Poland Blocks Software Patents in the EU

Several people wrote in with news bits about Poland maneuvering to block software patents in the EU. Patent supporters had planned to sneak in a patent vote at a meeting devoted to agriculture. While this is a temporary reprieve, it's very likely to reappear next year.

Poland

[JHromadka]

It seems that the EU forgot about Poland. :)

Heh

[MrResistor]

Guess they're not as dumb as we thought.

Honest Politician

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Is it possible that honest politicians still exist? Mr. Wlodzimierz Marcinski, took it upon himself to travel to Brussels to make a speech to the Fisheries council and point out how ludicrous and undemocratic sneaking this unpopular legislation through without revisions was. He had no official standing in the EU itself, and was representing Poland as Minister of Science. The cynic in me is saying, "maybe he was just upset no one bribed him." But there is this strange new feeling I've never felt before (I'll call it optimism) that says maybe he was actually trying to help his countrymen and the EU as a whole. Well done Mr. Marcinski. My American brain will not be able to remember your name, but I'll strive to remember that "Honest Polish Politician" whenever I'm completely overwhelmed with despair after reading the news here in the U.S.

Re:Honest Politician

[kosmosik]

Bit off-topic. I am polish and I understand what you mean. But in my eyes this is funny. :) All of polish politics (also I don't track american politics to well) and it is all driven by affairs, corruption and so on, every week you have new issue in the media. I mean it is scary on its scale - like everyone is corrupted from little cases like some white collar worker who was bribed to affairs touching entire government and concerning milions of dollars. But what is scary that everybody is corrupted, I mean

Re:Honest Politician

[SpaceLifeForm]

It's a small battle won.

As to the scale of corruption in the U.S., yes things are definitely more controlled.
The U.S. has a 'fair and balanced' news media and those kinds of problems are rarely reported.

Re:Honest Politician

[kosmosik]

I didn't mean it was cheerful in context of software patents... It was cheerful in context of somebody speaking of "honest politicians" in Poland. :)

Re:Honest Politician

[Thunderstruck]

I listed to that Walesa fellow speak at my university a few years ago. If he is any indication I think the Poles have more than a few honest, hard working folks involved in politics. Sure they seldom make the news, but maybe if we start watching what they do we can follow their example?

(Of course my father's family was mostly Polish immigrants to North and South Dakota... so maybe I'm biased.)

Re:Honest Politician

[RWerp]

I wouldn't say that Wasa is a typical Polish politician. There are other honest people in Polish politics, but Wasa is only one of a kind.

Re:Honest Politician

[RWerp]

Wasa == Walesa. Stupid slashdot ignores my diacritical symbols.

Re:Honest Politician

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, he has got master's degree in mathematics and worked as a computer programmer, so he knows the real side of the issue. He doesn't look like a regular career politician. http://www.emcis2004.hu/dokk/main/emc/conference/p roceedings/cv/w_marcinski.html

Re:Honest Politician

[Cognitive Dissident]

Actually, he doesn't have to be 'honest' -- just looking out for his own interests like all politicians do. Poland is still a 'developing' economy in many ways and he must have thought through the implications, or possibly even looked at the example of the US system, and realized that software patents will lock in the 'status quo' and make it impossible for startup software companies to get anywhere. Just as happens in the US, any new company would be absorbed by the 'big players' through legal manipulation. Since none of the current giants of software are located in Poland, he would clearly see some benefit to his own country's economy, and therefore possibly to himself as a politician living in and representing that economy, in preserving the chance for new startup software companies in Poland to succeed.

Re:Good thing Germany opposes patents too

[Anonymous Coward]

The Dutch minister in charge of the patent area "love patents". The Dutch parliament explicitly asked him to abstain earlier this year, which he blatantly ignored when he tried to railroad this through the council

Quiet...

[erykjj]

I guess not too many Polish slashdotters out there... On a positive note, this is very good news.

Re:Quiet...

[Dentharg]

No, there are many Polish /. readers - just not many write comments...

Re:Quiet...

[rekrutacja]

There is a lot of polish slashdotters. The problem is, that almost all of us read about polish achievements in the field of european patent policy on slashdot. Mainstream media in Poland are silent on this topic. There is only one polish website (http://www.vagla.pl/ [vagla.pl]) which is really up-to-date. Free software movement in Poland is strong in the field of programming, but not in overall policy. Most people just don't know what's really going on.

Sigh of relief from Poland.

[Gadzinka]

You must understand situation in Poland when you read this story.

