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Torvalds And Cox Write EU Parliament On Patents
replicant_deckard writes "Linus Torvalds and Alan Cox have sent an open letter to the members of the European Parliament. They ask for strict limitations to software patents, argue for open standards and ask the members of the parliament to follow FFII's voting recommendations. Vote on the controversial software patents directive will be on Wednesday and it is expected to be a very close one. Well, do you believe these guys have any impact in Brussels?"
He could have just called up his relative.
Daer UE,
Patanst r teh suckzorz!!!! Say ON TO TEHM!!!
Loev,
Anonimouse cowerd
I understand that one can patent a process for doing something, but one can also patent an end-product. A program is an end-product of the source code used to compile it, so wouldn't software patents, in effect, cause the much feared "functionality similarity" disputes to become more substantive in the legal system?
Esoteric reference.
As much as I hope it does and do hope for it, they've got more money in strict software patents then open ones. And although they _MAY_ read it, they won't recognize the names, government don't know the names geeks do. I hope it does work out our way but with government they do end up do stupid things alot of the time ;)
Before you start the main purpose and body of the letter you might explain why you are a crediable person to listen to. If they aren't particularly technically inclined then they may have no idea who you are. Tell them who are are, why you are important, and why they should listen to you. Without that, you usually loose your influence.
-Foxxz
As much as I favor his position, somehow I think it will not be paid attention to and the laws will proceed on their path. I hope I'm wrong, though.
A blog like any other.
Well, do you believe these guys have any impact in Brussels?
I don't know - how big a check are they including with their letter?
Given that Linux is generally stronger in Europe than the US (where MS pretty much rules all), comments from the likes of Torvalds and Cox will carry more weight than they would in the US.
Then again, hefty campaign donations from rich software firms probably carry a fair amount of weight too...
It should be interesting to see what happens.
Jedidiah
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Few things could so quickly get the attention of most around here more than a letter from Linus and Alan!
Thank you for contacting us. We here at the write back department of your centeral goverment are really unaware and issues that go on in the world today. We understand your feelings about whatever you wrote about and will take the time to discuss it over the watercooler in order to enhance our better understanding of your issue. We assure you that no one of any great importance will actually see the letter to took the time to right, and look forward to ignoring you in the future.
Yours truely...
underpaid staff
P.s. What is a software patent?
"Subject: Open Letter on Software Patents from Linux developers
Date: Sun, 21 Sep 2003 13:31:12 -0700 (PDT)
From: Linus Torvalds
Open Letter to
the Honourable Pat Cox, the President of the European Parliament,
members of the European Parliament:
Dear Mr. Cox,
We have been following with growing concern that Europe has been
extending patentability to computer programs. Now European Parliament
is about to vote on a directive that could put a stop to this
development, or make it worse, depending on how it is amended by the
Parliament.
US experience shows that, unlike traditional patents, software patents
do not encourage innovation and R&D, quite the contrary. In particular
they hurt small and medium-sized enterprises and generally newcomers
in the market. They will just weaken the market and increase spending
on patents and litigation, at the expense of technological innovation
and research.
Especially dangerous are attempts to abuse the patent system by
preventing interoperability as a means of avoiding competition with
technological ability. Standards should never be patentable! Likewise,
patents should never be used as means for preventing publication of
information - the whole idea of patents is to provide time-limited
monopoly in exchange for publication of the invention.
Software patents are also the utmost threat to the development of
Linux and other free software products, as we are forced to see every
day while we work with the Linux development. We want to be able to
provide the world with free high class, high quality, highly
innovative software products that really empower the users and offer
the best and only real chance to narrow the digital divide. Please do
not make this harder to us that it already is! In conclusion, we would
recommend You to vote for such amendments that
* clarify limits of patentability so that computer programs,
algorithms and business methods really cannot be patented as such;
* make sure that patents cannot be abused to avoid technical
competition by preventing interoperability of competing products; and
* ensure that patents cannot be used to prevent publication of
information.
