Demonstration Against Software Patents in Europe 374
bram.be writes "On April 14, FFII is organising a
walking demonstration in
Brussels against the legalisation of software patents in Europe, as
well as a legislation
benchmarking conference. Like in August last year, these events will be accompanied by an
online demonstration whereby webmasters are asked to close their websites
in protest. The reason for the renewed protest is that after the
European Parliament voted for a
great directive, it
is now the Council of Minister's turn, whose working party proposes as
'compromise' to simply discard all good amendments and on top of that to
even make program publication an infringement. Already more then 1300 sites participate in the online demonstration. Among them are some big sites like KDE, the GNU Project and the Gimp. Also, on April 15 the European
Greens/EFA group is organising a Euro-LUG
party inside the European Parliament, 'with a view to enhance the
networking among the free software community in Europe [...], to inform
the EP about what free software is, how it works and which ideas lie
behind.' Speakers will include Gwen Hinze (EFF), Jon Lech Johansen
(DeCSS), Georg Greve (FSF Europe and Alan Cox. Prior
registration is mandatory for this event."
online demonstration (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:online demonstration (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:online demonstration (Score:5, Insightful)
So often, large organizations avoid taking politcal stances which are at all unpopular, and it is very sad. As we all know from the disgusting power of corporations, large organizations can often control the direction of the government. OSDN should take a position in this matter. It is relevant to OSDN and OSDN could help insitute change.
Re:online demonstration (Score:5, Informative)
Seriously tho, c'mon Slashdot!. Even a simple banner!
Re:online demonstration (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:online demonstration (Score:3, Informative)
I doubt google would participate, as (a) they have a number of software related patents themselves (see below), (b) it's not in their business interest to get stuck in the middle of the debate.
6,678,681
6,658,423
6,615,209
6,529,903
6,5
Let's hope not... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:online demonstration (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't like that we have such patents, much less that we're now practically exporting them
Re:online demonstration (Score:2)
First and foremost. (Score:4, Insightful)
This online protest started April 5th... Why hasn't Slashdot joined this protest [ffii.org]? Too European? Too much revenue at stake?
When it comes to reporting about how much they hate patents, Slashdot is tops. But when it comes to action, zero is taken. Arguing impartibility, with the high number of editorial opinions usually appended to story submissions, is weak.
Poll! (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you want slashdot.org to join the protest against software patents?
[ ] Yes, the site has to be taken down completely and replaced by a protest page
[ ] Yes, but don't take it down, just replace the main page by a protest page, and let users click through to the real main page
[ ] No, don't take it down
[ ] CowboyNeal likes software patents
Bad idea (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:First and foremost. (Score:2)
don't be silly (Score:2)
Slashdot's value is to bring this to people's attention, but it is perverse to suggest that they should effectively shut-down Slashdot to strengthen the point. If you want to go down that path, then I suspect there is a stronger argument for Slashdot to be shut-down in protest over world hunger. Ultimately, every website on the www would be shut-down over one issue or another, which would be rediculous.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:don't be silly (Score:3, Insightful)
Imagine for a moment if every site running Apache suddenly stopped. Every mail server running a free sendmail or postfix. Every ISP with Linux on their modem server or O
Re:don't be silly (Score:2)
Deliberately inconveniencing visitors to your website to make a political point is pure arrogance, and disrespects those that take the time to visit your website.
lol (Score:3, Funny)
--
Retail Retreat [retailretreat.com]
That's the kind of thing I like to see (Score:4, Insightful)
My favorite arguement against is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Source code specifically, and software in general, are like food recipes.
Allowing patents on such would be like allowing someone to patent "sift 2 cups of flour with 1 tsp baking soda and 1/4 teaspoon of salt into a bowl".
When put in those terms the rediculousness of the idea becomes obvious. Unfortunately, you have to dumb things down for lawmakers to understand what they're dealing with... this should be simple enough for them to understand.
Re:My favorite arguement against is... (Score:2, Funny)
I don't buy that for one second; ever read legalese?
Agree and disagree (Score:4, Insightful)
Pointing out specific implications, such as that if software patents were in widespread use in the 80s, the Internet would almost certainly not have emerged. Pointing out specific examples of the dangers. Pointing out the fact that there are numerous studies which point out the damaging effects of software patents, but none which demonstrate their value. These are the arguments we should be making.
Re:My favorite arguement against is... (Score:2)
All you need to do is define a programming language which has a syntax identical to a cooking recipe, then implement important algorithms (eg. DeCSS) in that language, then the law will be ridiculed.
