Slashdot Mirror
Software Patent Demonstrations Taking Off
feklee writes "The preparations for the
rally against software patents
on Wednesday are running at full speed. Thanks to announcements in DWN, on KDE, in the Register, and
elsewhere, the Online Demo has already
more than 600 participants such as Savannah
and KDE.de. Now, what about your project?"
And flagboy writes "A group of economists from Europe and the U.S. specialising in patent questions have published a letter to members of the European Parliament calling on them to reject the proposal, accompanied by an analytical paper which casts severe doubts on the reasoning behind the directive and on the methods employed by its proponents." Here's the FFII Press Release.
If this works like they want it to, then it'll be great for open source. But I'm sure you knew that anyway :)
Would they become worthless? I hope so. But even if they don't, we can continue to ignore the patents and make fun of SCO just like we do now :)
I'm sure all of us in the castrated portions of the IP world are wishing the citizens of the EU luck with their protests. It would be nice to think that innovation and freedom still have a home somewhere in the world.
How many cases of patent cases has there really been throughout the years? In comparisons with the number of patents created each year... almost none. My advice is, don't care. Use the patents as you please... The probability of beeing f***ed over by the legal system is virtually zero.
How cases of DMCA prosecution have their been? Hardly any, but that doesn't make it any more just.
Unjust legislation must be fought. It is insufficient to simply hope it wont be enforced, like some sort of naive child.
Just one question:
What will I see on slashdot.org tomorow???
Or is slashdot going to mention a great idea and ignore it the day after?
Jeroen
Secure messaging: http://quickmsg.vreeken.net/
Never even heard of this patent issue. I followed all the links and nothing really told me why I shouldn't like this thingamajig they're doing. So....tell me...what are people protesting against?
Karma: -2^0.5 . Mainly due to the imbibing of dihydrogen monoxide
See European nations propose crazy directive... See Citizens protest in large numbers... See directive's author, and about half the government of Holland resign... See directive disappear... Rinse... Repeat...
So what if GNU/GPL gonna REALLY hurts software turf. Is that scumbags really sit down and say "Ok they are better than us. We lost".
Do you believe this ?
I'm not sure. That SCO thing just the begining. Every time Open Source gain a market they launch new attack which is more powerful even before.
Perhaps My crystal ball looks like too pessimistic.
And or I'm asking a question. Where is the evindeces of IRAQ, why US soldiers are still there. If there is any Law in this World US have to retreat from IRAQ.
But they aren't.
So if you believe this yabada doo protect us from those patent MOBS, this is your problem.
I'm gonna stock AK 47's and some RPG s.
[My english is better than most other people's Turkish, so please point out mistakes politely. Thank you.]
... is how the EU will spin the protests. I don't know if EU citizens are any more intelligent than the American sheeple, but a couple well-placed "digital terrorist" or such phrases could easily get ignorant people thinking the wrong way. (Japan, on the other hand, is getting worse and worse due to extreme apathy... you should see some of the election turnout numbers over here. It's scary.)
I'm all for the protest... Imagine a world full of patented algorithms - that's no place I want to live. Keeping information (largely) free and accessible is what is technologically propelling this era. Only greed seems to stand in our way.
What people are objecting to is that innovation is being stifled by large corporations; I'm not going to mention any names, because it doesn't really matter who the company of the moment is. It's been like that for a long time, the names change but the principle is the same. The market should have more choice, but patents, buyouts, and monopolistic practices are actually supported by the current (and previous) legislatory systems are just getting more and more power. Like the hippy movement in the seventies against government powers and personal liberties beginning really to make moves against the "establishment", the yuppie move in the eighties towards personal financial freedom against the common good, the nineties technological gadget and consumerism move... and now in the 21st century people are beginning to look at inflation, unemployment and their lack of free time and starting to think maybe there is a better way. But still the rich are fighting to keep everything they have, and middle class people are following the consumer trend like sheep, they're cooling their houses with aircon, running their cars, throwing away more and more tons of garbage every year, getting fatter, and generally using more resources than they really need.
Let us not forget that Free (as in speech) is what we are still fighting for. The medium changes, the spirit stays the same. We should not let corporate greed and a system where each year more profits need to be made become the pillar of our society, but it's been happening for years and years. Globalisation just makes this more blatent, more all encompassing, and more to the detriment of the world's poor.
