Dutch Parliament Reverses Software Patent Vote 301
Sanity writes "On May 18th, by a thin majority, the European Council of Ministers voted in favor of throwing out the European Parliament's efforts to keep software patents out of Europe. According to an FFII press release, the Dutch Parliament yesterday voted to change its Minister's vote, which was in favor, to an abstension. This is an unprecidented move and a great coup for those fighting against software patents, never before has a country reversed a vote in this manner. While this is not sufficient to reverse the decision of the Council of Ministers, it does pave the way for other countries, many of which were pressured into an affirmative vote, to do the same. Now is the time for citizens of the EU to put pressure on their national governments to follow the Dutch lead."
Great News (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a small step on it's own, but that's really good news :) Hopefully some of the countries who were unsure about it but ultimately pressured into agreement will now start to think twice about their choices, and maybe refuse to accept the motion, or abstain, removing the majority that the motion otherwise has.
It'd be better if they had outright voted no, but an abstention is still better than a vote in favour.
Re:Great News (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Great News (Score:5, Informative)
The council of ministers IGNORED the explicit vote from the EU parliament in this matter. The minister did a bad job and the Dutch parliament told him so.
Re:Great News (Score:3, Informative)
Technically the minister can decide not to do this in which case a vote of no confidence may follow (after a debate with the minister on his reasons for not revoking his vote). However, given the political consequences of this scenario, this is unlikely t
Re:Great News (Score:5, Interesting)
I have to admit I understand nothing to the EU system...
--
Go Debian!!!
Re:Great News (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Great News (Score:5, Informative)
It means that something went really wrong. In our case, the Minister said to the Dutch Parliament that there was agreement between the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, which was absolutely not the case.
In our communications with politicians, it became clear that they had no idea what was going on. Because of the clear case of misinformation, we were able to get the attention of the Parliament, so we could inform them of the situation.
What was really important was that we had the European Parliament on our hand.
What hopefully happens now is that the Dutch decision triggers the attention in the other European Countries, so they start talking to their people in the European Parliament and to local representatives of the FFII [ffii.org] and other organisations.
In case you're interested: read all about our efforts at: osnews.com [osnews.com]
Re:Great News (Score:2)
Note for the non-Luxembourgers: yes, we did have a general election in the meantime, and the guy in the picture's party lost big time, hehe. Our new government is not yet formed, but probability is quite high that this guy won't be butchering any penguins anytime soon!
Changing votes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Vote [reference.com]:
1. A formal expression of preference for a candidate for office or for a proposed resolution of an issue.
2. A means by which such a preference is made known, such as a raised hand or a marked ballot.
Re:Changing votes? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Changing votes? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the deal is that they have a "political vote", but the actual binding vote can only take place once the document has been translated into all EU languages. Historically the second vote has been a formality, but the big deal here is that the Dutch have demonstrated that if a Minister has voted against the wishes of their government in the Council, that vote can be changed.
This is not only good for software patents, but its also a step forward for accountability in the EU.
Re:Changing votes? (Score:4, Informative)
Better link (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Better link (Score:5, Informative)
The Inquirer [theinquirer.net]: "A plan by the European Council of Ministers to force the continent wide adoption of the Directive on Software Patents suffered a blow yesterday [ffii.org] when the Dutch Parliament ordered a minister to withdraw the country's support".
Groklaw [groklaw.net] says "The Dutch parliament is making news. It has just withdrawn its vote for the Directive on Software Patents. It's a proof-of-concept vote, you might say, the first time such a move has been taken in the history of the EU, demonstrating that other countries are free to do the same, as we reported on June 22.".
In Germany, Heise [heise.de] covers the story. In the Netherlands, the story is making headlines all over the place, lik e for example on webwereld [webwereld.nl] and Tweakers.net [tweakers.net].
This sudden change of direction is a long story [osnews.com], in which a classic case of desinformation of the Parliament triggered a whole process of debates and motions.
Dirty. (Score:3, Interesting)
HOWEVER, it is totally justified.
If your competitor plays dirty and wins, consistently, the only way you can compete is to be just as dirty, if not more-so.