Thus:
sift 2 cups of flour with 1 tsp baking soda and 1/4 teaspoon of salt into a bowl
is actually
bowl = 2000.0f * flour + 1.0f * bakingsoda + 0.25f * salt
Re:My favorite arguement against is... (Score:2)
Re:My favorite arguement against is... (Score:4, Insightful)
Nice theory. Shame it doesn't work that way in practice. If you haven't noticed, either the big companies are the ones with all the patents, or the patents cover something so bloody obvious that anyone who spends ten seconds thinking about the field can come up with it. So you either wind up with a big company crushing all innovation and enforcing their status quo, or a single asshole wiping out an entire industry because he happened to get a patent on "sifting flour" or "adding parsley".
Re:My favorite arguement against is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:My favorite arguement against is... (Score:3, Interesting)
Look at www.ffii.org [ffii.org]. Neither are they only against patenting the obvious nor are they are they against patents per se, they are against software patents. While many are critical about the consequences of patents in other areas, few suggest abolishing all kinds of patents. There are many arguments against patents on software and business models, both theoretical ones (algorithms are, like scientific theories and wo
Re:My favorite arguement against is... (Score:3, Informative)
I can tell you're not a programmer... software IS just like a recipe - just a very complex one. "Hello World" is like making pancakes from a boxed mix.
So you're saying if IBM patented natural language recognition, that it would be a good thing?
Resulting in a total lack of competition, making them the only company in the world who could produce and sell it?
Hmmm... I'm not sure I can see the value in that.
Personally, I'd much rather see other companies try and out-do the competition (producing a better pro
Sign the petition: (Score:5, Informative)
http://webshop.ffii.org/ [ffii.org]
And if you're an European citizen, please sign the petition:
http://petition.eurolinux.org/ [eurolinux.org]
US movement (Score:5, Informative)
And of course you can also organize events in your part of the world, demonstrations at the USPTO or DoJ.
Nobody software professional ever requested that bad old old bureaucratic patent law, the patent lawyers like to sell us. It is not the big against the small ones, it's a patent attorney's conspiracy!
There was no democratic decision ever about software patents in the States.
Re:US movement (Score:2)
Because we've largely already lost. I try to be optimistic, but at this point, the only thing that is going to undo software patents is if they start causing serious economic damange that nobody can claim is just "the way IP works", or we start getting our clocks cleaned by a country with saner laws and people correctly diagnose the problem and fix it... as opposed to the knee-jerk reaction we'll actually get to tighten IP laws since the only n [jerf.org]
Re:US movement (Score:3, Insightful)
Only in Brussels? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Only in Brussels? (Score:2)
http://demo.ffii.org
Subscribe or participate, or link to FFII UK
http://www.ffii.org.uk
Re:Only in Brussels? (Score:3, Informative)
If you want to be kept up-to-date, register [ffii.org] as FFII supporter and in subscribe to the uk-parl mailing list under the "Subscribe to news forums" item of the main menu.
Office? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Office? (Score:2)
See FFII: Microsoft and Patents [ffii.org]
As far as I remember they patented parts of the Office XML specification....
Join the web strike (find banners etc here)
http://demo.ffii.org
Re:Office? (Score:2)
Re:Office? (Score:3, Informative)
Microsoft have already [com.com] filed patents for an algorithm that's required to use the next .doc format.
Also the techniques for decoding/encoding a JPEG file, and for encoding an MP3 file or GIF file, and for rendering a .ttf font as the font author intended, those things are well known for being patented already. People have been threatened, sued, and lost or settled over all those things.
File format patents are not new, and they're a serious problem already.
-- Jamie
Impact on business acceptance of OSS (Score:5, Insightful)
If KDE, GNU, and Gimp want enterprise adoption, they would do well to maintain 100% uptime -- appearing to be reliable business-like providers of quality software.
Re:Impact on business acceptance of OSS (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Impact on business acceptance of OSS (Score:2)
Re:Impact on business acceptance of OSS (Score:3, Insightful)
Except that software patents would bring down all three projects. That's why they need to protest - not because they want to annoy people, but because their existence depends on it.
Re:Impact on business acceptance of OSS (Score:2)
Just how do you justify this ? These are large and succesfull OSS products that are not encumbered by software patents, despite the fact that software patents already exist. I see that software patents have not stopped Linux, mysql, and various gnu and other products from success.