The rich are still getting richer, the poor are still getting poorer, and however many examples you give me of "land of the free" and personal gain still being possible no matter who you are, the overwhelming trend is that the masses are still being screwed, and there really are people who are born into dead end lives, and it's not getting any better.
And still, many people will respond to my post and say I'm a socialist and the system won't really abide by that, because capitalism is here to stay and it's the only fair system. I'm not really saying that. Just ask yourself one question : are you recycling all that you can, giving a few extra minutes a day to help the looming natural resource problem? Are you using less water, using cooler washing cycles, hanging out your laundry instead of drying with electricity, keeping cool in the shade with iced tea instead of turning up the aircon a notch, eating just enough to keep your hunger at bay and giving a dollar to the bum on the street from time to time?
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
by slashdotting the online demo site itself!
"We can show our concern by physical presence as well as by more or less gently blocking access to webpages in a concerted manner at certain times."
I think that was not quite the original intention
Sheeple. That's hilarious!
See what is said behind the links. I doubt you would ask that if you'd done that in the first place.
It's not about open source, although there is a similarity in the principle of open and free exchange of ideas.
Patents are government grants to build a business around a specific invention. There is a general issue here, namely that all invention comes from a communual process, exchange and refinement of ideas over time, and the granting of "exclusive" rights is by its very nature an act that ignores the reality of the process in order to create a new reality that favours certain groups over others.
However, we tend to accept that patents are one way of rewarding intellectual endeavour. Why then, are they bad?
There are many technical issues that make patents complex to grant: knowledge of the area in question, searching prior art, preparing lengthy documentation. This means that patents are expensive - in the EU, for instance, 10,000 Euro is the starting price, before you start looking at defending a patent.
The huge price tag puts patents firmly out of the reach of smaller groups and individuals who are not already wealthly. It is ironic, perhaps that these are also the groups and individuals who work the hardest to create new products and ideas, since they have the most to gain.
It is larger groups that are able to assemble large patent portfolios, therefore. Presumably these are then used to protect and reward innovation? No, most patents go unused in the direct sense, and become instead instruments for patent negotiations.
What is this? It is when a small company with a patent discovers that a larger company is infringing. It raises the question, and the large company discovers a handful of its own patents - previously ignored - that the smaller company is also infringing. The innovater finds that the precious patent is not only worthless, but has landed them in a situation where they may go bankrupt or have to sell their products to survive.
Large companies seek patents principally for this reason: to protect their existing markets and businesses against innovators.
The role of legislators is clear: their mandate, sponsored by big business, is to make this process as easy as possible.
Software patents take this to a new dimension. Software development is - unlike most prodyct creation - a process of almost pure invention. It is almost impossible to develop a complex software product without finding and solving many problems that others have also solved.
Patents are already biased against innovation, but software patents can create insurmountable obstacles. A business with the cash and the lawyers can find hundreds, perhaps thousands of "new" inventions in any complex software product. Needless to say, most or all of these are multiple re-inventions, but have not been previously patented, so are legally open to patent.
Software development, like all creative processes, relies on a pure and unbroken exchange of ideas and techniques across space and time. Software patents pretend that this exchange does not happen, and worse, they make the exchange impossible, and sometimes illegal.
At the extreme, software patents spell the end of not just open source, but the freedom of individuals to create new software. When every software invention has been patented, writing unauthorized code will become a criminal offense.
Large business loves this scenario. They pretend that software patents are essential to protect their "innovation" and "research". But this is a lie, as any honest observer can see.
The EU is, like all governments, manipulated by lobbyists, and the person who pays for the music will choose the dance. Software patents will come into law in the EU, there is no doubt about this.
The realisation that software patents (and all patents, indeed) are tools for monopolists will only come when the West has lost most of its competitive edge. I only hope that India and China realise - from self-interest - that they are being given a silver plate with a blank cheque, marked "please profit, we are in the process of strangling our nascent software businesses".