To that end we would suggest following FFII's voting recommendations
on this directive (see www.ffii.org).
Sincerely,
Linus Torvalds Alan Cox"
The whole issue is running so bad (or meanwhile so good) because none of the members of the parliament was aware of the troubel.
... so what? It is canceled in less then 5 years because of the trouble we will get here in europe with EXISTING foreign software patents.
The new directive where brought up and prepared "silently", only noticed by the OS community. For the members of the parliament it was just a standard, "lets see that directive, and if nothing comes up we pass it" business.
Now with all those demonstrations and arguments and prominent people sending letters and making visits, its unlike the directive passes.
And if it does
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
"Well, do you believe these guys have any impact in Brussels?"
None whatsoever.
As much as the US goverment is criticized on cyber issues these days, the EU has been even more hardcore on these types of issues (such as patents). One gets the impression that the collective leadership has made their minds up on the issue.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Now im all for this non-violent, direct action stuff, but if Linus and Alan are going to around defacing patents, im not sure i understand the relevance of 'EU Parliament'.
Perhaps it would be better to stick with the classics, "Linux and Alan woz ere" or "Linux rules OK?" for example.
Politicians don't like being criticised, you should be nice to them then suggest something slightly different to their proposals. Criticise them and they go on the defensive.
Ten bucks says they postpone the voting a 9th time.
Open letters are read by everyone else, sure... people on the street might take a look, journalists might use them as an easy out when they're looking for something to write this weeks column about, but does anyone have any evidence to suggest that politicians even know these letters exist?
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
We can and have made a difference - but we haven't won the battle yet. If you live in the EU and care about these issues take the time to contact your MEP and see where they stand on this issue - but remember:
I think it should be pretty clear by now (given the passage of the EU version of the DMCA, among other things) that the EU parliament and other European governments are very much in the pockets of corporations just like the U.S. government is. It's more a matter of degree than anything else.
That's why I don't think we who value our basic liberties have much time left. Others might ask why I haven't moved (I live in the U.S.), without realizing that there really isn't any place on the globe worth moving to. As far as I know, there isn't a single government on the planet that cherishes liberty and works towards maximizing that for its people. And even if there were, chances are most people wouldn't be able to go there anyway because of strict immigration laws.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
- Emails are less than worthless, remember: meet > phone > write > email
- Be polite, and STATE YOUR ARGUMENT CLEARLY. These people are generally well-meaning, but can often get confused if bombarded with 100 reasons why swpats are bad (even if all of them are valid). Most MEPs are keen to protect competition so start with "Software patents will hurt competition" and work from there.
- Don't make it about Free Software, the software industry as a whole is in danger - not just free software.
This is one of the first real opportunities the geek community has to make a real difference in politics - but it takes work, are you going to put your time and efforts where your mouth is?doh
s/immigration/innovation
"Please do not make this harder to us that it already is!"
Shouldn't it be "for us" and "than"? Isn't it possible that these members of parliment might think less of this letter based on grammar?
Of course, that sentence could be correct. If so, I'm an idiot. My bad.
CC Licensed Serialized Story and Podcast: Ingenioustries
Would you take a chocobo's advice on patent law?
You: So, Mr. Random Chocobo, what are your recommendations for changing the law as it currently stands with regard to patents?
Chocobo: Kweh?
You: Or do you think that no change is necessary?
Chocobo: Wark!
You: What's that? You want me to give you some greens? I seeeeeeeeee...
graspee
This is part of a long term strategy by the rich and the super-rich to grab back the computer/Internet thing they let get away from them.
They do NOT want people to be in charge of their own systems. They want it to be like TV where you sit and consume.
They will patent and license to themselves and each other all the relevant algorithms with the long term goal of making open-source software illegal.
Did you XOR is patented and IBM pays to use it?
Free software will have to go underground. We could see people like Theo in jail.
This is going to get a lot worst before it gets better.
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
Linus has always maintained his reputation as a simple hacker-- someone not concerned with politics but rather technology.