The upcoming USA election should be interesting.
Re:Dirty. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Dirty. (Score:2)
That's not a problem, he's probably got a cushy golf-playing job already lined up at Microsoft or another similiarly nefarious organization, just waiting for him to take it whenever he feels like retiring from politics to, "spend more time with his family."
Ow! the pain! (Score:5, Funny)
So they were for being against opposing patents. This is your brain on drugs.
Re:Ow! the pain! (Score:2)
A mind is a terrible thing to confuse with an egg. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:A mind is a terrible thing to confuse with an e (Score:2, Funny)
The Dutch parliament opposes their minister's opposition to the amendments which opposed software patents.
:P
ahh... thank you, so much clearer now
do we love or hate the dutch right now? im still lost
Re:A mind is a terrible thing to confuse with an e (Score:3, Funny)
Re:A mind is a terrible thing to confuse with an e (Score:3, Funny)
Bernard Woolley: "Now, may I just have your approval for this Local Government Allowances Amendment Number 2 for this year's regulations."
Jim Hacker: "What is it?"
Bernard Woolley: "It is a Statutory Instrument to be laid before the House. As Minister responsible for local government we need you to authorize that the revised Paragraph 5 of Number 2 Regulations 1971 shall come into operation on March the 18th next, revoking Regulation 7 of the Local
Re:Ow! the pain! (Score:4, Interesting)
Agreed. If it weren't for the context my initial reading was to think that corporations had gotten the better of politics. Perhaps it should read: "the European Council of Ministers, to keep software patents out of Europe, voted in favor of throwing out the European Parliament's efforts".
The issue is the prepositional phrase "to keep software patents out of Europe". Is it serving as an adjective or an adverb? Does it modify "efforts", meaning the European Parliament had been striving to keep software patents out of Europe, or does it modify "voted", meaning the action of voting served to keep software patents out of Europe? The meaning of the prepositional phrase, in its published position, does not become apparent without the context around it.
Re:Welcome to the EU (Score:2)
Software patents are evil anyways. (Score:2, Insightful)
May be of little use (Score:5, Insightful)
If they had changed their vote to a negative instead of just abstaining then it might have some influence, but the Dutch chose to act as if their man wasn't at the vote.
This won't make any difference the UK vote on patents although the Eurosceptics might enjoy the idea of putting a spanner in the works of the commision on other issues.
Re:May be of little use (Score:4, Informative)
Negative vote not in reach (Score:4, Informative)
Re:May be of little use (Score:5, Informative)
The difference is mostly psychological/politcal.
Its a dangerous precedent (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Its a dangerous precedent (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Its a dangerous precedent (Score:2)
Re:Its a dangerous precedent (Score:5, Informative)
Note however that the vote was on "a political agreement on a common position of the Council", and that until this political agreement is formalised, no official vote has taken place yet. Of course, it's very much "not done" to change your stance after a political agreement has been reached, but there are no juridical hurdles which prevent you from doing that.
Re:Its a dangerous precedent (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Its a dangerous precedent (Score:2)
Re:Its a dangerous precedent (Score:2)
Re:Its a dangerous precedent (Score:5, Interesting)
And people are attempting to change these rules, for just the reasons that this debaukle has highlighted, regarding both the reversal of the parliments decisions by the council and the reversal of the dutch vote.
Re:Its a dangerous precedent (Score:5, Informative)
ffii [ffii.org]
"The European Parliament's version asserted that patents would only be allowed for industrial inventions (e.g. washing machines) and would not be made possible for pure software. All these adaptations were removed in the Council of Ministers' controversial version.
Earlier, Brinkhorst described the Council proposal to the Dutch Parliament as a compromise with the EP. In recent legislative debates, Van Gennip was forced to admit that this was incorrect information, and attributed it to "an error in the word processor." "
-doh!
Re:Its a dangerous precedent (Score:3, Informative)
I agree that this is a lengthy process, but since Europe is trying the harmonize the legislation of a lot of countries, hickups like these are to be expected, and it
Re:Its a dangerous precedent (Score:3, Insightful)
I would rather have our politicians have the ability to change their vote, then to force them to stick with a vote that could be a mistake.
