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Computer Associates (CA) is giving the open-source community access to 14 of its patents and entering an agreement with IBM for the two companies to share their technology with each other.

A while back, IBM itself gave the open-source community access to about 500 of its patents, and now it will be sharing an undisclosed amount of patents with CA.

"Part of our motivation is to be able to say that we think the next generation of innovation is going to come from open-source, and we want the next generation of developers to be able to innovate," said CA's Chief Technology Architect Mark Barrenechea. Martin LaMonica of CNET News.com reports:

The US patents, which include their equivalents in other countries, address a range of technologies, covering application development, data analytics and systems management. CA said it will provide royalty-free access to the patents and not assert claims against people who make use of them.

Both CA and IBM are encouraging technology donations from other companies to form what they called a "patent commons", so that developers have access to more technology and can continue to make innovations.

Chris is a staff writer for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest ebusiness news.