Open Invention Network Expands to OpenStack, Cloud

Open Invention Network (OIN) is the latest company to buy into the concept of OpenStack. The company, which describes itself as a "collaborative enterprise" that enables open source innovation around Linux by acquiring and licensing patents, has extended its Linux-protective network to include OpenStack and other cloud computing technologies. For cloud services providers (CSPs), the move could foster more Linux innovations and code sharing.

It's another feather in the cap for OpenStack. The announcement centers on OIN's network of royalty-free cross-licenses and its defensive patent portfolio. Basically, the company expanded the technology covered under the licenses and defensive patent portfolio.

"Cloud computing's flexibility and scalability are enabling previously unimagined innovation and value creation," said Keith Bergelt, CEO of Open Invention Network, in a prepared statement. "Our objective with this important extension is to support that innovation."

According to OIN, the expansion of support will "beneficially broaden" OIN's cross-license coverage, furthering its more than 700 community members' ability to share Linux-related technologies and offer an incentive to Linux developers, distributors, sellers, resellers and end-users to collaborate around and invest in Linux.

"We applaud OIN's efforts to promote patent non-aggression in the cloud by adding the OpenStack packages to its Linux System definition," said Alan Clark, chairman of the board of the OpenStack Foundation, in a prepared statement. "The OpenStack Foundation board of directors appreciates that the rapidly-growing OIN community has been, and is now explicitly, supporting freedom of action in the cloud of the future that OpenStack has been formed to enable."

Maybe it comes as little surprise that OIN is supporting OpenStack, considering the eight-year-old organization began with the backing of companies that support the OpenStack project, including IBM and Red Hat.