Microsoft makes another nod to open source software: assigns more than 60,000 patents to the Open Invention Network

Microsoft has never married particularly well with open source _software_ Traditionally, many users have not looked favorably on the Redmond-based company with Windows as a target, have attacked company policy. But those years, that period of time is increasingly distant on the horizon.

Microsoft is modernizing and although not at the rate that many would like, it has experienced a certain opening. Its applications are now cross-platform and many times even with improvements that reach other systems before the Windows platform.It is also betting on open source and we have just seen a good example of this with the release of more than 60,000 patents that were under its protection cloak.

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Open source seems to no longer cause a rash in Microsoft offices and that is why the company has joined the Open Invention Network consortium (OIN). A platform that was created in 2005 to protect itself against patent trolls and that currently has more than 2,000 members. That&39;s what Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of cloud and business group at Microsoft, said"

All the companies that are part of this consortium share the patents they own so that they can be used freely and without restrictions by other firms included in the OIN. And be careful, because this consortium is integrated among others by Google, Facebook or Twitter.

The first step of what is to come?

Microsoft opens, as we said, to new times. It releases a lot of Linux, Android and OpenStack patents but Windows ones are still under lock and key. We cannot ask for a 180 degree change in such a short time when Microsoft has never been a champion of _open source_.

Let's give it time keeping in mind that this is an important step. An example is that only the patents based on Android that Microsoft has ceded have a value of 3,400 million dollars A great capital to which the Redmonds have given back and that can make you think about the value of the patents that you still keep to yourself.

Source | ZDNet More information | Microsoft