.sig
This is the second such letter bearing a Torvalds
Is this the start of a new (albeit, not necessarily bad) trend of more coders voicing their opinions on IP law and its current state of affairs?
Do you have a better suggestion?
I disagree. We DO notice what is going on, it's just that we cannot do anything legal to stop it. I've had this feeling for a long while now, that a revolution is brewing. It's time (again) to take the power back to the people.
The website protests were a good start, but restricting access to a geek website (eg freshrpms.net) is preaching to the choir. How about some 733+ h4X0r5 give us a government and high profile site blockages? How about the software and manufacturing companies give a week or month long demo of what will happen without free access to already public information - stop R&D, and stop sales (and use!) of anything which relies on ANY "IP" not developed exclusively in-house. When the economy grinds to a halt within days, politicians and representitives (representing who, exactly?) will realise just how pervasive modern technology has become, and how important it is in keeping society and business operating.
A bunch of geeks aren't much in the scheme of things, but if said geeks tell their bosses the impact of what is going to happen, these bosses will get to talking at business meetings and golf courses. Hopefully the gravity of the situation will sink in before it's too late.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Dear Alan and his friend Linus,
I've used your operating system once. It is slow, it crashed once with my Mozilla browser taking a minute to open, and none of my digital camera drivers worked with it.
Till then I suggest you improve your softwares. And Alan, tell Mom I said hi.
Love,
Pat Cox
EU President
First, I want to say that it is fantastic that both Linus and Alan saw the importance of getting involved in this issue. It is very politically important after the disaster with "software" patents we've had in the United States.
And I normally don't publicly criticize anyone about the mechanics of their message because I spent my time playing Dungeons & Dragons in high school rather than paying attention to grammar and spelling, but I really wish that they had run this by a 12th level grammarian with +2 red pencil before widespread open publication. I think that the letter itself will have a large impact, but I wish it were just a bit more refined.
Addressing the letter to "the Honourable Pat Cox" but opening with a salutation of Mr. instead of President.
Leaving out definite articles. Using a mixture of technological, legal, and political terminology but not spelling out or giving background on the different terminologies. Not saying it's wrong or unclear, but just that it might have benefitted from a bit more clarity.
I am really proud of the Linux leaders for doing something so important and inspiring. If not to the leaders of the European parliament then to me at least. I just wish I had no reservations about the form it takes.
Well, do you believe these guys have any impact in Brussels?
Maybe if you drop them from 20,000 meters.
The patent system is based on encouraging people to spend money on innovative things *and* document their ideas, in exchange for a short-term monopoly. Why should people who like to give away their efforts (i.e. the free software movement) get a free ride? The free-software movement has noble goals (I have contributed too), but I don't think it is right to tell other people that they should give us the fruits of their hard-fought research because we want give away their patentable ideas.
The government represantitives in the wealthy U.S./E.U. countries have all bought into the theory that all the manufacturing jobs are moving to third world countries, to be replaced by these new software/media/"IP" businesses. So, they are all behind these patents, DMCA-like legislation, and other restrictive laws.
But, it seems like most of them just don't "get it" yet. Of course, this is with a lot of help from big companies who stand to benefit from this stuff.
I dont know much about the European system but I expect that anything that has taken this long to draw up will pass in some form.
I think that the right thing to do is to demonstrate that the new rules hurt the EU because the only benifit big multinationals that can shift workers to whichever far corner of the globe is cheapest and they hurt small EU software companies.
I think also that we need to convince the EU to have tight rules on what can be patented. Personally, my big wish is to prevent patents of things like file formats (e.g. LZW patent, MPEG patent) and communications protocols and APIs.
Also patents like the patent that prevents e.g. the GIMP from supporting print output options (CMYK or whatever it is)
Keep quiet?
You have to be fucking kidding me. Didn't the last civil war teach you people about living in the "land of the free"?
When some draconian law gets proposed, or your government wants to do something more restrictive with your country, if you don't say anything at all, you're open to everything, good and bad.
