European Council Approves Software Patents 482
A. S. Bradbury writes "ZDNet reports that the EU Council has voted to pass changes to European patent law that will allow the patentability of software. See the FFII for more coverage. Currently, the FFII states 'The Irish Presidency's proposal was passed, with support from Germany, France and most of the other countries whose ministers had publicly promised to oppose or at least abstain. The only no vote came from Spain (to be confirmed), Italy and a few others abstained.' As you may remember, Germany had previously promised to vote against software patents. The FFII news page seems to have been showing growing support in European countries for the FFII and other organisations fighting against software patents, but unfortunately that wasn't enough. So, what now? The European elections are approaching, which means MEPs might be more willing to listen to our views than normal. Slashdot has covered software patents in Europe before."
May I be (Score:2, Interesting)
I mean, talk about a stab in the back.
What do you think? (Score:1, Interesting)
But with all the thievery of intellectual property, and all the monopolizing tactics of the biggest corporations, maybe this is the protection that the individual/small corporate developers need?
So what? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:May I be (Score:5, Interesting)
and you're surprised because why? contradiction, hypocrisy and breaking promises are the hallmark of liberal, representative democracy.
think of this: the number of domestic votes a country like, say, germany has that would be swayed by an issue like this is very minimal. the amount of potential campaign contributions from major software vendors, contributions that can translate directly to votes, is big. the outcome is obvious.
remember that a liberal democracy is a system whereby the rulers get votes from the poor and money for the rich while promising to protect each from the other.
As i've just posted in Groklaw minutes ago... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is Good (Score:5, Interesting)
This will hopefully hasten the collapse of the software industry, highlighting exactly why software patents are bad.
The next 10 years could really be a mess, but hopefully people will learn from it.
This is all so typical. There is always someone, somewhere trying to twist the system to squeeze out some self-benefit, but always at the greater cost of society (and ironically, also usually at the long term cost of the selfish people themselves.)
Damn... (Score:3, Interesting)
But there does look like there is some hope quote "The catch is that if the Parliament still doesn't like software patents, it has to have a majority of all MEPs to put its amendments, which means that in practice they need a two-to-one or three-to-one majority in the chamber,"
Hopefully this draft gets stopped in the next round of voting. If not, this could be a very bad thing for Europe developers of OSS.
The BBC has a different story (Score:3, Interesting)
They say that the patent plans have been shelved indefinately. Who is right?
OK, Euro-voters, do your thing (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm in the US, so I can't do it this time. But to all the Europeans on Slashdot: Your own governments just lied to you about an EXTREMELY important issue. Your own representatives said they would vote against software patents, and then voted for them. Your next move is very simple.
1) Send a letter to the appropriate bureaucrat stating that you are upset, and inform them that they have lost your vote.
2) In the next election, send a letter to their opponent telling them why the incumbent pissed you off (software patent support), along with a check.
3) Vote for the challenger.
4) Watch as a few people wake up and realize that the voting public is not completely stupid and full of sheep.
5) Profit (not in money, but in Freedom).
Your turn now. You take out those bosos while we work against George "Fascist" Bush here on this side of the Atlantic. If you don't, you only encourage our slide into an information dark ages.
Re:May I be (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:So what? (Score:3, Interesting)
1. OSS is a prime example of software that can be developed anywhere.
2. One cannot expect to gain as much from suing an OSS project as from suing a corporate software developer.
3. How do you even go about suing an OSS project? Who would be the defendant?
4. The patent wars are only beginning. It can get much worse.
So, the point I am making is that not many OSS projects have been sued _yet_, but that's far from saying it will stay that way.
And besides, a system can be bad even if it does not negatively affect OSS.
sigh. (Score:5, Interesting)
Choke the system (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This is Good (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm a bit more pestimistic of things. Once things are into law and they need to be fix, things gets more complicated rather than scrapping the whole thing.
For example, personal taxation. Another example, the inconsistances of corporation and individual rights. Another example, international trade laws and tarffs.