Ceci n'est pas une signature
As an additional (or alternative) action, people are encouraged to participate in an online demonstration that day, replacing the main page of their website with a text explaining the dangers of introducing unlimited patentability in Europe
Whoever wrote this should think twice before they word something. I took this as a call to hackers to replace their (meaning the people they're protesting against) webpage.
Oh well now onto my oh so eloquent commentary which is worth nothing... Why would anyone want to do something as moronic as protest the patent laws? Suppose you labor extremely hard to create something, it took so much of your time, might have cost you a marriage, every single penny in your account, and someone comes and swipes it from under your feet what would you do? Without patenting there wouldn't be much you could do now could you.
Look laws are sometimes unfair, in fact take a look at some historical quotes:
"Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but lets wasps and hornets break through" Swift 'A treatise essay upon the faculties of the mind'
"Wherever law ends tyranny begins." Locke 'Civil Government'
No one ever said the laws were perfect but trying to remove them is plain dangerous. Maybe tweaking them for kinks is a better idea, and in certain cases a judge should have the discretion to make decisions based on experience and ethics, instead of allowing miscarriages of justice to happen.
Having some country throw patent ideas out is rather lame, and in the long run is only going to hurt those who innovate more than anyone else.
As for this:
Doesn't make much sense. A body of people asking to close their websites to protest. As if people should lose money over something that sounds rather interesting on the outside, but in-depth makes no sense? I would rather pass on it. What will be protested after? Bandwidth usage that connects to the site which offended someone. Sure let's block Amazon's whole CIDR why not.MoFscker
I consider "stealing" "intellectual property" a bad thing. As in: with this trivial software patent, company X stole an idea that could have been everyone's. You opposing this could be a small or medium sized company, a non-profit, an individual that demands respect of "IP", anyone... This is not something that can be placed solely on the right or the left of the political spectrum. Agreeing to patenting these trivialities can only come from two things: ignorance and opportunism. The difference between these two is that at a certain decision-making level (think member of European parliament), ignorance becomes opportunism. Because it's the decision maker's to carefully examine the decision (s)he makes.
I'm going to copyright, trademark and patent every character of the enlish language alphapet. Fuck freedom, who need its when you've got stupidity!
If you are an European and able to visit Brussels tomorrow, please do so! It doesn't occur much that we Europeans have a good opportunity to get ourselfs heard on these topics.
See here for info. You can visit Brussels by train from many a European country; see here
Hope this all isn't slashdotted before I will plan my own trip this afternoon.
"We can confirm that Debian does *not* ship the version with the trojan horse. Our version predates it." [CA-2002-28]
I am worried that the members of the European Parliament have the impression that the protests are not to be taken seriously, coming mostly from outspoken Open Source enthusiasts. These are too often regarded as not respecting intellectual property, only out to use software, ideas and information without having to pay for it.
While the opposite is generally true: why run Linux and OpenOffice.org instead of an easily obtained illegal copy of MS Windows and MS Office?
I just hope that the MEPs understand nobody has to gain from software patents as proposed in the directive, except a bunch of patent lawyers, patent pirates, and big software companies (and the latter not even in the long run).
Innovation will be stifled instead of promoted.
Small and medium sized software developers (not only open source) and the consumer will pay the price.
Let's see if the members of the European Parliament remember their mandate and vote in the interest of the European citizen!
Now, what about your project? Now, what is about /.?
Or does /. not care?
--
Karma 50, and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt.
Too bad there isn't some way for North Americans to show our support.
Sigh... yet another situation that could be solved by remote holograms.
I first ask Slashdot and slashdotters to join the protest tomorrow.
Come on! Join Us!
I didn't think it was possible, but there's a country that has even LESS balls than the US. Does Britain even have elections any more? Maybe the British supreme court picks the parliment, just like the US supreme courts picks the president now. :P
No, I kid. But you should all read "Stupid White Men", by Michael Moore.
Now, if there's any big spender listening: It's time for action now!
Slashdot should join this online demo...
If I remember correctly they have only one.
I don't understand why being philosophically against software patents is always equated with socialism, and that patents are the ultimate expression of capitalism. I don't agree.