It's about time more people noticed the groundswelling of anti-corporate/bush/ashcroft "patriotism" that has been building since at least the year 2000, and did something about it. You can't remain quiet about that! You need to discuss the issues, not hide behind some "Patriot Act" or TIA mandate, or hell, use the DMCA as a club to beat your rights to death.
I don't even like the united states, but I can respect the need for change. The winds of change are building. Listen to what they have to say. Pass it on.
user@host$ diff
I don't think that Linus or Alan has any IP law skills enough to help. Well, it's good that they have sent the letter anyway. But the real guy who must help is RMS. We heard so many IP law related arguments from him, so many battles he was in the middle. Why isn't he there now? Or is he?
Less is more !
I noticed the letter contained the bulk of it arguments in a URL I think this will prevent most lawmakers from reading it since they generally don't use computers and have there email printed out.
The second most significant problem is that they give them a hyperlink to indicate what they can do to address these issues. They need to SPELL OUT what an MEP can do to help the anti-swpat cause. This means saying "this URL contains a list of amendments which are essential if this proposal is to protect competition and innovation in the European software industry".
Every additional second it takes for an MEP to figure out a) Why they should agree with you? or b) Given that they agree with you, what do they do? costs us votes.
Theo will have to speak for himself to this point, nevertheless I have talked with Theo about patenting software and Theo said that there has never been a case of a US firm suing a Canadian individual over patent violations because the way the system works is that in order to do so, the company must pay both sides legal bills. [Theo is very much against software patents as is everyone else that I know with a couple exceptions (and they IMHO are very naive)].
...companies such as IBM, TI, and M$ basically get this for themselves via their cross licensing agreements.
I personally think this argument does not hold water and I hope it is not Theo who becomes a target.
At the time I brought up the idea of we developers in the open source community starting to build a sheaf of our own patents by each of us joining an association and paying say $100 bux per year in order to fund the registration of our patents as well as to litigate infringment.
At the same time, membership in the organisation should give each and every person access to any patents and software held by the organisation while at the same time excuding any companies that want to double dip.
This would mean that if IBM for instance decided to join, then all IBM software patents would become available on a cross licensing basis. Meanwhile if Microsoft choses not to join, then they would be prohibited from using anything "we" might control by way of our patents and agreements.
I feel in very short order the opensource community would hold all the relevant patents.
Of course, there are developers who wish to do proprietary work - these are the startups and small to mid sized companies that Torvalds and Cox warn will be harmed the most by software patents. I suppose that membership in our group could be extended to them. I see no real reason why one could not have 2 classes of software within the patent group: open and closed. So maybe we can solve the problem in this fashion. Remember that the purpose of such an organisation is to create a free patent zone that includes all of Planet earth.
I will point out that I do see a danger here as well. At some point the organisation could control so many patents that they can force every person on earth who owns a computer to join, in which case it is a licence to essentually tax and who knows - maybe it will grow into a world government eh? haha.
[back to reality] Anyone who thinks this is a good idea is welcome to email me. But remember that if this is going to fly people are going to have to put their money where their opinions are because we will have to hire competant legal staff in perhaps several juridictions.
You can't remain quiet about that! You need to discuss the issues, not hide behind some "Patriot Act" or TIA mandate, or hell, use the DMCA as a club to beat your rights to death.
You know, in that semi-manical rant that really doesn't seem like much more than flamebait you overlooked a few important things. Many view the Patriot Act as a "bad thing" and with work it will be restricted back to sensable levels (ie gone). TIA was killed because of the vigilence and outcry of the people. And the DMCA was passed quietly into law before anyone noticed and thus those of us who have the priviledge to live in this country have to suffer with the consequences. The outcry of the people of Europe is very commendable; maybe they'll have a chance to stop what we didn't.
You also missed the most important action in your rant - vote.
