SOFA works on Windows, Mac, and Linux. But Linux is especially important for the project because SOFA is developed on Ubuntu. So it made sense to support the Linux ecosystem by signing up with the Open Invention Network. In an ideal world, it wouldn’t be necessary to have anything to do with software patents. For various reasons, they’re a bad idea and function more to inhibit innovation than encourage investment in software research and development. But the Open Invention Network plays a protective function in a world where people who create and actually make things can be preyed upon by parasites who have been granted monopolies on ideas – the so-called patent trolls.
The group was created to defend Linux from patent trolls and other attacks from patent holders. It tries to do this with its own patents which are then available royalty-free to any company, institution or individual that agrees not to assert its patents against Linux. While it hasn’t been done, these patents could also, in theory, be used by the OIN, or an OIN member, against a hostile company in a patent war.
Google joins Open Invention Network patent commons as a full member
Anyway, a range of companies and projects large and small (over 800 at present and growing) have signed up for the initiative including Google, Dropbox, IBM, Canonical, Mozilla, Twitter, Puppet Labs, Valve Software, Alfresco, NEC, Blender, OpenShot, Novell, Inkscape, Philips, Red Hat, CentOS, GNOME, Wikimedia, MariaDB Foundation, Rackspace, Moodle, Openstack, Slackware, Tor, and Sony. You get the idea.