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EU Parliament to Vote on New Patent Rules
peter_sd writes "The Register has an article discussing the implications to the open source community and small software businesses of the new software patent law to be voted on tomorrow by the EU parliament. According to the article, it is very likely the new patent law will be accepted despite its grave consequences."
It is really a pity that they did not listen more to the companies against software patents, user groups, petitions, and people like Smets-Solanes (who wrote a very interesting paper on the subject). The end result will likely be a smaller number of actors on the market, due to higher information costs, the need of negotiating cross-licensing with other actors and other stupid, unproductive patent related invention-stifling activities. There is no such thing as a law that can not be revoked, though, so keep on fighting.
There's little, however, that can be done (in today's corporatist environment) to prevent the granting of idiotic patents. That pretty much means there's nothing to be done about companies "buying markets" unless (or until) there exists an organization that would have an economic interest in defending against such practices.
No, in theory that could be the creative commons itself - i.e. acting as an IP defense fund in the interest of registrants and using the income from settlements and judgements to fund more actions. The problem there is, of course, that if it actually became successful at this then it's quite easy to see how people would then become critical of the org itself, bitching that it was an organization of judicial elite exploiting "free knowledge" to line it's own pockets. Whether or not there was any validity to thius would, of course, depending on the leadership of the organization. But it is a start, and there does exist a good bit of potential there - both for good, and for abuse.
The only way to prevent an obvious patent only submitted for future litigation purposes is to beat the lawyers to it.
What we need is a good site for registering "prior art". Where peoplee in the open source communities (and everyone else with an interest) can submit their ideas along with proof of a working implementation to prevent patents to be applied.
It would double as an open idea bazaar, where people can submit and draw from ideas of others.
Anyone think this could work?
Regards,
--
*Art
However, for it to actually make the slightest bit of difference the points raised in the parent article must be noted.
Abusing the MEPs is not a good use of time. Neither is trying to sway them using the David-and-Goliath argument.
In a perfect world, RMS would keep his mouth shut. The man does far more damage to the cause than he does good. If someone's willing to lock him in a sound-proof room 'til after the vote, it might be a good idea.
Given that Finland is an EU member, and Linus is a Finn (assuming he hasn't become a US citizen), he would be a very good person to get to speak to MEPs. As a constituent, he has a legitimate voice. As a highly visible, respected figure within the community that will be most affected by this law change, his opinions will carry weight. He is also known as something of a moderate (contrast his relatively muted statements with the vitriol of RMS, for example), and politicians are more likely to listen to moderates than extremists unless the extremist position is amenable to their own.
"God, root, what is difference?" - Pitr, userfriendly
As the Register article points out, one of the reasons we're going to lose is that we didn't even try to convince them. We shouted, we hurled abuse, we held huge meetings and didn't invite the other side, but we didn't actually contact them with an explanation of why the proposed change was bad. ("Open letters" don't do shit, no matter how well-written they are.)
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
I very strongly dissagree.
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Knocking RMS is quite popular among armchair generals but he is an inspiration to the people getting real work done on software freedom issues.
His software patents speech makes the issues very easy to understand:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/stall
He has also brought the issues to the mass media through an article he and Nick Hill wrote for The Guardian (UK newspaper):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Print/0,38
RMS has mobilized large numbers of people in the EU to fight this directive. Without his work, I and many others would not be working on this issue at all.
Ciaran O'Riordan
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
The current SCO/IBM trials should be a stark warning for how well this will work. You will have lost with the first patent you fail to get. Your enemies will be taking your money to pay their lawyers to steal more or your ideas. That is what SCO is doing, now isn't it? It's not like they developed anything, ever. Is this what you want? In the end, you will be no better than your enemies or you will not exist.
Self preservation is not an ideological argument. If the EU does this, large US companies will crush EU software developers, free software will die and all EU governments will end up running M$. These beurcrats need to do a typical M$ install and push that "I submit" button a few times. There's no two ways about it, dipshits like Bezos will flood their system with junk just like they do the US system. This EU deal with the devil will leave the EU burnt.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
You make a serious point. Newsclips of late have portrayed European governments as highly sympathetic to the needs of their local economies. I doubt the EU can survive the damage to their credibility if they pass this and Munich et al. gives them the bird. Despite zealots, governments in Europe at every level have a huge interest in seeing that Linux thrives. It's a home grown OS for them and an enormous chunk of Europe (15%) depends on Linux. Europeans will get along only if the EU isn't pulling stupid stunts that hurt individual member states. Corporate influence is much weaker because of this dynamic.
Laws are for people with no friends.
You obviously haven't heard him speak yet.
He doesn't assume his audience is familiar with everything geeks are, so he builds his case from scratch. He has very good arguments. He gives pertinent real world cases. He explores hypothetical, but very realistic cases to illustrate the possible dangers.
All in all, he's a very good speaker, and I don't get where the idea he's a raving lunatic comes from. Maybe it's because he hammers too much on the GNU/Linux thing, which, I agree is a bit silly. (Personally, I say something to the effect of "systems based on the linux kernel" which avoids the whole issue.)
But I do think he's a good speaker, and he spends a lot of effort to get important points across.
Linus is great, but not interested in the politics of open source, and rightly so. Stallman is, and has a good grasp of all the issues involved, and contrary to what alot of people seem to think he is not a scary zealot at all when you see him in real life.
Look, there are a couple of problems with this database:
(0) They require CVS. That's awkward. Lots of people have ideas who don't use CVS.
(1) It's website is, by the URL, non-GNU. My worst nightmare would be submitting to this site, and later finding that they patented it. Microsoft would love to buy a site like this. How do I know this won't happen? They don't describe their process; they just say "oh, it's here." That bothers me. Can the FSF verify this site?
(2) the PADB should be sending its ideas to the appropriate developers for possible development. Specifically, coders should be able to sign up for the class of coding they they do, and submitters should be able to direct information to them. But there's a name for this: a journal. At the very least, all ideas in the DB should *also* be published on the web. I should be able to go to a website, and either browse or search.
---Now, what I think the PADB should be doing instead:---
(3) Time-stamping is easy: simply submit a copy of your information to the Library of Congress (US) or any other national library.
(4) Both (2) and (3) can probably be accomplished by publishing a journal would do the trick. Typically, as people subscribe to journals, they also pay a small amount -- or advertisers pay.
(5) As available, the PADB should also research true prior art, to break patents that are strangling free software. Those should be published as well, with a reference.
(6) I have no idea whether this site will do this or not, but the site should keep a database of the inventors. Probably the inventors have more ideas, or have done more work than is published. Therefore, they are an ideal consultant.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's