Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon,

the Georgia Institute of Technology, Illinois,

the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Stanford and Texas universities have united with for major IT suppliers

to create a new set of common standards for the development of open source software.  It’s hoped that these standards will serve to

protect open source software projects from third parties looking to enforce

patents. IBM’s senior vice-president of technology and Intellectual property,

John Kelly, hopes that this will lead to greater commercial pickup of open

source software.