Top Rackspace lawyer: "We'd love to get rid of software patents"

"Once you reach a certain size, you become more of a target," Alan Schoenbaum told us in a recent interview. Schoenbaum is the general counsel of Rackspace, which achieved $1 billion in revenue for the first time last year. He said that patent litigation against the San Antonio company has "accelerated over the last two years."

Until recently, Red Hat was virtually alone among large technology companies in explicitly advocating abolition, not just reform, of patents on software. Now, the fast-growing hosting company promises to be a key ally in the free software movement's fight against software patents.