Re:Impact on business acceptance of OSS (Score:4, Insightful)
All these software patents are just time bombs waiting to go off. Everything you implement could be patented already, and if the owner of that patent doesn't like you, your project or your company, you're royally screwed.
Re:Impact on business acceptance of OSS (Score:2)
Your sample is biased.
You haven't seen the products that haven't been released because of software patents, have you?
Neither have I, but I can tell you: I have worked on one such product. Patent concerns have and are impeding its creation and its release as free software. There are two more products that I'm actively planning, that will face similar problems. I am in the EU, by the way.
KDE, Gnome and Gimp will survive even a heavy onslaught of litigation. But components of them may well disappear,
Re:Impact on business acceptance of OSS (Score:2)
http://demo.ffii.org
and get informed what it actually is about. it was quite successful last time in order to attract a great media audience.
They didn't go offline with their site. But they probably could get when patents are adopted, see
http://webshop.ffii.org
Re:Impact on business acceptance of OSS (Score:2)
What's the issue?
Bah! (Score:2)
After just looking around the cheap flights sites, the cheapest I can now get is like 200 - and for a student thats just not viable. A month ago I could probably have got the flights for 50.
I just wish I'd had a bit more notice, and half of my universities compsci dept would have turned up with me!
Re:Bah! (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually the price for a flight is about UKP120* from London. Go from London City, it's cheaper than Heathrow to Brussels. Coaches from the biggest cities to London are on special offer at UKP1-5 right now.
It's still a bit much. Coach all the way to Brussels is UKP52 from London.
-- Jamie
* - why does slashdot eat my pound signs? -- Jamie
Oh great, another week of broken web sites (Score:3, Insightful)
Earth to protesters: the people you want to reach are the politicians and other puppetmasters with money, not the lowly geek who needs to install some software or look something up. The people who really matter for this kind of stuff aren't going to look at your web sites, and don't care if you take them down for awhile.
These actions annoy the wrong people, and may even hurt the cause by making key resources unavailable due to some badly-implemented plea for attention.
Here's an analogy for those who still don't get it: would you barricade the doors of the public library to protest the crap that's on TV? No? Then why block geek web sites when you're trying to reach politicians?
Re:Oh great, another week of broken web sites (Score:3, Insightful)
So, they force people to see the message - after all, if software patents are adopted and enforces, many of these projects would have to close altogether, not just for a day -, but it's still possible to access the website.
disinformation ... (Score:4, Interesting)
1- software patents already exist, have been granted and so on (e.g. GIF in the US, for example, but others in the EU) - in the EU, it was confirmed by the Vicom case;
2- the legislation is _merely_ codifying case law practice into statutory to law to reduce the level of confusion (so you don't have to refer to case law);
3- despite the presence of software patents (e.g. gif), the progress of linux and open source has _not_ been hampered - in fact, in most cases, the presence of patents causes people to make workarounds, some of which are _better_ that the original patents (e.g. GIF -> PNG/JPG; VRRP -> CARP/PFSYNC);
4- stopping this legislation will not stop software being patentable because it already is (see 1 above);
5- not allowing patents for software means that you remove individual rights to the protection of the fruits of their labour - you _enforce_ an "open" social model on their inventions;
The FFII information is pure FUD - "for the last few years the European Patent Office (EPO) has, contrary to the letter and spirit of the existing law, granted more than 30000 patents " because the terms of the EPC (european patent convention) have been clearly interpreted that it is only software _as such_ (e.g. a whole program) not (a) systems that incorporate software as an element, or (b) technical mechanisms within the software.
If I invent a new compression algorithm that is patentable, sure I want to _have the choice_ to either (a) patent it and make money from the patent, (b) dedicate it to the public domain for all to use. If FFII had their choice, then my freedom for (a) would be removed, for some "specious" allegation that software patents are hindering innovation, when, in fact, the swathe of open source software and internet protocols/technology are evidence that software patents have not done anything to hinder innovation.
I don't want rights to my inventive creations to be removed. I want the choice, and what I want the open source community is do is to educate me on how to use my choice, not to impose it upon me.
Re:disinformation ... (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you said it right:
1. There are international treaties that clearly state what shall be patentable and what not.
2. the lawyer, i.e. case-law modified the law by decisions that perverted the meaning of the law.
3. The EU Commission wants to codify this in order to decrease the legal incertainty created by the misinterpretation. That is legalising a landgrab. The EU Parl reconfirmec the original rules.
