Listen to this articleOpen Invention Network, the organization formed to safeguard open source software, has announced that The Clearing House has joined as a community member. The Clearing House operates U.S.-based payments networks that clear and settle more than $2 trillion of financial transactions each day through wire, ACH, check image and real-time payments. The Clearing House is also the nation’s most experienced payments company, with a long track record of providing secure and reliable systems and payments innovations. It is also a significant user and proponent of open source software.
“We remain focused on integrating the best technologies in our payment networks, which help to deliver services that our banks’ customers value and trust. We enable all financial institutions to offer safer, faster and smarter digital transaction services, and open source is a significant innovation driver in these offerings,” said Sean Reilly, Senior Vice President and Associate General Counsel at The Clearing House. “We are pleased to join the Open Invention Network and support its role in protecting open source software.”
Financial services companies have a history of leveraging open source software through platforms and systems provided by their third-party technology suppliers. Presently, most financial services companies are building and integrating Fintech themselves. By doing so, financial services companies increasingly rely on open source as they build platforms that require state-of-the-art security, scalability and availability.
“Advancements in financial services and Fintech increasingly rely on open source technologies,” said Keith Bergelt, CEO of Open Invention Network. “As the most experienced payment company in the U.S., and a keystone for the financial services industry, we are pleased that The Clearing House is committed to patent non-aggression in core Linux and adjacent open source technologies.”
Patent non-aggression in core technologies is a cultural norm within open source software community, so that the litmus test for authentic behavior includes membership in Open Invention Network. Open Invention Network is funded by Google, IBM, NEC, Philips, Sony, SUSE and Toyota. The OIN community practices patent non-aggression in core Linux and other key open source projects by cross-licensing Linux System patents to one another on a royalty-free basis. Open Invention Network’s patent license and member cross-licenses are available for free to any business or organization that joins the its patent non-aggression community.
