Episode 94: Josh Montgomery and the Patent Trolls

Guest Josh Montgomery Panelists Eric Berry | Alyssa Wright |
Richard Littauer Show Notes *TRIGGER WARNING: *There is mention of
blood in this episode. Hello and welcome to Sustain! The podcast
where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul.
Today, we have an amazing guest, Josh Montgomery, who is one of the
co-founders of Mycroft AI, which is a private open source voice
assistant and smart speaker, that customers could access, change,
hack, and customize. Josh has also written a children’s book
called, Mycroft and the Patent Trolls, that relates to open source
sustainability. Josh takes us through the process of how Mycroft AI
came about, we learn how it’s different than the other voice
systems out there, and more about their goal, which is to provide
value to customers in a way that makes them willing and eager to
pay for it. He goes more in depth about the book he wrote which
started because they realized there wasn’t a lot of innovation on
the defense side, and Josh explains the ways the patent system
needs to be reformed. Download this episode to find out much more!
[00:01:42] We learn more about Josh and the story behind founding
Mycroft AI. [00:04:20] Richard wonders how Josh builds this without
having huge amounts of data to access. [00:06:04] When Josh talks
about “us” he explains who “us” is, how large the community is, and
what kind of people are in it. [00:08:21] Josh tells us about the
challenges he faces trying to maintain that ethical boundary, but
still be competitive. [00:12:37] Alyssa wonders if the business
development model that Josh was talking about has been in any other
space. [00:13:40] We hear a pitch for Mycroft AI from Josh.
[00:15:20] Josh mentions giving back to the community and Richard
wonders how that would work and who in particular would get the
investment back. [00:18:18] Josh goes more in depth about how far
they support people and what their focus is right now with Mycroft.
[00:20:21] Richard brings up “Patent Trolls” and ask Josh to talk
about the eleven law firms that he hired and the children’s book he
wrote. [00:22:02] Josh explains how he feels about patents. TRIGGER
WARNING. He shares an example about the guy who invented the
“SawStop” and patented it. [00:25:46] Find out where you can follow
Josh and Mycroft AI online. Quotes [00:03:19] “You know, we went
and decided to do it an open way.” [00:05:26] “So the way we get
access to data is by being good stewards of our customer’s data and
then giving customers the choice of how that data is used.”
[00:07:35] “You know our goal is to make it easier for those people
to contribute and then to do as much of the heavy lifting as we
can, you know, using company resources.” [00:09:31] “Many of the
Silicon Valley giants, I mean for example, Google is under
indictment by all fifty states in the United States.” [00:11:49]
“And then from a sustainability perspective, you know, the next
step to that is to take that revenue and share it with the people
in the community who are building the skills that power the
technology.” [00:12:31] “You know what I would argue is take the
easy way out, which is you know, spying on people and it’s just
something we’re not willing to do.” [00:12:50] “Plex is a great
example of a company that took an open source stack, XBMC, right,
or I guess it’s called Kodi now, took that and built a sustainable
business where they provide some additional features for people who
are paid.” [00:20:35] “So, one of the things that we realized when
we started battling a Patent Troll was that there wasn’t a whole
lot of innovation on the defense side.” [00:22:11] “A patent is a
quid pro quo. It’s a deal between the general public and the
inventor.” [00:23:42] “And so, you know, the patent system needs to
be reformed in a number of ways.” [00:23:47] “But I think the two
biggest things that need to happen is number one, it needs to be
much, much harder to get a patent in terms of obviousness and in
terms of people who have expertise in the area being able to
reproduce it. So that’s number one. And then number two, they need
to create a process that makes it extremely inexpensive and easy to
challenge patents as they’re going through the process to get them
revoked if they’re bad.” [00:24:24] “And so I think we need to
restore the patent system back to what it was originally intended
for.” [00:29:28] “You know, we’ve given open source a voice.”
Spotlight [00:26:47] Alyssa’s spotlight is reflecting on how
valuable open source surveys and polls have been in her journey.
[00:27:38] Eric’s spotlight is a back massager by Comfier.
[00:28:20] Richard’s spotlight is Greg, who is the unsung hero
behind Peakbagger.com. [00:28:54] Josh’s spotlight is the context
of gratitude to Steven Hickson. Links SustainOSS
(https://sustainoss.org/) SustainOSS Twitter
(https://twitter.com/SustainOSS?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor)
SustainOSS Discourse (https://discourse.sustainoss.org/) Joshua
Montgomery Twitter (https://twitter.com/oojoshua?lang=en) Joshua
Montgomery Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuawmontgomery)
Mycroft AI (https://mycroft.ai/) [Mycroft and the Patent Trolls by
Joshua
Montgomery](https://www.amazon.com/Mycroft-Patent-Trolls-Joshua-Montgomery/dp/1736513303/ref=sr11?crid=2AYF5OH9EQ7YK&dchild=1&keywords=mycroft+and+the+patent+trolls&qid=1631731512&sr=8-1)
Plex (https://www.plex.tv/) Sustain Podcast-Episode 80: Emma Irwin
and the FOSS Fund Program (https://podcast.sustainoss.org/80)
Sustain Podcast-Episode 78: Stormy Peters: Sustaining FLOSS at
Microsoft’s Open Source Programs Office
(https://podcast.sustainoss.org/78) Sustain Podcast-Episode 58:
Joel Wasserman on Flossbank and Sustainability Giving Back to
Dependencies (https://podcast.sustainoss.org/58) Sustain Podcast-
Episode 67: Ryan Sipes and Building Community at Thunderbird
(https://podcast.sustainoss.org/67) Troll Hunter- Mycroft’s
Position on Patent Trolls-Mycroft AI Blog
(https://mycroft.ai/blog/troll-hunter-mycrofts-position-on-patent-trolls/)
SawStop (Wikipedia) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SawStop) Comfier
(https://www.comfier.com/) Peakbagger (https://peakbagger.com/)
Steven Hickson Linkedin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenhickson)
Credits Produced by Richard Littauer (https://www.burntfen.com/)
Edited by Paul M. Bahr at Peachtree Sound
(https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Show notes by DeAnn Bahr at
Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Special Guest:
Josh Montgomery.