'If I invent a new compression algorithm that is patentable, sure I want to _have the choice_ to either (a) patent it and make money from the patent, (b) dedicate it to the public domain for all to use.'
This is not the way patent law works in reality, a patent cost 60 000 Eur minimum legal fees. You cannot patent algorithms, but a patent attorney can write it in order to circumvent the law.
'If FFII had their choice, then my freedom for (a) would be removed, for some "specious" allegation that software patents are hindering innovation, when, in fact, the swathe of open source software and internet protocols/technology are evidence that software patents have not done anything to hinder innovation.'
Patents are a govermental granted monopoly priviledge that is justified by the idea to promote innovation. When this 'encourage innovation'-condition is not met the whole interference into the free market is wrong.
Patent law is an instrument of economic policy and shall not be applied in fields where it is not designed for.
There are many many projects that had trouble because of patents.
BTW: FFII is no FL/OSS organisation but a developers association. Many supporters write commercial software and everybody knows that this slow bureaucratic patent law does not work in the field of software.
To 1)
Yes, but currently there is a way in Europe to delete illegally granted patents.
Patents don't play a role in European software development business. Most developers have never seen a patent. Most software patents are granted to non-software developing companys from outside Europe because of the weak patent office standards that circumvent the law.
What of these patents that wetre already granted are worth to get a patent? Which of these cover real innovation?
See http://webshiop.ffii.org
Re:disinformation ... (Score:2)
You have many mistakes:
"2. the lawyer, i.e. case-law modified the law by decisions that perverted the meaning of the law." --- this is how the law works, it's a refining action between the legislature and the judiciary.
"This is not the way patent law works in reality, a patent cost 60 000 Eur minimum legal fees. You cannot patent algorithms, but a patent attorney can write it in order to circumvent the law." -- you misunderstood mean: you can patent an algorithm as embodied in a software program, but you
Re:disinformation ... (Score:3, Insightful)
But we talk about statutory law. Lawyers do not understand software. Only parliament has legislative powers and can express the will of the people. Lawyers may not reverse the meaning of the law they can oly adopt it. And when they reverse the meaning of it, they have to be stopped by a clarified law. Yes, the patent courts are influenced by the patent attorney industry that is intrested in widening the scope of patent law so that everything under the moon can become patentable
Re:disinformation ... (Score:2)
"This is not the way patent law works in reality, a patent cost 60 000 Eur minimum legal fees. You cannot patent algorithms, but a patent attorney can write it in order to circumvent the law."
sir_cello (634395) in reply:
"you misunderstood mean: you can patent an algorithm as embodied in a software program, but you cannot patent the algorithm itself - I certainly didn't mean the latter."
Perhaps I misunderstand the terminology used here. However, sir_cello, are you certain that a pate
Re:disinformation ... (Score:2)
It's not real the algrorith that is patented. The algorith was known.
Re:disinformation ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is, there's no way you can possibly do that without building on other, similar "inventions" that came before yours. There's not much new under the sun in the data-compression business. What, besides archaic patent laws, gives you the moral right to conduct your own personal IP land rush? It's safe to say that your "inventions," no matter what they may be, are economically feasible only because the people who came before you did not patent their own work.
What if Bresenham had patented his line-drawing algorithm? What if Catmull had patented texture mapping? What if Naylor had patented spatial-partitioning trees? What if Wozniak had filed patents on the hundreds of innovations in PC architecture that the Apple II embodied? Answer: instead of extolling patent protection on Slashdot, you'd be busy playing Zork on your TRS-80.
Because the modern legal trend in the patent field is toward patenting ideas rather than implementations -- something that the US patent system, at least, was never originally intended to allow -- patents on any of those examples would have walled off entire segments of computing and graphics research for decades, just the way Unisys's patent on LZW compression discouraged people from using and improving upon the lineage of that particular algorithm. At the end of the day, did Unisys make much money from their "ownership" of the algorithm used in
Re:disinformation ... (Score:2)
Let me respond to your points first.
1. Just because software patents already exist doesn't make them a good idea. There are lots of laws on the books that need changing. That's progress.
2. First, I think this is just inaccurate, but in any case, the same point as in #1 applies. Just because some judges have decided to allow such patents doesn't make them a good idea.
Re:disinformation ... (Score:5, Insightful)
1) The European Parliament voted last September to exclude pure software in the legislation, so it couldn't be patented. The FFII isn't campaigning against legislation, it's campaigning with the Parliament to stop the Council and Commission from bodging the legislation and hoodwinking MEPs who don't understand the issues.