Imagine this - a politician votes today on passing a law - tomorrow it dawns on him that the law is TERRIBLE...w
Re:Its a dangerous precedent (Score:2)
A similar thing could happen in the states; a bill passed by Congress could be passed to an outgoing president, who leaves it to the incoming president to sign up... the incoming president can then still veto the bill.
Its unlikely in the US system, as a bill becomes la
Re:Its a dangerous precedent (Score:5, Informative)
Typically the EU commission (the commission is the closest thing to a EU cabinet) will propose a new law. The proposal will be considered by the EU Parliament (elected by popular vote), which will issue an opinion. In this specific case the Parliaments opinion included a wide number of changes to prevent software patents.
After the parliament decides on their opinion, the Council of Ministers (ministers of the governments of the member states) vote. In this case the council decided to disregard parliaments opinion and their changes.
However, since it is usually impractical to make official translations to all the official languages, the council needs to vote again on the officially sanctioned translated texts. Only this vote is binding. This is what gave the Dutch a chance to force their minister to change the vote.
Once the Council has voted, the law goes to the EU Parliament for a second reading. If the Parliament approves the legislation or does nothing, the law goes to the Council which can then approve the law by qualified majority. Once so approved, it is the duty of the member states to change their national laws to be consistent with the EU law where needed.
If the parliament REJECTS the law with absolute majority, the council can still adopt the law, but only with unanimity. So if the parliament rejects this law with absolute majority on the second reading it's dead.
If the parliament amends the law with absolute majority, the changes go to the commission. If the commission accepts the changes, the council is authorised to approve the law with a qualified majority. If the commission rejects the changes, the council can only approve the law with unaminity.
In this case the commission is likely to reject any significant changes suggested by the parliament on the second reading, since it wanted the law in the first place.
So it's not as if this change would have automatically become law if the Dutch hadn't changed their mind - it was only about halfway through the process.
Re:Italy's furious! (Score:2, Interesting)
Ehm, the majority of the spanish people were against Spain sending troops to Iraq in the first place. (I believe they stated they would let the troops stay if the United Nations took political and military control).
The PSOE stated they would bring the troops home if they were elected. Maybe
Re:Italy's furious! (Score:5, Interesting)
I live in Spain, and I lived through those days of the bombing and elections shortly afterwards. I can tell you something with certainty -- the election went the way it did not because of the bombing, but because of the governing party's response to it. They tried to very crudely manipulate public opinion in the aftermath of the bombing so that the elections would go in their favour. The public was responding to the governments blatent attempt to manipulate them, not the bombing per se.
It's a real shame that it was presented in a lot of the American press differently, because Bush could learn a lot from the Spanish public's response to the governing party's attempted manipulation -- lie to the electorate, and they'll punish you for it.
Re:Italy's furious! (Score:2)
What happened was that the minister representing the goverment voted against its wishes. They had every right to change the vote.
Re:Italy's furious! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah. I always thought that the US reaction to 9/11 was such an impressive display of nuance, balance and wisdom.
opportunity lost (Score:4, Funny)
Speaking as an American... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're a democracy, then you're a constituent, and your opinion matters, as long as it's heard. E-mail works good, but snail mail works better. Better than all of that, however, is a phone call.
Re:Speaking as an American... (Score:2, Funny)
It's really different from the USA, where you can write your congressman as easily as buying food.
Re:Speaking as an American... (Score:2)
It starts with patents and ends with your freedom.
That's not quite right. Actually it's:
1. Patents
2. ???
3. Your freedom
4. Profit!
Re:Speaking as an American... (Score:2)
No, but it sets a broad ranging precedent. You fail to see the big picture.
Oh and the European legislation certainly is stealthy, except for it being widely covered in news stories, well, kind of like this one. So you're spot on once again.
Really? Care to take a short walk outside (assuming you're Euro) and ask some people on the street what they think of software patents? Widely covered, i
holy triple negatives batman (Score:5, Funny)
Oh that was clear.
