Sun gets it

Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz gets it: software patents are bad juju, and he's promising to use his patent portfolio to protect Red Hat and Ubuntu from the depredations of the Beast. Here's a guy that understands the business, and although his company has seen some hard times since the party ended back at the beginning of the century, Sun is taking risks and trying hard to ride the free software commodification wave. The earlier you bend to the inevitable the more likely you are to survive. Sun is showing admirable flexibility; sometimes a sharp downturn gives you license to take bold steps that a gradual decline does not.