The letter looks like a fake to me. Several typos, no introduction on who the authors are, "signature" without any titles or positions. You'd think that between the two of them, they could have done better. Smells like a hoax to me.
I agree that software patents are a bad idea and I would like to do something to stop Europe from having software patents.
However, I'm not a citzen of the EU.
I don't expect politicians to care about the opinions of those who can't vote in their country.
But perhaps someone with more knowledge of the situation can suggest a way for me and other Americans to help.
There goes my karma, but I don't care. ;)
Vote.. really. What planet were you on during the last US election?
Bush wasn't voted into office. He was selected. With his brothers help. With lots of money.
The united states of embarassment is going to hell in a handbasket. And the sad thing is, that Europe wants to be JUST LIKE EM by passing ridiculous laws that further curtail human rights.
On a planet that has over 6 billion people, where at least half are living well below the poverty line, there is a country being run by a body of officials who allow corporations to secretly tell them what to do, how to do it, and where to do more of it, and people still are not clued in.
It's truly sad. Yes, I agree that voting is one very good option. However, I think it's gone far past this now, and it's time to bring power back to the people. I say this because any civil war in the united states will affect the lives of everyone on this planet, directly or indirectly.
Instead of trying to carve up Europe and dictate how other coutnries are run, the united states should be dealing with its own problems first and foremost, for a change.
Were you aware that the national debt of the US is now over 6.7 TRILLION dollars? That works out to 23 thousand+ USD per registered citizen of america. At a rate of 1.6 billion dollars a day EXTRA, I seriously doubt spending more money on things like Patriot act II, Iraq (87 billion.. ), and ignoring the problems on your own soil will do the world any good.
Wake up. Spread the word. Do something.
user@host$ diff
Is it just me, or does anyone else find the grammar, scanning and structure of this letter as very, very poor indeed?
Not only is there no explanation as to who the signatories are but also a number of the sentences scan very badly indeed.
I realise that LT is not a native English speaker, but really, it doesn't come across as very well thought through IMHO...
Invoicing, Time Tracking, Reporting
Ok, I've watched this for a bit now, but I've never really looked into the whole issue. Now, what is the actual argument against software patents? Has anyone claimed an argument or is this just a grumbling mob saying "patents get in the way of linux so it's better if we didn't have them"?
Obviously someone has to have approached this with some structured, philosophical reasoning. I can hardly attack this or defend it without argument to attack or defend.
So, where is it? Does someone have a link? A reference of any kind?
First, the interaction between patent law and antitrust law needs to be adjusted. If you have a dominant market position, you should't be able to use a patent to prevent interoperability with your de-facto standards. This is an antitrust issue because it's only a big problem when someone has market dominance. Interoperability with Microsoft Word is important. Interoperability with AbiWord is not.
This is not totally out of reach politically. Current antitrust law in the US and the EU arguably support this position, but enforcement is hard. A bright-line standard would help here.
Second, it needs to be clearly established that Government-mandated standards (ANSI, ISO, DIN, EU) preempt patents unless patent holders object prior to the issuance of the standard. The government standards organizations should be directed to adopt policies preventing the use of patented technology in standards unless the patent holder waives their rights under patent for all users of the standard.
Finally, "business method" patents seem to have been a mistake. However, the first one (4,346,442, the Merrill Lynch Cash Management Account, attaching a credit card to a brokerage account) has already expired.
These things do time out, and soon enough that it matters. The GIF patent has expired. The RSA patent has expired. The SyncSort patent has expired. All those technologies are still in use.
Forgot about the vote fiasco. Its kinda funny looking back.
:)
:).
...
You can I actually probably agree on most issues; you're just trying to stear the ship a little harder than I.
Domestic concerns (like me graduating and not having a job) should be taking much more of a front seat than they currently are. As for the deficit I try not to think about it (given the economy is already a mess and this doesn't help).
Anyway its good to see people with some passion. Makes things intersting. So you stear like a maniac and I'll lean into the turns
I kid, I kid
Software patents are bad for Linux.
