somewhere in the nether regions of an abstract.
Read the original letter to Steve Jobs from Hugo Roy and the response.
What do you think of this and other software patent infringement suits?