In other news... (Score:4, Funny)
Seriously... (Score:5, Insightful)
If we survive long enough to make the floating cities and flying cars a reality, it will be because inventors, software developers and corporations were open-minded and generous enough to give away their inventions/creations for the benefit of everybody, albeit in exchange of a reasonable amount of compensation, but above all the satisfaction of having done something good for the betterment of others.
The current trend seems to be headed in a completely opposite direction - profit (hate that word now) seems to be the only motivating factor (if not for individuals, atleast for the corporations binding creative humans by heavy handed employment contracts/etc) for any development we're seeing at all.
It's about time we got over this short-sightedness and moved towards a society which is not encumbered by flimsy lawsuits, overstepping patents, profit mindedness, or constant fear of the former two. Information should be free.
Re:Seriously... (Score:2)
-> I get a great idea for something the world needs
-> I need to prototype it, but have grossly insufficient funds
-> I seek people with money who are willing to loan me some $$$ if I pay them back more than they gave me
-> Now I must build the device on the capital given to me, and figure out how to make more $$$ from it than I put in to it, to pay off my loan AND continue to eat for the next 2 years.
-> I have 2 choices, prototype a
Re:Seriously... (Score:2)
In all honesty, the only way this will work is in a community where everyone is given an equal quality of living, and everyone contributes. This assumes two things:
1) People are not greedy and want more then everyone else (i.e. you have $10.00 I want $30.00) 2) Everyone contributes (i.e. we are not lazy, and by our very atomic nature, let alone human nature, we
Great inventions by corps? Name one! (Score:3, Insightful)
What great inventions?
Steam engine? Nope, invented by a single man.
Internal combustion engine? Again, nope.
Penicillin? Not a corporation.
Radio? Again, no.
Corps only make inventions profitable.
"Somehow, I don't see a guy in his garage inventing the next breakthrough in microprocessor technology, or space flight, or medicine, then giving it away. That's a fairy tale."
Maybe not giving away, but my guess is tha
Abstention? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Abstention? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Abstention? (Score:4, Interesting)
We still need more no-votes to break the qualified majority, but thanks to this victory, getting those votes now is actually realistic.
The story: (Score:5, Informative)
The person who was going to vote is the leading person of one of our political groups (that group was oposed to the new law even more than most others)
He decided to vote in favor if the proposal would be changed to be a much nicer law.
The proposal was changed to some extend, but not as far as what he descussed and promised to the rest of his group and the other groups.
He voted in favor of the law, and everyone was stunned!
Things started to rumble as his own party was starting to ask questions.
A dutch digital freedom organisation made a propsition to the different party's to change the vote.
The voter replied that he would not change his vote as that could be harmfull to his party and carreer.
And now all of sudden, probably after more talking and lobying he did change, (or someone else made him)
That's Understandable (Score:4, Funny)
In other news, my best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with a girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night.
I love the Dutch! (Score:5, Funny)
Corporate representation (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Corporate representation (Score:2)
Re:Corporate representation (Score:3, Informative)
Well said. (Score:2)
To let "Mr. Typo" get off light, you have to have the kind of benighted self-contempt that Americans, Chinese and ex-Soviet citizens are really familiar with.
Not a type, she blamed it on the word processor (Score:2)
LOL, why believe in a monopoly? He (actually the State Secretary) didn't blame it on a typo, but actually blamed the *word processor*.
Now somehow I don't get the feeling he used Open Office. And we all know who is the #1 word processor manufacturer in the world
Re:Not a type, she blamed it on the word processor (Score:2)
So unless I am wrong (Score:2, Interesting)
Just like any other company that does R&D (the most costly aspect of producing a product) what is the problem with it being patented?
Let them recoup their costs. If I write some software, I be damned if someone is going to tell me how to market/sell/utilize it (short of national security breach).
Re:So unless I am wrong (Score:3, Informative)
You have apparently no idea of the economics of writing software. Have a look at these studies [ffii.org] the EP took into account when voting against software patentability... And that doesn't even include the FTC study [ffii.org.uk] that was published afterwards.
