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Lobbying For Linux
Telex4 writes "Slashdot has heard a lot lately about why software patents are bad, and the passage of the legislation in the EU. But other than the online demo and a few pictures of the demonstration outside the European Parliament, Slashdotters hear little about the real behind-the-scenes lobbying. I've just put an article up on Newsforge describing and discussing my experiences lobbying inside the Parliament that might shed a little light on what we mortal geeks can do to save ourselves. There are some accompanying photos on my web site for those who like visual aids." (NewsForge and Slashdot are both part of OSDN.)
I just want to say congratulations for what you have done. Many of us bitch and complain about these issues, but you took time out of your life to do something about it. I just wanted to thank you for that.
Don't lobby for Linux. Besides being a FreeBSD user hating to see EU nations ban everything but Linux, it also doesn't do anything to correct the pervasion monoculture in governments. While 100% use of Linux is better than 100% use of Windows, 100% use of anything is still bad.
So lobby for Open Source instead. Lobby for Open Standards. Those will also be much easier to get acceptance.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Time is running out. We will not stop this directive but we can support important amendments filed by some MEPs in order to get a sufficient directive.
p ar tition?ipid=0&ilg=EN&iorig=home&imsg=
l en 0309/index.en.html/ eubsa-swpat0202/plen 0309/kond/index.en.html
a t0202/tech /index.en.html
a t0202/prog /index.en.html
p at0202/itop /index.en.html
Adresses of EU - representatives
http://wwwdb.europarl.eu.int/ep5/owa/p_meps2.re
personal > telephone call > Fax > letter > email
The directive is called COM(02)92, it will be voted on Wednesday.
Info about Amendments (please directly refer to these, no general texts, the first link is a must read):
http://swpat.ffii.org/papiere/eubsa-swpat0202/p
http://swpat.ffii.org/papiere
It is especially useful to support Mrs. Kauppi against patent radical Wurmling in the conservative group
http://swpat.ffii.org/#wuermeling-pr030919
Background
General:
http://swpat.ffii.org/analyse/index.de.html
Technical contribution (what is really meant, we want a definition in the directive based on the "natural forces" theory):
http://swpat.ffii.org/papiere/eubsa-swp
Program claims (dangerous for web site owners):
http://swpat.ffii.org/papiere/eubsa-swp
Interoperability (support ITRE against Juri proposal)
http://swpat.ffii.org/papiere/eubsa-sw
Don't write to Green party members or EFA as they are convinced yet, focus on Liberals, Conservative(Finnish MEP Kauppi has made good amendments)
and Social democrats
One of the funniest arguments was Wurmling's text who stated that Eolas vs. Microsoft showed best practise for SME. Incompetence and lies rule within the EU parliament. We shall not let patent lawyer interest groups win this battle.
If the average Slashdotter sat down with the average politician, and each spoke about political issues, the Slashdotter would educate the politician on computer issues, and the politician would educate the Slashdotter on a hell of a lot more.
Software (and copyrights/patents) is one tiny aspect of what these people deal with on a daily basis. It's important for people to step up and communicate with them, as the article writer did, because there's no way for the politician and assistants to keep up on EVERY issue with the kind of depth that people around here do on a small handful of issues that pertain to our careers/hobbies.
Of all of my local MEPs that I've emailed, Caroline Lucas (Green) has been both the most responsive, and the most supportive of our position. If they were only pro-Euro, they'd get my vote every time...
(Christopher Hume (LibDem) has sent me a number of letters, the most recent of which (16/09/2003) says that "software should not be patentable simply because it is running on generic computer equipment", and goes on to say that they want a Directive to "enforce the original EPC, rather than codifying what has become common practice - and illegal practice - of allowing the patenting of computer-implemented inventions".)
If the average Slashdotter sat down with the average politician, and each spoke about political issues, the Slashdotter would educate the politician on computer issues,
Yeah, right. The average slashdotter would claim superior knowledge of every aspect of politics, and then call the politician a right-wing Bush-loving freedom-hating corporate whore if the politician disagreed on any point.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Why don't you become a member of FFII? Although they are associated with FSF Europe. However, FSF does very little in the debate. It is more or less managed by FFII and it's European supporters (AEL.be, AFUL, Vrijschrift, EDRI, ecc.).
http://swpat.ffii.org
https://www.ffii.org/ffii-cgi/eintrag?m=login
Trade issues like IP and patentability are among the roots of wars, famine and poverty. It is a small step from this issue to the availability of cheap AIDS medicines in Third World countries, or the exploitation of Third World farmers by Western control of genetically modified monocultures. If we want to do something about international justice we need to start at home - and that means things we understand better than most. I am not qualified to explain the problems of GM crops to a representative, but I am qualified to explain the problems created by software patents. So that's what I should do. Don't criticise the people trying to bring down the wall with pickaxes because other people are using hammers.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
News flash: Career politicians, like every other human, are not experts in everything.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
I was watching a US House of Reps "Worms and cyber security" subcommmitee on C-SPAN the other day. Testifying before the Congressmen were the following - Microsoft Corp senior security strategist Philip Reitinger, VeriSign VP Kenneth Silva, Lawrence Hale, director of the Federal Computer Incident Response Center, Christoper Wysopal consultant for @stake Inc, some other Russian security consultant, and a few other random folks. The chairman of the committee asked the Verisign PHB and the two consultants if there were any security benefits in running open-source software, and which was more secure, open or closed. I almost shat myself. Here was the perfect opportunity to hear some glowing reviews of open source. Instead the two consultants, who seemed decently knowledgeable, and long winded on all other issues merely said that there are flaws in all types of software, and they would "guess" that the frequency of security flaws were the same as for closed source. Although the guy from @stake did mention that the theory behind open source security was that "the more eyes, the better", he also countered it with noting that most users of open source wouldn't be able to fix the code when a vulnerability was found. That was it. No detailed explanation about anything. Just a brush off that was not quite as long as their testimony on why ipv6 wouldn't offer any extra security over ipv4. Luckily the Verisign bastard was there to add his two cents. To paraphrase him - "I would agree with their, (the consultants) testimony, but I would like to add that often the people who write open source software are not professionals". Then he took another shot mentioning "that often worms affect open-source software too". Often... I wonder what he considers "often". How can he even trot out the word "often" to describe the frequency of worms that affect open-source software when there are millions of Windows boxes that are constantly being hit by worms. He then added - "We must resist the temptation to demonize software vendors and other members of the network community. The finger pointing is often misplaced and in most cases does more harm than good." It was quite the interesting hearing, and gives me a bit of insight into what kind of info our Government is getting about open source.
Anti-social? My code is just platform-specific.
Of course, the main factor here that helped is that the positions of the MEPs were not formulated to win campaign contributions from lobbyists.
In the "land of democracy", the chances that a handful of people can actually get people to listen without massive campaign budgets are a lot smaller.
As I've said, though the EU has done some very wrongheaded things with respect to legislation and technology, the odds on getting them to stop doing them may be considerably better than in the USA if individuals will organize and put in their time and individual-scale money to . . . do something. The war isn't lost there yet. Perhaps it won't be.
The one point that I think based on the article didn't get made as strongly as it should be is that NOT passing software patent bills gives the EU an advantage the USA with respect to individual and small business contributions to technology of the sort that leads to businesses that provides jobs and that the EU can tax.
Remember that the committments of legislators to follow the lead of the US aren't as strong as that of US legislators who got campaign contribution from interested multinationals, i.e. except for a few, I'd guess that a great many are willing to listen to reason if the reason is put in terms that they can understand.
Props to the people who lobbied on behalf of us all.
Tech Public Policy stuff