Slashdot Mirror
European MP Responds on Software Patents
Wolfbone writes "The Guardian newspaper has a contributed article from the European politician Arlene McCarthy in which she responds to a previous article in the same organ by RMS and Nick Hill on the issue of software patents. If the appalling mixture of misrepresentation, non sequitur, solecism and faux-naivete does not make your blood boil, you are a cold fish indeed."
Everybody knows European MPs (Member of Parliament) are next to useless anyway... I don't even need to read the interview to tell you she is a fscking moron.
Seriously, though, almost *anyone* can get elected to the European Parliament, and the *real* decisions are not made in Strasbourg (Euro Parliament home town) they are made in Brussels, Belgium, either through the European Commission or through high-level talks between the different European governments.
Of course, this might change in the near future, with the new European 'Constitution', but it will probably change for the better, by making sure more intelligent people are elected.
Just my Euro 0.02...
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
Interesting... this seems to be saying that, through the use of the GPL, the FSF is, perhaps unwittingly, attempting to create a monopoly. I'm not sure her statement holds water... how does the GPL stifle competition and innovation? I mean, releasing software under the GPL is the choice of the developer... and as for "imposing" the license on users, aren't *all* licenses imposed on users? Isn't that really part of the definition of a license? It's still the user's choice whether or not to *use* the software. Simply because they can't take GPL'd software and package it without the source and sell it doesn't mean that the software is part of a monopoly... geez! The GPL certainly is another form of *contract*... but monopoly? Give me a break.
B
"We must still have chaos within in order to be able to give birth to a dancing star." --Friedrich Nietzsche
She certainly doesn't sound as evil as the submitter of the article would suggest.
"It is infinitely better for the EU to harmonise laws across the EU with a view to limiting patentability, than to continue with the mess of national courts and European Patent Office (EPO) systems, and the drift towards US patent models."
Sounds sensible to me, but then again, no one has ever shown me a computer program or business method that merited a patent, so I'd like to see the strictest possible limits on such patents.
In the end, it's EU directive that will have to speak for itself. I'll try and dig up a copy of the draft.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
While the majority of the UK is balking because of losing the pound, the fact is that deferring local economic decisions to a centralized management structure is moronic. If we have learned anything from cybernetics and information theory over the last 50 years, it is that decentralized systems are the only viable option. But for some reason, European politics is progressing as if the opposite were true. It's cognitive dissonance on a horrendous scale.
We're best out of the Euro for now. If the other EU states don't think free trade is enough, they are of course welcome to boot us out.
(This I believe is true, you can see the patent offices in the EU's national states approve less and less technical "inventions".)
It appears, EU wants to link a certain technical device with its software, which could be patented for the use in this case, and only in this case, together with the device, but which is not covered by the patent.
The main problem with the US patent laws is likely that the officials are ignorant laymen; not patents per se are evil, but their (lack of) interpretation is.
This article is, generally, totally irrelevant. The European Parliament holds virtually no power, and is, generally, merely a talking-shop. The Council of Ministers, and, to a larger extent, the Commission hold all power. There are attampts to change this with the work-in-progress that is the Constitution.
This lack of power of the Parliament leads many single-issue candidates, washed-up politicians, and other power-hungry novices to run for election to European office in the Parliament. Very few serious politicians will be found there, bar those who lead the political factions present. As such, we can safely ignore the warblings of this MEP.
If only we could find a similarly talkative Commissioner. It's what the EU needs
((lambda x ((x))) (lambda x ((x))))
Some MP: "Does not!"
You may think I'm being facetious, but I'm actually just being concise. She literally doesn't say anything else.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
We're a US company with a development office in Canada (which is where I write from). We're staying out of Europe partly because of the multitude of languages, but mainly because (I'm told) it's a morass of different regulations; I have no doubt patent law is one of them. The complexity is not worth our trouble of going there. The first ocean we crossed was the pacific, to Japan.
I have very ambiguous feelings towards software patents, but the European Parliament is probably going in the right direction if they're harmonizing business regulations.
Accountability on the heads of the powerful.
Power in the hands of the accountable.
It's exactly the reverse: if there are no software patents in Europe, then European businesses (and inventors and every one else) can still get software patents abroad (e.g. in the US), while foreign businesses can not enforce their software patents here in Europe. So if there are no software patents in Europe, the Europeans actually have an advantage over foreign (big, small and everything in between) companies.
Donate free food here
The UK doesn't need the EU (or want it) and the EU does need us. Not only do we have a very storng currency, we have the 4th biggest economy in the world, and judging by the last 2 years we've certainly had the most stable out of America and all of Europe, so... how would joining a currency which is more shakier than an 140yr old parkinsons sufferer meant to help us out more, cos right now I can't see how our economy could be any better.