2) Software has been patented in the EU for decades, but software patents have not contributed to the development of the software industry
3) Patents are harmful. They have been one of the key tools employed by companies like Microsoft and Apple in buying up and demolishing competition.
4) Patents are not needed if you want proprietary software. Copyright it, license it under a proprietary license, and you're protected. For someone to duplicate your work legally, they'd have to do all the code again, which is far from nontrivial.
You don't really give any reasons why they are needed, why they're desirable. But you do mention various technologies ("the swathe of open source software and internet protocols/technology") that aren't patented, or haven't had patents used to control their use. Did they need patents to innovate? No, so why have them?
Imagine, on the other hand, if the inventors of HTTP, TCP/IP and other technologies had patented them and restricted their use. Imagine if every implementation of TCP/IP had to pay royalties. Imagine if every web site owner had to agree to a list of terms and conditions of use, and pay a cut of any profits to Berners Lee.
The reason we can't think of lots of examples of harmful patents off the top of our heads, and why we rely on the good research of the FFII, and a lot of studies by economists, is that those patents have kept us in the dark.
Society needs technology protocols and standards to be in the public domain, whether you're a card-carrying member of the Free Software Foundation or a long-time Microsoft user. Patents aren't going to bring us this.
Really, before launching in and accusing the FFII of FUD, you should at least read their material, read some of the many independent studies they mention, and get your facts about the history of patents in the EU correct.
Waste of time closing sites. (Score:5, Insightful)
unclosed parenthetical statements (Score:2, Funny)
patents protect the little guy (Score:3, Insightful)
If not for patents, every smart idea you have will be ripped off by the BigMonopolisticCompany(TM) as soon as you mention it. Given their market position, they will force their customers to use their version. Given their financiar power, they can hire plenty of brilliant coders to implement your idea in no time. You'll be left with no customers, a window of opportunity of max one year and a huge hole in your personal finances.
By the way, patents are the reason why Sun got 1.6bil$ from Microsoft. Without patents, Microsoft could have just trample Sun into the ground without bothering to spend a dime.
As long as your only dream is to reimplement other people's ideas, then, of course, patents are bad. Be innovative and suddenly patents start to look good.
Re:patents protect the little guy (Score:5, Informative)
That may have been how patents used to work, but it isn't anymore. The way patents work nowadays is a large company hires a 'research' department, locks them away in a basement and tells them basically: 'patent every single thing you can come up with'. The company does this to build up a patent portfolio which it then uses as munitions for legal wars. That is all. Software development is left to the big guys.
What's more, there are so many patents over software and they will soon be so fiercely defended that it means little guys won't have a chance at all, regardless of whether they want to release it for free or make a buck. You see, the sheer volume of broad patents means it is impossible to know if your small program is violating anything unless you have a massive legal deapartment going through everything for you. Hence, software development is left to the big guys.
And if software patents are supposed to protect the little guy's ideas, can you think of a single recent case where this has happened? A little guy has patented a software idea that has gone on to become very successful and not trampled by large corps? I can't either. If your argument were true we'd have loads of these small companies with patented ideas being very successful.
To further make my point, we also have large companies trading patents. This is not good. The 'innovator' as you like to call them is no longer the person making money off the patent and it allows large companies to buy up large scary portfolios to push other people out of the market. Let's take Microsoft. Recently they bought up a load of OpenGL patents from SGI. This is not good. Microsoft are a company who are trying to push their own 'technology' (Direct3D) over OpenGL. We are near to a position here where OpenGL could have a stop called to it by Microsoft because it owns vital patents.
At one point in the SCO / BayStar / Microsoft / Novell fiacso we (allegedly) had a situation where Microsoft were close to acquiring vital patents over Unix. Can you imagine what would happen if one company held patents over the two dominant operating system technologies? Even though this didn't happen this time, there's nothing to stop it happening in the future. All it would take is a buyout of Novell or Sun for example.
By the way, patents are the reason why Sun got 1.6bil$ from Microsoft. Without patents, Microsoft could have just trample Sun into the ground without bothering to spend a dime.
Why should I care? This is irrelevant. $1b Doesn't even make a dent in Microsoft's finances. It makes no difference. Neither of these two are by any stretch of the imagination a 'little guy'. You think I should be on the side of Sun here just because they're fighting Microsoft? If it were something over antitrust I mgiht be interested, but as it is, it's just two dinosaurs hurling patent portfolios* at each other. It's only lawyers who win here.
