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Posted by Chris DiBona, Open Source
Programs Manager

You'll often hear members of our open source team say, “Every
time you use Google, you’re using Linux.” It’s absolutely true.
Check a Google engineer’s workstation, and you’ll probably find
it's running Linux. Do a search on Google.com, and a Linux
server will return your results. Ever since Google got its start,
Linux has given us the power and flexibility we need to serve
millions of users around the world.

In turn, we feel a strong responsibility to the Linux community,
and we’re always looking for creative ways to put our resources in
the hands of Linux developers. That’s why today we became a
licensee of the href="http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/" >Open Invention
Network (OIN), an innovative patent-sharing organization
founded to create a legally protected environment for anyone who
works with Linux.

The concept behind OIN is simple. All OIN licensees, including
participants such as IBM, Oracle, NEC and Sony, agree to
cross-license their Linux-related patents to the
others free of charge. Patent issues therefore become a much
smaller concern inside the community, and OIN members can focus
their energy on writing and releasing software rather than vetting
their code for intellectual property issues. It's the legal
equivalent of taking a long, deep breath.

For us, today’s announcement marks the latest development in a
long, fruitful relationship with the open source community. The
Google href="http://code.google.com/soc/2007/" >Summer of Code program
has trained over 2,000 students as open source developers, many on
Linux-related projects. We continue to fund external projects and
host events like the href="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDeveloperSummitMountainView" >Ubuntu
Developer Summit and the

href="http://www.linux-foundation.org/en/Linux_Foundation_Collaboration_Summit" >
Linux Foundation Innovation Summit. Hundreds of Googlers are
submitting patches to Linux, and we’ve open-sourced over a million
lines of code.

We believe Linux innovation moves fastest when developers can share
their knowledge with full peace of mind. We’re proud to participate
in an organization that’s making that possible, and we look forward
to seeing OIN grow and thrive. height="1" width="1" />

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