Patents in general are entirely anti-capitalistic devices. Their primary purpose is to inhibit competition, by making it illegal to compete. They enforce monopolies at best, and at their worst totally destroy entire fields of endeavor due to their mutually-assured destruction effect. They are not just about protecting theft of trade secrets, dumpster diving, or espionoge; but about controlling both thought and activity. If I completely and totally independently discover the same trivial algorithm, but you patented it somehow I'm breaking the law...I certainly didn't steal anything. Is anybody else worried about how IBM is dealing with SCO? I'll be as glad as anyone when IBM flattens them, but using their patent treasure chest to do so really bothers me.
And it also drives me crazy when I hear companies say they obtain patents for defense only. Patents by their very nature always offensive, they prevent others from independently working even if they never harm you or your market in any way and you don't sue them. That's agression plain and simple. If you want a defense then publish, don't patent (go to ip.com's Prior Art Database as an example of this approach).
And another misinformed justification is that patents are only dangerous if you try to make money with the patented idea. That is so wrong, go read the actual patent law! (yes it is very long, but still more readable than most patents). Even if you "practice" a patented idea in your home for your own amusement you are still breaking the law. You may get by with it, just like speeding, but patents intrude on everybody's rights.
I had an employer approach me once with the idea of patenting some software I wrote for them, and I took it as a serious ethical threat, and I told them that too. But when that happens, you tend to be very careful about how you apply your talent afterwards...being careful not to invent anything new, which I'm sure has resulted in some less than optimal solutions. But again, this is not socialist thinking. My company makes money from selling software I write, and I give them ownership over it in exchange for a salary, and I'm not distributing this code to the world. But likewise, I'm definitely against preventing somebody else from independently inventing the same software.
And the only reasonable argument for patents (as eliquently stated in the US Consitution) is to discourage the hording of information, so that others may build upon and progress technology. But look at how the patent system really works to completely subvert and prevent that one goal: submarine patents (those that through legal trickery stay in a filed state for perhaps decades without ever being divuldged). Patent laywers make sure that patents are entirely unreadable...even most lawyers who don't specialize in patent law are completely inept at reading them, let alone inventors and technologists who supposedly should be benefiting from them. Also it's almost impossible to ever find anything or make any sense of all that knowledge as its locked up so tight that it's completely worthless for anything but legal agression. The patent office should operate like a well indexed library of human knowledge, but instead it acts like a black hole locking away information so it is illegal to use.
I for one mostly agree with the capitalistic society, not the socialistic view. But I'm still extremely anti-patent, especially for non-physicial inventions of thought and expression. Patents are an extreme offense to humankind, captialism is not.
I have contacts at the EPO. Here is how it works:
1. The EPO is self-financed. They do not receive any money from the EU states.
2. The EPO makes money from patent royalties.
3. The EPO does not have much money.
4. The EPO is ready to accept anything to make money as long as nobody complains.
5. Profit!
The way it works at the EPO is the following: Someone submits something to get a patent.
If it is not completely stupid, a provisional patent is awarded, even if obvious prior art exists!!!
If there has been no negative comments after one year, the patent is awarded.
So I am certain the EU will give the EPO the right to award software patents. The only way to stop this is by periodically checking what provisional patents are awarded and bombard the EPO with negative comments and prior arts.
my 0.02 Euro
No need to a demo to impeach this.
I have a patent about "Method of delivering patents by a so-called patent office" !!!
If EU accepts patents, I will sue EU to pay me 1 BILLION EUROS by awarded patent!
Tomorrow (27 August 2003) there is a demonstration in front of the impressive EU parliament.
v alues=TYPE%25.Manifestation,SITE!.40
All the peolple who care & can come, please come so that there is a small chance we might impress some MP's...
I'll be there, will you ?
http://pax.protest.net/event.cgi?ID=415100&state_
Count OpenOffice.org (Danish) in for tomorrow.
I'm in a Unix state of mind.
I'm rehearsing this for when I jump into the camera's tomorrow :-)
3 issues:
1. General patentability issue
Do patents protect and encourage the new inventor, or do they protect large businesses and monopolies? Practice would sometimes point out the last.
2. Software patent issue
If you invent a phonograph, you make it, sell it, done. Not so for software. Software is a stack-up of tons and tons of previous "inventions" (algorithms, or ways of doing something). You can't write a piece of software without "inventing" something along the way, but you also can't avoid to use previous "inventions". Software inventions should be seen as common field knowledge that needs to be shared. And I say needs; we would not have come past the MS-DOS age without this.