* - Patents that have by now been totally seperated from their original 'innovation'.
Re:patents protect the little guy (Score:2)
Nice, but probably futile (Score:2)
What's so bad about patents? (Score:2)
They don't care about us - we need to fight smart (Score:5, Interesting)
Not that I disapprove. It's still better than nothing. But we need other contingency plans, because as far as the governments are concerned the loss of open source would not be a major one, and they will not respond to us. If we want to be effective, I think we need to look in another direction.
Specifically, if software patents are to be given power and we can't stop it, I think we should propose an compromise. If they are going to go through with this, they need to also create a mechanism by which people can document for the patent office intellectual property without any of the large fees associated with the patent filing process. This new filing path wouldn't grant the filer any unique rights to the IP - it would, however, constitute documentation of prior art which has been filed with the patent office and they are responsible for when considering new tech patents. This is the only answer I can think of which might hault the granting of absurd patents. Allow us to document all our ideas cheaply in such a way as to block patents being granted which involve obvious ideas. I would call it a Declaration of Prior Art. The filer doesn't need to be the one who had the original idea - just someone who can properly describe and document it. Then, if the patent office grants a stupid patent, we can point them to files in their own database that rule it out.
So by all means protest the patents, but remember They Don't Care. What we need instead is a method to impact the workings of the patent office. So let's lobby for the addition of a Declaration of Prior Art section to software patents. We can argue that it would help the patent office do its job, and I don't think anyone would actually have the guts to publicly state they want to take advantage of the patent office's ignorance in this field. Let's try and lobby for a mechanism where we can help the patent office be unable to grant stupid patents. That might actually provide us with a defense when (not if, IMHO) they eventually get software patents through. There's just too much $$$ behind software patents - I have zero expectation the political system will stop them based on anything like ideals. So let's get practical, and look for ways we can do more than just protest.
Re:They don't care about us - we need to fight sma (Score:3, Informative)
Absolute nonsense. Over the past few years, we've been protesting and lobbying and last September the European Parliament put through a decent piece of legislation that did exactly what we asked for.
Not it's the European Commission and the European Council who are causing trouble, after lobbying from industry (Nokia in particular), but so long as we keep the Parliament convinced, we're OK.
So no, every EU citizen reading this should lobby their MEPs imm
Re:They don't care about us - we need to fight sma (Score:3, Insightful)
preaching to the chior? (Score:2, Interesting)
How we should be protesting (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a single, unsmall problem with that: (Score:3, Informative)
Next on the agenda. (Score:2)
Re:Next on the agenda. (Score:2)
Hayek Quote:
I am thinking here of the extension of the
concept of property to such rights and privileges as patents for
inventions, copyright, trade-mar
DMCA in the USA (Score:4, Insightful)
On another note, why is nobody doing something similar in the USA to oppose the DMCA? Yes, I realize it's already a law but laws are made to be repealed. The DMCA is just as dangerous to us as software patents are to Europe (yes, one in the same). Why aren't more people organizing against it in the USA?
Join the protest against European software patents! [opensouce-strategies.com]
The EUCD (Score:4, Interesting)
We need a contingency plan (Score:4, Insightful)
Although we must continue to resist this as much as legally possible, we must also look further forward and think about how to battle the evil of software patents if they become a reality in Europe as well.
Granted, the current patent system currently works almost excusively in favor of large corporationas and empowers them to squash any newcomers, therefore allowing the large corporations to permanently consolidate their market share and influence.
Let's look at allegories in our past: the exploitation of the working class individual by large corporations during the Industrial Revolution. One man was no match against the large corporations. After all, if someone did not agree to the working conditions, the working hours and the meager salary, they'd just throw him out. There were more than enough others available that were eager to take his place in spite of all this.
The answer to this was found in Trade Unions. One man could not make a difference, but a large group of men could. With the founding of Trade Unions, the companies were forced to negotiate with the Trade Unions and offer better conditions and more reasonable pay.
Now suppose we used the Labor Union example as a model to form a similar foundation. An Open Source Community Patent Trust. (Everyone here that can think of a better name, please step in.
I've been impressed with many new true innovations coming from the Open Source development community lately. Everytime I saw a cool new idea being developed by someone or some group within the Open Source community, my enthusiasm about the coolness of the innovation would be further enhanced by an additional sense of relief: "The Open Source community developed this first and put it on the map. There's no way anyone can take this away from us, now that we have demonstrated prior art."
The point is that we underestimate as well as fail to harness all these impressive innovations.
