Danish Computer Professionals on Software Patents

Stefane Fermigier writes "PROSA, the Danish computer professionals association (not to be confused with Prosa Labs, the italian embedded Linux company btw), has issued a strongly worded statement against software patents in Europe: "PROSA is concerned that the desire to introduce software patents is not rooted in a wish to encourage innovation, but instead to create new commodities for dominant companies in the trade and jobs for lawyers and patent advisor. Today, source code can be protected by copyright provided it, as a work, has sufficient work levels (is not trivial). Based on this, the binary versions derived thereof can also be protected by copyright. PROSA believes that this protection, which covers the primary element in a software product, constitutes an adequate protection.""

Comments

Re:PROSA status

[LarsG]

PROSA, EFN (www.efn.no) and other european organizations need to get in touch. The EU-DMCA is up for a vote Feb 14th, and this is a fight we really don't want to lose.

Well-formed argument

[Doc Hopper]

This is a very well-formed, easily understood argument against software patents.
Now if only it wasn't the hands of big business holding the reins of politics in the U.S., maybe we could make some progress.
Patents are here to promote inventiveness, but lately they do far more o discourage it.

Matt Barnson

Re:First

[ResHippie]

I was gonna mod this down, but decided to leave it. At least it's a creative FP.

PROSA status

[povl]

It is a trade union for computer professionals (not just software engineers). It was founded in 1967.

excellent - go tell it to the judge

[ynohoo]

This was an excellent synopsis of the problem - so how do we get this info to the legal community?

Re:if this had made the front page

[caite]

Some of that is probably because this is late Friday and a lot of posters /. from work.

It would be better if people read YRO anyway, but it's been a while since there was a YRO topic that didn't make the front page.

Not to be antagonistic, but a continual crisis mode that still gets regular comments is amazing. If people want to argue or score off one another, seems like a small price. The topic isn't gone.

if this had made the front page

[Alien54]

you would have seen hundreds of comments.

here, no one notices.

makes you wonder how many are actually worried about rights, and how many are just collegiate level arguments about politics, who can make the most interesting post, etc.

Re:if this had made the front page

[autocracy]

We read it...

The problem with capped Karma is it only goes down...

Re:if this had made the front page

[RareHeintz]

I think you've figured it out, friend: Slashdot is not "news for nerds, stuff that matters" - it's one great digital undergraduate dorm bull session.

And me without my bong...

On-topic: Does anyone know how much pull this PROSA group has? Are they a long-standing part of the Danish software community, or are they some group that came together just for the purpose of issuing this statement?

What do people think about putting together a similar collective statement from the Slashdot community?

OK,
- B
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