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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."
That sentence was enough to make my blood boil.
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
Everybody knows European MPs (Member of Parliament) are next to useless anyway.
Unlike Canadian MP's, Australilan MP's, and members of the US Congress, which always represent the people that elected them and never ignore the little guy in favor of big business, lobbyists, and their own political interests.
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...
So, she does the normal M(E)P thing of speaking without saying anthing. Looking at this report, though, it appears that what she is trying to say is that the rules will only allow software to be patented as part of another system.
So, patents like the Amazon one-click patent wouldn't be allowed, but you could for example patent a novel ECG machine along with the software that is 'part' of it.
(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))))
His article may have boiled her blood, but it seemed pretty spot on to me, the quote from Bill G especially.
His point is this law was written by the Business Software Alliance in such a way and to use such vague language that it will be up to 'interpretation' only to the richest corporates with the most expensive lawyers. I.e., they are taking a space where there is a need for a law and plugging their law - dress up as "free and good" to placate those with a call for it but engineered to benefit only them.
Also, she mentioned "With many of our traditional industries migrating to the Far East leaving behind job losses, we Europeans are having to rely on licensing out inventiveness to generate income and create jobs."
Since when does Amazon having a patent secure that patent to the country it was registered in?! Either she is grossly incompetant, plain stupid, or cunning and devious.
Euro MPs are next to useless because the European Parliament is virtually powerless.
That's not to confuse them with MPs in the individual member states' parliaments, who occasionally do have some power.
In her article, she says that:
So I've written her a letter, suggesting that open source software explicitly be made exempt from patent enforcement. If what she says in her article is true, this would have no effect, so she's got no legitimate reason to oppose it.
My weblog has an article that goes into this in more detail.
If you want to contact Arlene McCarthy, and politely tell her your views, she has a website.
http://www.europarl.eu.int/factsheets/1_3_2_en.htm
The parliament's powers:
-"Parliament takes part in the drafting of Community legislation to varying degrees, according to the individual legal basis. It has progressed from a purely advisory role to codecision on an equal footing with the Council."
-"The Treaty of Rome made provision for a motion of censure against the Commission (Article 201 (144) EC). It requires a two-thirds majority of the votes cast, representing a majority of Parliament's component members, in which case the Commission must resign as a body."
So, the parliament is now equally important as the Council and has the power to force the Commision to resign. Just because most of the electorate don't bother reading about or even voting for the European Parliament doesn't make it meaningless.
The proposed directive was written in a Word file, and the original author information appeared in the metadata - that's how they know the BSA were involved.
I thought Arlene's response was more anti-Free/Libre/Open Source Software than anything I've seen in a long time, and it's bizarre because rms and Nick Hill didn't raise that issue at all. Her article wasn't factual in any way, shape or form - she said she was against business methods, for example, but offered no actual example of actions which back that up - in fact, her previous actions indicate she's in favour.
Useful URLs for people in the UK: FFII UK, More info on software patents. We can still stop them putting these things in place.
"Elmo knows where you live!" - The Simpsons
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.
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She's calling a system with more opportunities for imposing patents more "liberal" and a less patent-drenched society more "restrictive".
/bin/cp doesn't exist might be an appealing idea to some but it is just a game of pretends these days. Things can be copied. Deal with it.
That's pretty weird. If I were to choose such politically loaded words to describe patent systems, I'd have 'em switched the other way around, but I probably wouldn't use them at all.
She also writes: "With many of our traditional industries migrating to the Far East leaving behind job losses, we Europeans are having to rely on licensing out inventiveness to generate income and create jobs."
That's pretty silly and not likely to work in the long run. Imagine a future where non-european countries provide all goods and services needed - why should they want to trade with Europe? Because we have "inventions?" That's supposed to be Europes schtick, that Europeans are "smart"? Even if we'd have a fraction of the worlds inventiveness, what's to stop the aforementioned Asian countries from declaring our patent system null and void? (Along with some other IP practices like say, copyright.) Because "otherwise we won't trade with them?" That's just silly. If all we have to "offer" is slick ad campaigns and ruthless corporate practices along with a few good "ideas" - basically "ownership of ideas" - why should they want to trade? They could just copy it (assuming their own inventions weren't enough - there's plenty of good ideas coming out of Asia).
(And please don't talk of using military might to enforce an IP system internationally. My every fiber and cell tell's me that's not a just cause.)
Just saying that "we own this!" and pointing at words, ideas... you might argue some intellectual property practices are just but you can't expect everyone to agree (I certainly don't, and I even live in Europe), especially not when it could be a dumb move in international economics for a country to blindly abide by another's IP claims.
And if she's not talking about IP as an export product, then why bother? Selling each other "air" would jack up the GNP but it sure wouldn't raise living standards, it would only be a pointless excercise in number juggling. Same would apply to selling "ownership rights to ideas". Note that I'm not saying that the ideas themselves are without value - having someone on the payroll to sit and make up ideas might be worth it - but once the cat's out of the bag the ideas are easily copyable. Preventing that
Lastly, she's calling free software (she seems especially focused on copyleft software) "[A] form of monopoly by imposing a copyright licence system on users".
That's just not true.
Unlike patents, anyone's free to reimplement copylefted software any way they choose.
And unlike plain copyrighted proprietary software, anyone can use the copylefted software (both the program and source code) as long as they don't prevent others from doing the same.
Sure, the GPL has some practical problem (for example enforced warranty disclaimers, and problems with compability with other copylefted licenses) but it's definitely not a "monopoly". More like an "omnipoly" where every man, woman and child on the planet has the same right to the program.
In her article, Arlene McCarthy wrote:
To me, this is the most blood-boiling point. I was there at the parliamentary hearing in Brussels in early May. Arlene McCarthy was not. The hearing was a forum for SMEs (Small-to-Medium Enterprises) to present their take on the proposed software patent directive. The prevailing opinion was so unanimous it was boring: software patents are bad. Enterpreneurs and investors pleaded lawmakers to stick to and reaffirm the spirit of the 1973 Munich convention. Yeah, supporters of Free Software were there too (strong Debian contingent, hi, guys!), but by no means in the majority.
I could hardly muster the willpower to talk to anyone during those two days, it was so depressing. No one of the opposing viewpoint showed up, effectively reducing the conference and the hearing to a feel-good get-in-our-of-your-systems-then-go-home kind of event. The only supporter of the directive was Elly Plooij van Gorsel (chairwoman of one of the three committees in charge of the directive), who showed up for the last thirty minutes, took some notes, evaded answering any questions, then left. An enterpreneur even said to her face: I'm the one who's supposed to be protected here, and I'm here to tell you, I don't want your protection. This went wholly unanswered.
So allow me not to suspend my disbelief in Ms. McCarthy's comment quoted above. BTW, Ms. McCarthy is also a chairwoman of a committee handling the directive (of the most powerful of the three). What I saw and read and got to know so far all point into one direction: she's entirely aware of what she does, she just doesn't care about flushing the European SMEs down the toilet. The American multinationals sure can pay for more educational opportunities taking place in Hawaii.
Posted as AC on purpose.
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.