Now if we founded a International Non-profit organisation that any developer could subscribe to (which would require a periodic subscription fee, just as labor unions do) and would use the subscription money to finance as much patents on Open Source software innovations as possible, then its patent portfolio (which it would manage and protect on behalf of the entire community) whould steadily grow and grow.
A comittee (consisting of both developers and enlightened law experts such as the good people at Groklaw) would evaluate which of the donated ideas would we worth patenting, constantly keeping the current budget for expensive patent applications in mind.
Now in order to prevent all major corporations from collectively turning on this foundation, it would be a very important guideline for it to work purely defensively on behalf of itself and its members. It simply couldn't afford picking unnecessary fights, especially not early on in its existence.
As soon as a member of the foundation were bullied by a company accusing them of patent infringement, the foundation could then bring the entire worldwide community's collective patent portfolio to bear against this company. Alternatively, the foundation could spend some money from its defense fund to fund the victim's legal expenses. That way, the victim could more easily decide to go ahead with a lawsuit, instead of having to back off purely because of the threat of litigation. That alone could force many companies to think twice about starting an infringement case, since actually going ahead with the case could also res
Re:We need a contingency plan (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I am for these patents (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I am for these patents (Score:3, Insightful)
This is good and desirable for what reason ?
Re:I am for these patents (Score:5, Insightful)
Software is well protected by copyright that even extends beyond the 20 years protection you get by a patent.
The idea with patents is to make ideas public so others can expand on them and after a grace period (20 years in most cases) be used freely by everybody. Software on the other hand like litterature, paintings, poems etc. have been protected by copyright. The benefit of this have been that you do not need to file a costly patent application and your work is protected for much longer. This is in many cases much stronger than a patent, especially for software where I find it difficult to come up with any good examples of ideas worth patenting.
In Europe you have until now not been able to patent algorithms etc since mathematics have been considered a nature phenomenon that can be discovered but not invented.
Re:I am for these patents (Score:2, Interesting)
One thing that could make patents on software a little more palatable would be to reduce the protection period to something that makes a little more sense on internet time. If a software patent was valid for say 3 years after filing this should give a good head start to any bright ideas and make it possible for the market to get full interoperability/documentation within reasonable time.
Re:I am for these patents (Score:5, Insightful)
A book is protected by copyright laws. But words or letters aren't. Same for software, it makes sense to protect a program, but to protect a button or any other idea, that's ridiculous.
A library to compress an image (like JPEG) deserves protection, but the concept of image compression doesn't.
Re:I am for these patents (Score:3, Insightful)
As far as I know, no one can make money with software they create who couldn't do so without software patents.
Instead, with software patents, many people cannot make money with stuff they create (nor create and distribute free software) in cases where they can without software patents.
Of course, those few who can still make money in areas that are covered by patents can make even more money because there is
Re:Learn to compete like everyone else (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you saying small businesses do not provide economic benefit?
Are you saying parasites such as PanIP provide an economic benefit?
This is even without getting into your strange assertion about open source not providing economic benefit (are you somehow saying that SUSE does not provide economic benefit to the EU, but Microsoft Corporation of Seattle, Washington does?) or your underlying assumption that economic benefits are the only kinds of benefits (for example, if the citizenry were converted to slave labor for the corporations, this would provide the maximum "economic benefit" possible, but is this a desirable situation?).
Compete on merit and quality and out sell the competition.
This is the entire problem; this is not possible in a software patent world.
Re:Learn to compete like everyone else (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no economic justification or evidence, it is a pure legalistic move with no economic foundation. We won the debate.
Liberal Economists, SME, Programmers are against software patent law. Patent law is no felxible instrument that causes benefit in the area of software.
Only lawyers associations and the Business Software Allicance.
It a common prejudice by those you don't understand the reality of patent law.
Re:Here it comes (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Here it comes (Score:2)
Don't forget that patents are a government granted monopoly privilege. This does not sound like Free market, that sounds like a red dictatorship.
Re:Stalmanism! (Score:2)
Stallman saying anything against patent attorneys only throws us back. He is a lobbying autist.
Re:Don't see what the big deal is. (Score:2)
Re:Don't see what the big deal is. (Score:5, Insightful)
What's unreasonable is that it prevents me from making money from my products.
What's unreasonable is I can sit in my home and develop some great new software and then I can't publish it if it's the kind of software which is against the interests of established big business. I can't sell it: as a small business, I'd lose more from litigation than I'd gain from sales. Even some big businesses are uneasy with all the work they have to put into patent defense.