-Linus
bite my glorious golden ass.
France and Germany's governments want patents so there you go :-/
... but anyway all parties, from left wing to right wing, communists to ultra-liberals, stated recently that they are against software patents.
???
All political french parties stated that they are against software patents... ok.. it was during the previous presidential elections... the current political party in charge seems to have slowed down their positions against software patents
Last week, some big industrial organisations (CEA-PME,CEDI,ESBA, representing 2 millions of small companies) stated that they too are against software patents.
the CIGREF (an organisation of big french companies) stated the same thing. Even big industrial players like Renault recently stated that they are against software patents.
So, it seems that things progress, and the game isn't over yet. Of course, if you remains actionless, waiting for the bill, you could only blame yourself. Write snail mails to your MEP, send money to the FFII, attend the manifestations, etc.
I think it's great that cox and torvalds, took the time out of their day to submit the letter. Even if no one at all (of import) notices it's certainly better than regret. If all else fails maybe generations from now, this'll serve as one of many example of politician's insensitivy during our period, for some kid's paper (with "sic" annotating the grammatical errors, of course).
Not just vote, but personally, I'd vote for the non-incumbants in everything just to keep things fresh. If you keep new people in goverment and get rid of the old cruft (Strom Thurmon, anyone?) You've got a much better chance at having new ideas introduced and embraced. Unfortunately it's still money driven, but voting in new people will at least change where the money's coming from.
"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
I'm sorry but I live in the U.S. and I've lost all faith. Can you blame me? Land of the free, my ass. Better have a few dollars in your pocket or you could be arrested for vagrancy. Land of the free. Fuck that. A myth for fools and paupers.
Vote.. really. What planet were you on during the last US election?
Bush wasn't voted into office. He was selected. With his brothers help. With lots of money.
Even if the above is completely true, it was only possible because the election was incredibly close. If more than 50% of people got out and voted maybe it wouldn't have been so close.
The U.S. vote and the consumer dollar are still worth quite a bit in the USA. In fact, since last election was so damn close the value of your vote this time around has greatly increased. I don't think it's time to overthrow the government.
Emails are less than worthless, remember: meet > phone > write > email
My take:
meet > phone > write > shout at TV > use toilet paper with politician's image > thinking of polititian unfavorably while cleaning fingernails > email
With everything but email, at least you accomplish something. (Shouting at TV releivs stress.)
FYI, there is now also a press release on the open letter in the EFFI web pages (I just put it there).
Remember when you were a little kid, and some toy or piece of candy was the most important thing in the universe? You've come a long way since then, so long that you probably can't really remember what it was like. Well the same thing is going to happen again. You'll become middle-aged and all these worries about the state of the world will just elicit a nostalgic chuckle.
That's amusing. At some level you must realize that the majority is not with you, so "the people" really means "the discontented." So you're going to form a band of malcontents to start a civil war? You wouldn't be the first. Long before you can do anything, the FBI will infiltrate your group. Eventually you'll be sent to prison on weapons and conspiracy charges before firing a single shot. As an old, gray inmate you will have little recollection of the angsty young man you once were.
Meanwhile the sinister cabal that has always ruled the world will continue to do so. They are called parents, and they vote.
The not-for-profit organization IP Justice has a great summary of the isssue up at www.ipjustice.org and a collection of useful links here.
Take a look. They also oppose the Directive on software patents.
That idea would do more harm than good. Did you read the article about Hilary Rosen's retirement party? (Forgot the URL). One of the points was that increasing churn in Congress has made lobbyists more powerful. When congressmen serve for a long time, some become powerful committe chairs, effectively the most powerful people in the US on their particular topic. With more churn, the power goes to lobbyists, because they are the only enduring legislative specialists in their areas. Hilary Rosen is a good example of this new breed of lobbyist who is more powerful than a legislator.
to emphasize:
EU-Parlament: elected every 4th year by the people.
EU-Commision: selected by the governments (that are elected by each country's people)
EU-Council: based on a theme, representatives of the governments from each country gather (again they are elected by each country's people).