NRA (Score:2, Interesting)
I think we should form an European association, a la NRA, where we promise to all vote against any party pushing for software patents, regardless of all other issues.
We are a lot to oppose software patents, and if we unite and call for vote against all parties supporting software patents, we will be heard. No political party can loose millions of vote in European elections, with their huge absention rates.
If we organize, we are strong enough to stop this outright corruption of "our" officials. I will tomorrow write a letter to my representative, stating him that should he opposes software patents, he'll get my vote, and that should he supports software patents, he'll never get my vote. I will also try to contact any association in my country (France) to see if we can organize some counter-power.
I am ashamed of this shit, I am ashamed of my government, and I am ashamed to be a citizen of such a corrupt system.
I won't leave a world to my children where they can't express mathemacial equations (software is just that) without being sued. I think i've never fell that motivated to engage in political action.
To all you slashdot europeans : do not drop arms. The fight is not over yet, and the incoming elections give us much power. We shall unite and fight. We shall not let software become patentable.
Re:Audio files and transcripts (Score:2, Interesting)
I was surprised by this too. The Irish presidency kept hammering on your poor representative until she got a yes out of them... Bullying is indeed the appropriate word. But then, maybe for the next elections, try to not elect such push-overs ;-)
At least the Italians and the Spanish stood their ground!
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sad (Score:3, Interesting)
Quite the opposite. We need to hurry up and get Sterling into the Euro. Then the dollar will go through the floor, the American economy will collapse, and maybe the EU will stop modelling its laws on what's 'obviously' working so well for the USA.
Now is the moment (Score:3, Interesting)
1 - Create one OSS/FS patent pool for defensive protection
2 - Enhance Open Source Licenses patent-defensives
3 - Ask/"Open Letter" to *all* companies supporting Open Source movement asking for explicit promise to not use software patents to attack Open Source software. Please, ask to IBM, HP, Oracle, Sun, CA, Veritas, Novell, Fujitsu, Dell, etc.
4 -
Re:I was part of the Dutch FFII delegation (Score:2, Interesting)
If you can tell me where to go to get co-ordinated with you chaps, I'll give you some time.
Applying for patents (Score:2, Interesting)
Which is it.. (Score:1, Interesting)
I can't decide whether it is plain ignorance or willful ignorance on the part of our politicians? Either they are not informed whilst being paid to be, or they are only listening to just one side of the story (and by now we all know which!).
This whilst in the Netherlands it's come into fashion amongst politicians to talk about stimulating the "knowledge economy" (dutch: kenniseconomie). Well this should do just great, kill small (inovative) software firms and just hope that the monopolies will choose to invest in R&D whilst they could just cash in on their monopoly position. These are the same people that sell taking money away from higher education as a impulse to its quality. The same people that want a Harvard/MIT/Yale kind of University (in the Netherlands) whilst providing just a fraction of the funding these receive and trying to politically steer the directions of fundamental scientific research. The next election they will certainly not get my vote!
In the European elections I will again vote and hope that our European Parliament does not get side tracked and ignored again. Futile? I don't know but it's worth a shot. I it can't get any worse (ok it can.. but that's another story altogether and something I cannot change).
This message was brought to you by armchair politics
If I could have pushed this over +5, (Score:3, Interesting)
This is exactly what you need to communicate, that it's easier than you think to influence people in the right position to do something about this mess.
There's also a big point in making things visible and digestible by the general populace. Most people don't know patent law, but use the analogy about patenting the recipe for bread, and they get it pretty quickly.
The FFII people have done an excellent job, but with a clearer message and more planning for the demo etc, they would have had far more impact.
So now's the time to make sure the European Parliament doesn't approve this. Get up, contact the media - radio stations, TV, newspapers - and let your voice be heard.
I'm personally going to do this even if I live in Norway (which is outside of the EU), because the important people here have close ties to people on the inside of the EU parliament.
We have nothing to lose, everything to win. Get up, get out, and spread the message. This cannot continue.
Heads in Ass (Score:1, Interesting)