Microsoft joins Open Invention Network and open sources its patent portfolio

Microsoft has joined the "largest patent non-aggression community in history", the Open Invention Network (OIN), effectively open-sourcing almost its entire patent portfolio. The company has shown increasing warmth to the open source community in recent years, and this latest move means that other OIN members will have access to its patents -- with the exception of those relating to Windows and desktop applications. The OIN embraces -- as Microsoft has done of late -- Linux "as a key element of open source software". See also: Microsoft has bumped up the price of Windows 10 Home by nearly $20 Microsoft fixes… [Continue Reading]