The discussion about EU's (or to come soon, the European Federation) parlament is that they have no real power, but they keep discussions happening, which could influence the commisions and/or the councils. But remember that EU is an experiment, not a script to follow. (I hope) We are not to become a new-roman empire like other federations.
(yes this can be compared with sex)
WRONG
therefore are not responsible to you (i.e., the people who pay the bills)
WRONG
WRONG
Of course the Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) who are now deciding on the issue of Software Patents do have to worry about being re-elected (cf. Article 190 of the Treaty establishing the European Community: each term is limited to five years).
Neither most of them nor most of their voters may now understand the importance of preventing software patents, but there is one thing to be made clear to the MEPs:
The impact of software patents (and this includes any compromise claiming to avoid them while leaving plenty of loopholes to grant them nonetheless) will be felt by the public at large, and as software patents hurt companies large and small , and force them to eliminate jobs all across Europe, on election day the people will know for sure who made the mistake.
Contact as many MEPs as you can right now, with a reasoned statement explaining to them why software patents are bad for you and bad for them. You should also remind the MEPs that despite all the spin-doctoring by the software patents' proponents, software patents are not about protecting intellectual property, but about artificially creating an intellectual property interest in typically trivial, individual steps of software development, which relies on and owes all of its progress to gradual innovation, and about assigning this made-up monopoly interest mostly to foreign megacorporations - to the detriment of everyone else. For this reason, however, it is all the more important not to allow the EPO to grant software patents in the first place, for if thoughts are turned into intellectual property and then people realise that this has been a mistake, there is no cheap and easy fix by simply repealing the law (technically, a software patents directive and its implementations), as this means to disown those who have been granted an unjust proprietary ownership of ideas - i.e. those who received such undeserved gifts will cry for compensation as then what they hold title to has to be taken away from them.
Even if the above is completely true, it was only possible because the election was incredibly close. If more than 50% of people got out and voted maybe it wouldn't have been so close.
I acknowledge your point; the election was essentially a tie. But our electoral system doesn't have a concept of a tie. If there is a "tie" you just count the votes more and more carefully until the margin is greater than the error in your count, so that the tie is broken. That's what the law says. There is no provision allowing the Supreme Court to "break a tie" with a disgraceful decision such as Bush vs. Gore.
An exhaustive recount completed months after the election showed that Bush did indeed get a couple hundred more votes than Gore. But at the moment that the court interfered with the recount and announced Bush the winner, this was by no means certain. They wanted to select the next president. Even if the result of a later recount happens to tip in their favor, this does not exonerate them. At the time, nobody knew what the outcome of a recount would be. The five majority justices rung the bell with their actions; subsequent events cannot unring it for them.
I guess the last European Parliamentary elections were all a sham and MEPs were actually selected by Zig the Almighty, ruler of Europe and the planet Zog. Go back to Zog.
I'm sorry if I haven't offended anyone
J
Both, Linus and Alan have named it "Linux" and not "GNU/Linux".
So I belive I can call it "Linux" from now on and not "GNU/Linux" like Stallman want's me to call it.
Or did Linus and Alan both only called it "Linux" because they didn't want to confuse the MPs?
NoSuchGuy
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
... I would probably just send this:
"I am against software patents, but much more as well. I have far too much to say to list it here. But my entire feeling about the EU (and the US, and the WTO, and the IMF as well) can be summed up by the book of Habakkuk in the Bible. It's only three chapters long, and well worth reading before your next vote."
I'm not going to throw it in here, but I'm going to throw it in an A/C reply to myself. So if you want to read it, look in the replies below.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
It got moderated by a sun reader.
Your idea of a OSS-community-held patent portfolio has been advanced before, but it is never going to work either.
The OSS "community", such as it is, is composed mainly of a great horde of geeks who like to get neat stuff for free, and relatively few actual contributing developers.