Re:So unless I am wrong (Score:2)
What I do know: Some Company X makes a product that costs them some amount of dollars (investment). They work to intellectually protect their product *god forbid* & investment. Then they go to produce (supply) and sell (sell cost) to make the most amount of profit.
Consumer A - views the product, determines if he wants it (demand). If the demand value is equal to or greater then the price (sell cost) the consumer buys it. Hopefully the sell co
Re:So unless I am wrong (Score:3, Informative)
A company can get all the protection it needs to realise what you describe by means of copyright. Software patents in fact undermine its investments: it spends a lot of money on R&D and writing a program, brings it on the market and t
Re:So unless I am wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
They already get copyright on the code they write, you seem to confuse that with patents...
The problem is software is basically algorithms. You should not be allowed to patent business methods, mathematics et al. This just serves the big guys w
Re:So unless I am wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
In literature, the media to which copyright originally applied, an idea is worthless but it's expression is valuable. You can't patent the idea of a story about star-cros
Re:So unless I am wrong (Score:2)
2)Come out with a work around. If you can't use nesting selectable options in a menu, come out with a better method
3)The most important issue - the patent office hire people who are qualified, and not overburdeoned to rush - who will register legitimate patents - not retarded ones (hmm can I patent the method for breathing air???)
You are mostly wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Software is a process, done physically by a machine.
really, now! Software is a set of instructions. What the GP meant is (I presume) that you can emulate the effect of executing those instructions on a cpu, in your head - very slowly indeed, but that's not the point.
Software and programming is not a feild of technology. It is a feild of mathematics.
This is a pure statement of your opinion, and many many many people would argue you
English, please? (Score:2, Interesting)
What the heck, can someone simplify it?
Official record of the vote? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Official record of the vote? (Score:3, Informative)
Go Dutch (Score:2, Funny)
whoops (Score:3, Funny)
Voted in favor of throwing out whatnow? (Score:2)
I see this writeup was written in the same straightforward style as is the norm in European Union legislative matters:
"European Council of Ministers voted in favor of throwing out the European Parliament's efforts to keep software patents out of Europe."
So they voted in favor. In favor of what? Throwing out something. So they voted against something. Against what? European Parliament's efforts to keep software patents out of Europe. So they voted in favor of software patents. Gotcha.
Software patents CAN'T work correctly (Score:3, Insightful)
Consider the Google pagerank patent, how can Google know if anyone other search engine is using pagerank?
Even if search engines released their binaries, it would be next to impossible to reverse engineer all the binaries and locate the equivalent to the 'page rank' system in it.
So any 'middle uniqueness' patents are worthless because infringements can't be detected.
Setting aside all the history of algorithms not being patentable, this is a basic problem with software patents.
That leaves patents on the idea itself, or patents on the implementation in code (which is already protected by copyrights, and trade secrets).
Re:Awesome (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Awesome (Score:2)
Re:Never trust the Dutch (Score:4, Informative)
I don't call myself Dutch (Score:3, Informative)
Re:From the /. posting you'd never know... (Score:2)
Re:From the /. posting you'd never know... (Score:2)
Re:From the /. posting you'd never know... (Score:2)
Re:I don't get it... (Score:2)
Now, the Dutch parliament has tol
Re:uhh (Score:2)
Ok so parliament WANTS software patents?
Netherlands does NOT want software patents?
Netherland minister voted in FAVOR of software patents?
Netherland gov't smacked the Netherland minister and said RETRACT your vote?
I don't consider myself to be the smartest person in the world, but I am not dumb either - it just took me about 15 posts to realize who was voting which way - damn gov'ts and their trickery. I hate double n
Re:Double negative (Score:2)
Re:How are "No Software Patents" a Good Thing(tm)? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How are "No Software Patents" a Good Thing(tm)? (Score:2)
Re:How are "No Software Patents" a Good Thing(tm)? (Score:2)
Copyright is different from patents, the latter protects an idea the former an implimentation of that idea. Unfortunatly the broad nature of patenting ideas will lead to only those w
Re:I am officially confused (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Incorrect information! (Score:3, Informative)
This is correct.