3. Free Software issue
Free Software doesn't only share the ideas of software, but also their implementations. Again, we would not have been far without Free Software of any kind (you can at least forget the Internet and Mac OS X, but there are more detailed examples that will tell you that you can forget A LOT of software). Simply put, Free Software relies on open (unowned) algorithms and program ideas, but has no model (like businesses have) for buying licenses to use "owned" ideas. IOW, the Free Software world would ultimately disappear as a result of patent law.
Summary: while patents MAY stink for business in general, they would simply DESTROY our software world as we know it, and replace it with something where our normal everyday innovation is very hard to find.
"We can confirm that Debian does *not* ship the version with the trojan horse. Our version predates it." [CA-2002-28]
At this time, in Europe it is not permitted to patent software (although the European Patent Office has been illegally accepting software patents for many years). The experience in the US, where software patents are legal, shows that real inventors do not profit from them and that innovation is stifled rather than stimulated.
I find it difficult to comprehend why we Europeans cannot learn from that experience and are about to repeat this mistake in Europe!
The problem is his book is riddled with errors then again considering that you are against patents it does not suprise me that you enjoy shit. Only a brain dead drooling retard could be against a system that has promoted more scientific research then any other force in history.
Huh? Show where support?
The spanish version of slashdot (barrapunto) is actually offline and redirects to the european anti software patents campaign page (also in spanish). See http://barrapunto.com
Online Demonstration Against Software Patents
And this is also a call out to all those pre-alpha sourceforge projects!! Let the world feel the pain of not being able to access your pre-alpha marvel.
So KDE supports it. But where is Gnome? Why do they not support it at all (even if the FSF/GNU does)? Do the corporations behind Gnome (Novell, Sun..) to use their patent pool in europe?
From "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin" Chapter 8:
In order of time, I should have mentioned before, that having, in 1742, invented an open stove for the better warming of rooms, and at the same time saving fuel, as the fresh air admitted was warmed in entering, I made a present of the model to Mr. Robert Grace, one of my early friends, who, having an iron-furnace, found the casting of the plates for these stoves a profitable thing, as they were growing in demand. To promote that demand, I wrote and published a pamphlet, entitled "An Account of the new-invented Pennsylvania Fireplaces; wherein their Construction and Manner of Operation is particularly explained; their Advantages above every other Method of warming Rooms demonstrated; and all Objections that have been raised against the Use of them answered and obviated," etc. This pamphlet had a good effect. Gov'r. Thomas was so pleas'd with the construction of this stove, as described in it, that he offered to give me a patent for the sole vending of them for a term of years; but I declin'd it from a principle which has ever weighed with me on such occasions, viz., That, as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously.
An ironmonger in London however, assuming a good deal of my pamphlet, and working it up into his own, and making some small changes in the machine, which rather hurt its operation, got a patent for it there, and made, as I was told, a little fortune by it. And this is not the only instance of patents taken out for my inventions by others, tho' not always with the same success, which I never contested, as having no desire of profiting by patents myself, and hating disputes. The use of these fireplaces in very many houses, both of this and the neighbouring colonies, has been, and is, a great saving of wood to the inhabitants.
Hmm... someone just deleted that long list of websites hope it wasn't me... A wiki doesn't seem to be the best tool for a list
"didn't think it was possible, but there's a country that has even LESS balls than the US. Does Britain even have elections any more? Maybe the British supreme court picks the parliment, just like the US supreme courts picks the president now. :P"
I'm surprised you haven't been modded down as a troll, but then I suspect people are modding down much more important trolls over the clueless ramblings you made above.
We don't have a supreme court. Parliment is elected based on local elections on a rolling basis for deaths, resignations, etc, and during a general election to decide the 'ruling' party at any particular time.
In terms of our political problems, there is a thread of apathy running through British culture that has it's roots in labouring under a Conservative government that tried to change our economic model to 'more American' with a completely different social psychology, then once we'd got a socialist government, finding the buggers were just as bad as the outgoing lot.