Current majority in Polish parliament comes from social-democratic SLD-UP coalition, which (the SLD part) is just rebranded communist "unity" party, ruling Poland between (AFAIR) 1947-89. Rebranded twice, I must add -- it was PZPR during soviet era, later SdRP and now SLD. The cabinet formed by this party (Miller's cabinet) fell in 2004 due to numerous corruption scandals and accusations of connections with organised crime on both national and local level.

Current cabinet is headed by prof. Belka, which was Finance Minister at the beginning of Miller's cabinet but left the cabinet due to unrealistic too-far-left plans (Belka is economist educated in US with not-so-left-wining views of economy). It has no public or parliamentary support, it is rather a result of a stalemate between President and Parliament.

Thing is, that after the fall of Miller's cabinet, SLD-UP coalition had split and further SLD split into SLD and SdPL. Depending on point in time that polls were taken, no Party of former SLD-UP coalition would pass threshold in new parliamentary elections. So when new cabinet was proposed, neither Parliament's nor President's candidates passed vote of confidence. Next step according to constitution was that either Parliament would accept President's second proposition, or it would be automatically dissolved and new elections would be held (over a year ahead of schedule).

So basically:

• MPs are glued to their chairs, counting MP salaries till the end of their term;
  
• Belka's cabinet has no Parliamentary or public support;
  
• Belka's cabinet is simply transitional until such time that new elections can be held; I have no idea when, seems to me more and more that at default date after a full term of current parliament.
  

With this situation everyone here is really surprised that this cabinet does anything effective and useful, and I was personally surprised that it showed a spine in Brussels.

Robert

PS Yes, I am from Poland and if I see some more Polish or "you forgot Poland" jokes references here, there's going to be some heavy flame ;)

PPS If I mangled some facts, kill me, I don't pay much attention to this heap of excrements that Polish (or any post-communist country for that matter) politics is. But it seems that EU democracy doesn't start any better, ignoring democratic procedures etc...

Re:Sigh of relief from Poland.

[djurban]

This is a discussable view, since Belka's cabinet, as opposed to Miller's, actually does something constructive.

Anyway, what i want to say is that Goverment Ministers from 'Ministry of Science and IT' ARE NOT glued to their chairs, since the personell in the Ministry hasnt changed since 1991, mostly because people working there are not politicians but experts.

Transcription of the polish speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Here [ffii.org] is the transcription of the speech. Also, there is a website which has an open letter to send greetings to the polish government: thankpoland.info [thankpoland.info]

Merry Christmas Europe !!!! (pfiu! ;)

Thank-you letter to Polish government

[bollow (a) NoLockIn]

You can sign a letter [thankpoland.info] to thank the Polish government.

Re: Thank-you letter to Polish government

[Black Parrot]

> You can sign a letter to thank the Polish government.

I suppose it would be asking too much if we suggested invading the USA to restore good government.

Some more info from Poland

[kompiluj]

There is an article in one of polish most important newspapers, the Gazeta Wyborcza.
This article claims, that one of the forces behind Mr Marcinski's mission was polish ex-Prime Minister Professor Jerzy Buzek, currently in European Parliament.
Sadly, the same article informs us that probably Poland will accept the directive in January, under the presidency of Luxembourg. Polish diplomats are afraid that voting against the directive at this late stage would endanger polish interest in other fields, where Poland fears that other countries would act similarly, withdrawing already voiced approvals. Example of such field is the REACH package. Nonetheless Mr Jerzy Buzek and Mr Adam Gierek will try to make some amendments to the directive that would clarify that software is not patentable.
So, we won a battle, but war is probably lost anyway - we can only try to limit the scale of our defeat.
The link to the article [in Polish] [gazeta.pl]
Unfortunately you don't have Polish->English option in babelfish.altavista.com

More coverage

[kompiluj]

There is also more coverage there [groklaw.net]. There are some very fine points explained in this article.

Sneak in a Patent No-Vote

[Karl-Friedrich Lenz]

Actually, the plan was not to sneak in a vote on the issue, but to have an approval without anybody really voting.

That is somewhat problematic from a logical point of view. How is the Council supposed to "approve" something without voting? This is somewhat surprising for people not familiar with the Council's Rules of Procedure. Basic values of democracy should require that votes are actually counted.

I have posted a couple of articles analyzing this mystery on my blog linked in the signature below.

Thank Poland at this website

[tetrode]

http://thankpoland.info/ [thankpoland.info]

Mark

are there any polnish speaking..

[marx2002]

people here ? i found this and it would be great, if we could share this original text. rtsp:letdyndnstvpolandmov [letdyndnstvpolandmov] greetings marc