Patented Software

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) can easily afford it. On June 30, 2018, Microsoft Corp reported a gross profit of $20.343 billion on 2nd Quarter revenues of $30.085 billion. Therefore, Microsoft can afford to give away patents.

Microsoft could distribute the software through GitHub; which it purchased for $7.5 billion in June. Notably, the OIN announcement came right before the European Commission approved the GitHub deal. To explain, Microsoft needs Commission approval to operate GitHub in the European Union.

GitHub is the perfect place to distribute the OIN patents because it is the world’s largest open-sourced software repository. In detail, GitHub serves 1.8 million organizations and 28 million software developers.

Unfortunately, news articles do not say which software will be released on GitHub.