"It's an extraordinary thing to watch, to have evidence provided within minutes of arguments being brought in court," Byer says. "This type of response will be with us for a long time."
Several vendors who sell open-source software and services, including Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Novell, have offered varying levels of financial protection against litigation in order to keep growing their Linux-related revenue. Open Source Development Labs, a global consortium of technology companies promoting the adoption of Linux, is considering the creation of a database that would help programmers search for prior art, which is similar, previously patented technology that would prohibit new developments from be patented.
Open-source software vendors and users may feel threatened by litigation because the various open-source licenses deal with patents in different ways, or not at all. The open-source community has more than 53 licenses at its disposal, this proliferation occurring when open-source programmers decide existing licenses aren't sufficient, Rosen says.
With the average patent litigation costing its participants about $3 million each, it behooves the open-source market to work this out, says Paul Arne, a partner with Morris, Manning & Martin LLP and co-chair of that firm's technology group. Still, there are fewer open-source licenses than there are proprietary software licenses. "Actually, it's a consolidation," he says. "With different proprietary vendors, their licenses are never the same."
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
Maintaining existing network infrastructures often incurs huge technical debt before newer technologies are adopted over time.
Amid ongoing regional uncertainties, telecom infrastructure in the Middle East has expand to include terrestrial low-latency network infrastructure, which offers resilience and agility in navigating political complexities without relying solely on undersea networks.