But don't make the mistake, that so many Americans do, that we're Americans with a funny accent. Especially don't make the mistake of applying your political, legal and social structures to other countries. It makes you look silly.
Oh, and I've read 'Stupid White Men'. You're calling Britain retarded?
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
All the benefits of all human endeavour belong to all of humanity. We did not evolve to the state we are in today because one group of ape-like beings, having discovered how to make effective weapons for hunting and fire for cooking, kept the discoveries to themselves, only allowing others to make use of them on restricted terms; handing over ready-made weapons to the hunters whilst banning them from the workshop, blindfolding people whilst fires were lit, and punishing anyone who tried to study how to make axes or start a fire.
I can see a comedy sketch in there somewhere. Only thing is, in real life, it isn't funny.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Now, what about your project?
My project is still pre-alpha, you insenstive clod!
If I remember correctly they have only one.
You mean they've patented holding Linux users hostage???
The bastards!
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
The patent may have expired in the US, but unfortunately it is still in force in Canada, France, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom and Japan.
But of course there are plenty of technical reasons for switching to PNG as well.
Burn all GIFs!
Blog Ho
I think I'm going to patent the process!
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Are they going to make a link to themselves, so they get slashdotted tomorrow?
Make sure that they know that you dislike software patents and why. Make sure that they know that this is likely to bite them on the ass in the near future -- in the form of more expensive software and less choice in software and software implementations.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Not to repeat what dozens have said, one fallacity is often overlooked:
When you talk about patents, many people have the lone inventor in a mental picture, and it's easy to convince them that he needs protection against the greedy corporations trying to steal his idea.
If you discuss software patents with someone, make sure you wipe out that picture. 99% of all patents are owned by the greedy corporations, not by the lone inventors.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Why doesn't somebody ( I'm far too apathetic) start up a web page for every stupid/intelligent, idiotic/clever, idea all the /. er's can think of, date the submissions, then anyone can claim prior art everytime a stupid, overbroad patent is applied for or needs contesting, I know its doing the patent officers job, but hey they sure aren't doing it! ( although EU patent offices are FAR better than the US's.... 'Oh you *are* a big company so you must know what your talking about attitude)
Why not apply the spirit of the GPL to patent law? The GPL's been pretty successful at creating a library of free software (ignoring the current SCO mess), so technically something similar for patents should be doable. I'm thinking:
The Patent Public License (PPL)
OK, I'm not a lawyer, but if you've seen something like the Adobe Acrobat 6.0 splash screen, that lists hundreds of patents used in the product. If someone could patent a blindingly obvious idea under a Public License (let's say clickable links) then they should be able to start the snowball rolling, and gather up the other patents a software package uses under the terms of the License, and so on with more and more programs and companies...
It'd be using patent law against itself
Sure, it'd take a lot of captial to patent one or two initial ideas and press the initial lawsuits, but with some support (EFF/FSF?) it'd be doable. Any downsides people can see?
<!-- DHTML / JavaScript menu, popup tooltip, Ajax scripts -->
what exactly is the enlish language alphapet...
sorry, couldn't help it.
Guess I need to take those dark-colored glasses off every once in a while...
Folks, patents are not evil. Throughout their history, they have protected innovation. It is not fair for someone to take the risk and toil to develop something truly new and unique, only to have someone elese who didn't have the foresight or the vision, rip off the idea and get the profits.
What *is* horrible is the US Patent Office and their incompetence in the area of software. They've granted patents for stuff I know isn't new or unique becuase I worked on the same thing 15 years earlier. And many of the process patents are just a joke.
Part of this isn't their fault. A lot of work done in the 70's, stuff that appeared in products, was never published. Most people did bother with software patnets. And most of the products are long gone from the market. SO it is hard to find the prior art, even when it exists.
What we need is a way t grant a provisional patent. The patnet wold be published, and those claiming to have knowledge of prior art that would render the patent invalid can contact the patent office and share the information. If the patent office finds that credible information that counters the claim has been presented, it would invalidate the patent.
The problem with today's system is that once granted, you have to go to Court to get a patent killed and that costs too much time and $$ for any but the ost valuable or outrageous claims to be fought.
We got a socialist government? When did that happen - I thought New Labour were still in power...
++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
I have translated the FFII demo page to Swedish.