Not only does the EU want us for our Economy, they want us for our international power. We are a strong currency, and a nuclear power at that, we have a seat at the UN security council, the EU doesn't like that one bit (and infact in the constition they're attempting to make us lose that seat so there's just one EU representative instead).
Please do dump us from the EU, we don't want you, we're happy to sit by and watch it crumble over the next 3 decades.
WTF is a sig?
 : : : : : :-- George Bernard Shaw
Say what you like about the guy, the computer industry would be a colder, harsher, proprietry place without what he's done to open it up.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
The reason for being against software patents is that software is fundamentally different from classical "inventions". RMS equates it to composing music. Suppose there were musical patents when Beethoven lived. Although he was no copycat at all and was actually quite revolutionary in his time, he wasn't that great that he reinvented music from scratch and still could make something that people liked to listen to. He used a lot of "musical techniques" used by other people before him.
However, just like you can't just throw a couple of existing "musical techniques" together and get something that sounds good, you cannot throw just a couple of algorithms and data structures together and get a great program. As such, allowing patents on these components doesn't make sense because that way, they hurt innovation instead of encouraging it.
They make you scared to produce anything, because almost everything you think of, has probably already been thought of by someone else before. If e.g. IBM would enforce all of its software patents, I don't think a lot of companies would be left making/selling software in the US. Some of the bigger ones would be, because they also own a lot of patents and they could cut software licensing deals. The rest would be out of luck.
Donate free food here
I find it amazing how many people have a "problem" with the GPL and see it as "restrictive" - when it's aim is quite the converse.
We have an obligation to legislate not just for one section of the software industry who seeks to impose its business model on the rest of industry, which moreover is not "free", but is actually a different form of monopoly by imposing a copyright licence system on users.
So are we expected to believe that the GPL restricts the rights of users? Firstly the GPL doesn't restrict what you can USE the software for - business, is quite acceptable.
It doesn't even restrict the rights of developers, they can extend the software however they feel. What it does do is PROTECT the rights of users and developers to have the same rights from derived works.
So if I extend some GPL program that's fine, if I wish to distribute the derived work that's also fine, BUT I must make my changes under the GPL. If I don't want that then I can't work with that product. Seems easy.
Compare that with "traditional" software (actually open source is older than the closed model, but you know what I mean), here I can't extend the product because I don't have the source, and I am not allowed to decompile it (for any use).
In short the GPL restricts a right that traditional software DOESN'T give me! Even that restriction is only that I cannot take that right away in derived works.
You can make money from GPL software, it is not "anti-business" you can charge for services, and additions to the software, but you make those in the environment of the GPL.
I am not saying I think the GPL is the right way to go for ALL software, clearly it isn't - but the GPL is not evil, and end users have nothing to fear from it. Developers should understand the legal impact any license they agree to (but this should not be a problem, as long as one takes care to check the details).
The EU really does need a universal intellectual property regulation system. In order for businesses to operate efficiently in Europe, there really needs to be a common court where intellectual property issues can be addressed.
In theory, patents are needed to protect those who can't compete financially with larger, more capable corporations. A patent is the intellectual stick you can use to beat off unfair business competition in a market place. In theory, of course.
In practice, it's a little different. I'm sure we're all aware of the potential for abuse with poorly designed IP regulations (the Stallman/Hill article does a good job outlining some of those issues).
What we needed are universal IP regulations designed to protect the the individual who doesn't have the financial resources to fend of giants like Microsoft or IBM, AND a much narrower definition of what can be patented in software.
Just because a famous person said something doesn't make it so.
:P
For example, do all reasonable men adapt themselves to the world? I think this is debatable.
I agree with you re: RMS' achievements. But G.B. Shaw doesn't prove anything.
Academics and the learned middle class can bang their favourite drum as loudly as they want and mock those who don't listen, but that's never an effective way of garnering support. Neither posting a, "look at this fule, let us laugh at her primitive and/or deceptive ways," article on Slashdot, nor the subsequent torrent of, "yeah, teh Man is teh suxor," will impress decision-makers. And it certainly won't sway them.
There is nothing wrong with competing on merit, nothing much wrong with marketing (if it is truthful). However, MS didn't just compete on merit - they repeatedly broke the law, such as when they sabotaged DR DOS.
This was a bad thing when it led to Microsoft gaining effective monopolies in the desktop OS and office suite markets, and open source advocates spend all day bitching about that.
If the only problem with Microsoft was that it had effective monopolies, we wouldn't be complaining about how it got there - we'd just be talking about how to make open source programs competitive with closed sourced ones, and how to better advocate for them being used.
However, what we really object to is MS's consistent and galling pattern of misbehaviour. Competing on merit is not unethical. Faking error messages to kill a competitor's operating system (DR DOS) certainly is unethical. Purposefully breaking a contract to kill the write-once-run-anywhere promise of Java is unethical. Etc.
Female Prison Rape in NY