If I produce an excellent product, I can sell it - to a big company with a strong legal team. I can't run a small shop selling controversial software products, all I can do is pass it on to a big company for them to decide what they want to do with it. Or maybe I can sell it under the radar. Be careful not to advertise too much. (That doesn't seem reasonable to me). Or look small but grow fast, so I can become a big company myself if I'm lucky. (But I don't want to run a big company; why should I have to?)
The core of this issue is that patents favour businesses who retain a large legal department. Exactly the sort of business I don't want to have to be.
That strongly favours big business structures. It's not good for everyone who might actually want to use my products, because it doesn't motivate people like me to invent cool stuff, in fact it demotivates - because I'm not motivated by the idea of getting sued (and losing) for being too clever.
And I'm not motivated by the creation of big businesses, or pouring my heart into creating for one. That's not what I want to do. It's not the world I want to create for our children, having seen the consequence of a big business dominated world to date. And there are lots of creative, technically proficient people of a similar mind.
There's nothing unreasonable about fair competition, when the results are good. This is not fair competition, though, and the results are not good: this is the long arm of patent law acting in the interest of big business at the expense of small business and individuals, and at the expense of spirited individual invention.
It's natural and traditional for established big businesses to fight and get their way. It's good that they do: not all that is created in that way is bad. But that doesn't make it ok for the law to strongly penalise spirited independent inventors. That's not good for anyone, really.
-- Jamie
Re:The law is too complicated (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The law is too complicated (Score:3, Interesting)
Why stone tablets? The law of the jungle is older, and much simpler: If you can't eat me, I'll eat you.
Re:Patenting Software (Score:4, Insightful)
But that's exactly the effect that software patents have. That's what they do!
Not just in the free software community, but in commercial non-free software as well: I have seen good, sensible functions not used in many a commercial product, precisely because (x) patented them.
Did you mix up copyright and patenting? Copyright let you place restrictions on your unique software. Patents let you place restrictions over broad functions, so that competitors can't use those functions, or anything similar.
In practice competitors do use the same broad functions despite patents. However, they do so by either being very large businesses with big legal teams and strong patent portfolios of their own, or they simply hope not to be sued. Because there is no way to be sure of not being sued, if you operate in a country where any kind of idea may be patented.
When businesses survive by hoping not to be sued, that is not a healthy way to run a marketplace. Healthy markets with healthy results are based on the open sharing of information, not perpetually trying to hide what you do.
-- Jamie
Re:What happens to the world.. (Score:4, Interesting)
True,a country cannot export a product to eg. the USA if the product infinges IP, but what about all the tools equipment and everything else that went into it's manufacture?
The western roman empire destroyed itself. True, germanic barbarians overtook rome, but not by some mighty battle, they just strolled into a city that had forgotton the basics, such as how to defend itself. The rest of the empire had even forgotton how to administrate itself.
Nowdays the western economic empire has given up on making wealth by producing things, and likes to make a living by owning the rights to produce things. The western empire will slowly but surely forget how to produce things, and then find that new things are being produced elsewhere using technology they don't own.
In the long term who is going to innovate, the people who are producing today or the people spinning as much money as possible out of what they produced yesterday?
Re:What happens to the world.. (Score:2)
Grandparent really has a point. Parent sounds a little too content with current happenings. (No Offense.)
One has to wonder what happens to "Information Technology" when information can be owned. The rate things are going, IT workers will need to major in some form of law, with a minors in co
Re:What happens to the world.. (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Trade sevret - you don't get to see the code
2) Copyright - the code you don't see cannot be copied, the object code *which has no expressive content* cannot be copied
3) Patents. Give the above two, you don't see what the patent means in actual terms, so it has to be interpreted by a solicitor as to what *they* think will hold up in court.
Patents alst way too long and don't currently need a practical result.
Re:Futile (Score:5, Insightful)
Direct democracy can work, we've proven that already. I bet you've never in your entire life just went to a politician, knocked on the door and asked him whether you could talk to him about an issue that bothers you. It may sound like an insane thing to do, but it works. Really. Especially if guys fly from Greece to Brussels and start talking to a Greek MEP in Greek. Those people didn't know what hit them.
It's pessimists like you that say that you can't change anything who make sure it is that way. It's a vicious circle. Obviously, you're not going to win every time (e.g., we lost the IPR enforcement directive). But you're making sure the other side doesn't either, so you are making a difference.