I also cleaned up the code somewhat and put an XHTML doctype on the page.
Blog Ho
petition.eurolinux.org
It was a rather hurried job. I could use some suggestions on how to explain why software patents are bad, but written so concisely that one can read and understand the argument in the twenty seconds I wait before redirecting to the FFII site.
You may be interested to read my piece Change the Law. While it discusses what you can do about copyright law, patents in the U.S. are provided for by the same clause in the Constitution as copyrights, and what I suggest one can do to change the law is pretty much the same in any democratic country.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Did I miss a meeting? Is there really a Spanish language edition of Slashdot now? Kudos to Taco and everyone at OSDN for their ongoing global domination!
I know this is off-topic, but I'm curious as to the structure: Is there a single editor-in-chief overseeing both sites? Is there a shared database of UID's, etc.? Do the stories overlap completely/somewhat/not at all? Is the Spanish Slashdot more Euro- or Southern Hemisphere-oriented in either its news or editorial? Is "barrpunto" Spanish for "Slashdot?"
Thanks.
Well www.jonobacon.org will be offline tomorrow to support this cause. Slashdot need to practice what they preach as does every other free software user on here.
If patents succeed our software is dead. Deal with it.
--- Jono Bacon - http://www.jonobacon.org/ Writer - Web Developer - Musician
My objection is that it's not always possible to tell where one invention that's used in a program leaves off, and where another begins. Because it's often possible to re-order the lines of code in a program without altering its behaviour, it could easily happen that someone else's patented algorithm is mixed in to your program in a way that makes it difficult or impossible to find.
Please read:
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Real streets demonstration the one true way if you wan anything accomplished
"Japan, on the other hand, is getting worse and worse due to extreme apathy... you should see some of the election turnout numbers over here. It's scary."
Japan's situation is not comparable to north america or europe. Japan was #2 in the world economically. Now it is #3 behind China. In WW2 Japan treated Chinese like Germany treated the Jews. Japan still doesn't teach its children the truth (as seen by the rest of the world} about its role in WW2. Japan has a massive national case of head in the sand about the past, about its Korean minority, about its overpriced land, about its decades old stagnation, about its lack of a military and continued occupation by US tropps (in the heart of Tokyo no less), about the regional hatred for them stemming from their ruthless brutality in WW2, on and on - (did I mention their organized crime?)
They are a gifted beautiful intelligent race, but they do not have their act together.
I'm not sure why it has occured but capitalism has come to be taken as synonymous with "free market". Which is not the case. Capitalism just means that the money (capital) is privately held, not in the hands of the government. Indeed the great "capitalists" were often those who held great monopolies.
"Free Market" is very different. A free market is one that permits competition.
Its quite possible to be capitalist without being in favor of a free market. I think the good Mr. Gates is almost certainly in favor of capitalism, but not in favor of a free market. (Though I do suspect he'd like any of his suppliers to be competing with other suppliers to keep costs down. )
What seems interesting to me is that currently I believe that the prevailing mood in the US is neither particularly capitalist nor pro-free-market. Instead it seems to be in favor of profits for corporations at the expense of individuals - and those running the corporations are quite willing to sacrifice both capitalism and the free market in favor of profit.
Think about it - would Mr. Gates really object if his company were taken over by the government if he were guaranteed continued profits and control? Would he really object if the government legislatively eliminated competition? Hardly. But either of these is far closer to socialism/communism/fascism than to any real free market model.
Bad patents (ie most software patents, and far, far too many of the patents granted today) are effectively just that - government grants of special status (monopoly status, often) to corporations. (Individuals can get patents though the patent/patent lawyer process is becoming prohibitively expensive unless you're nicely well off already.)
I wrote to my MEP and explained to him how serious
matter this is and gave him a couple of practical
and easy to understand examples of the bad things
that might follow, if software patents are OK'd.
If you are a citizen of an EU member country,
I suggest you do the same.
The protest is growing fast. There are now over 1000 websites participating. It is afternoon here in europe right now, so expect a few more as the geeks come home from work.
It's a fairly high-profile activity. The FFII has fought this fight very much on their own for two or three years. Good to see they finally get some broad support.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
With some simple cutting and pasting, and a cp command or two, I have replaced my front page... more people should do the same. I remember the Internet Blackout from years ago... it was quite stunning to go to all of these pages that were turned black in protest. I don't know if something like that would have an impact today or not, but it would be interesting to find out.
http://www.cs.bsu.edu/homepages/gjjones/administri via/
Not to jump on the meta-argument bandwagon, but you really need to learn to divorce your issues. By the time I got the the end of your post, I had forgotten that the original subject was software patenting.
By tying together what are, at best, very loosely related issues, such as software patents, social welfare, and environmentalism, you are weakening the argument for each. By equating car ownership, for example, with software patenting, you are making a car owner more likely to favor patents. In other words, let's say I own a car and am uninformed or undecided on the issue of software patents. Am I more likely to scrap my car and ride a bike to a protest against software patents, or would I simply think that you (mentally) live in a fantasy utopia and don't understand reality, ergo software patents must be acceptable?
A more convincing argument would keep focused on one issue, in this case software patents, rather than try to lump a number of issues together. That way people don't feel pressured to agree with you on all issues, in order to agree with you on one. From my experience, people are very open minded when you try to educate them on a single issue, and you can often change someone's mind on many issues by working on one small, isolated issue at a time. But when you try to challenge an entire world view, particularly the dominant world view of a culture, in one conversation you overreach, and most people take it more as a sour-grapes rant than a serious argument.
The preceding comments reflect the author's personal opinion and are public domain, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
Flingles wrote:
Economists decry the proposed directive as bad economic policy. I particularly recommend this lengthy critique which fully explains the situation, complete with many links to economic studies and DOJ testimony.
...as you can see here. I wonder why it took that long. Well, it's good to see another site getting the word out about this online protest.
America thinks that they are the world. No seriously, this isn't flamebait. How many Americans actually think Canada is a state? How many know a second language, or have even travelled out-of-continent? How many have worked abroad?
Americanization of the world is just furthering this. Almost wherever you go, you find American music, television, culture. This is because the US would much rather impress itself upon the world, than absorb that the rest of the world has something to offer. Unfortunately, such a fundamental lack of understanding in the rest of the world is cumulative.
This isn't to say that Canada is much better (I'm Canadian). I try to follow what happens in other countries (Europe/Australia mostly because I have friends and family there). But for many, events outside of N. America have much less chance of any immediate effect than events in the USA have on the outside world.
Sept 11 was an example of this, as what would have been the response if this had happened in Germany, or perhaps Australia, Canada? Thankfully, the internet - while spreading American culture, is at least allowing for a bit of cultural influence the other way. I truly think that, if we're lucky, 200-400 years from now we may be lucky not to have a real America, or even a Europe, but world in one culturally diverse but understanding community.
Optimism? Surely. But if you watch the direction of world communication-integration, that or some form of large war are likely the only two visible options for the far future.
My advice to the protestors is not to make this whole thing about free software - make it clear that all software production is endangered by this.
The US Supreme Court has clearly ruled software unpatentable. If the USPTO won't listen to the Supreme Court, what makes you think they'll listen to you?
Ok...I'm a programmer. I look at real world going-ons and try to fit it into another form, called source code.
What's the exact difference to an artist, who looks at different objects and creates a painting of what he sees?
Introducing software patents is like allowing the artist to patent all kinds of motives, even ones he hasn't even drawn yet.
Just my 2 cents
The people against software patents are the people who've never had a good idea for a piece of software.
Let's face it, the open-source community thrives on re-inventing the wheel. Any concepts or ideas that the open-source community have had, and could potentially patent? Nope, because they're all ideas 'borrowed' from commercial projects.
The Slashdot readers' strong association to the open-source community is always going to give us an overall bias for any discussion on this topic.
I was installing a copy of Mandrake 9.1 for evaluation today at a customer office and when I went to PLF to get the goodies we were greeted with the protest page.
This changed the course of the conversation of the day. The customer and I spent quite a bit of time discussing this and other similar manners.
It was a GOOD thing because it caused my customer to become much more aware of what's going on outside of the tiny little M$ world that they have been living in up until today..
Good work folks and HAIL VICTORY!
DEATH to the infidel oppressors!