It is as much as "we" can do just to keep churning out code for bugfixes and upgrades. They simply don't, as a general rule, command the resources to get patents written up, registered, and defended in the courts - all expensive and time consuming processes.
As to your suggestion that we form an association and each contribute $100 annually - we already have, in the EFF, an organization capable of looking after this, and they need that money already if you're offering. They are already short of funds. Why? It's not that we don't care really, but $100 is a fair sized chunk of money for a geek to find, expecially in these straitened times. Those of us lucky enough to still be in work are no longer paid as well as we used to be. And the rest of us are out of work.
For the sake of argument let's posit the existence of a group of people turned on by patent law. We'll call this hypothetical bunch "patent geeks" (we already know there are *some* people like us working on the legal side; people like Eben Moglen, Lawrence Lessig, and the contributors to Greplaw and the OpenLaw project, both hosted at Harvard).
Now if the efforts of OSS developers were only matched by legal i-dotting and t-crossing by those hypothetical patent geeks, then each software project could be backed up by proper legal protection.
But guess what - the people mentioned above may be interested, and can sometimes help out when critical cases get to court, but they are not patent draftsmen. I see no sign of *any* hobbyist patent draftmen willing to lend out their services pro bono, actually.
In reality, dotting i's and crossing t's have always been the OSS community's weak spot. Many applications (i.e. the entire gamut of KDE applications EVEN AT VERSION 3.2) *still* don't come with adequate (or even *any*) documentation, for example. Even worse, some projects' output is distributed in such a raw form that it can only be coaxed into life by an expert after weeks of experimentation.
But this is tolerated because it is the very absence of the usual rigorous standards required by paying customers, which allows these projects to exist in the first place, and which allows their fruits to be distributed at such low cost. It is those "flexible" standards which allows open source to exist and compete with commercial softwre in the first place.
You can surely see by now where I'm going with this. If every OSS software development project needed to be shadowed by a team of volunteer patent lawyers then most software projects would simply wither and die. The cost of operating would be too great for small players and the only projects able to survive would be those capable of going commercial like Linux, BIND, Apache, Sendmail, Samba, the GNU compiler suite.
So to sum up: many users won't pay for patent registration and defence; the larger projects may end up being forced to do it themselves, but if it were to become a universal necessity owing to increasing frequency of aggressive patent lawsuits then the only possible result is a much smaller open source universe. We need therefore to focus our efforts on changing the law to provide a more benign legal environment for pro bono software contributors.
I never used the word "good" ... I would like it to be a federation, where we, the people, have direct influence to the powers. But at the moment, I am not liking EU at all, because of:
:(
1. Amendment of Software Patents (showing the stupidity of the representatives in EU),
2. No real consequenses for the "lazy countries" in the Euro-zone (showing the naivitity of the union),
3. The union is based on diplomacy, not democracy (need to move further).
Since EU has no real power, the discusion about democracy is overrated, every memberstate could just leave the EU. If the majority of a country cannot do this, it is not EU that is the problem, but the memberstate that you are living in, who has a democratic problem.
In my country, we have to vote for any changes to our constitution, and thereby the faith of a treaty (all memberstates have to accept a treaty before it can be accepted as total law). It makes us unpopular in Europe (for the EU-fanatics), but it gives us (the people) time to reflect on our situation. It could have been nice to vote on the amendment though
(yes this can be compared with sex)
There is a debate as to wherer the National debt has a negative impact and the prevailing opinion is that it only has an effect on future investment
(since money that would be in the hands of the people and thus invested is in the hands of the goverment.)
Other than that, National Debt is not like a normal debt. It is still your money. It's just from your citizens by your goverment.
So you present National Debt to be a disaster which it most certainly is not. Not to remind you that the national debt is directly related to investment and growth and inflation So, if the Goverment decided to pay back, then you would see inflation. Very often the Goverment decides too "not pay" even if the funds are available , just because paying would upset the forces of the market.
Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
Actually that can make things worse. It leads to pendulum politics, where the political and legislative environment changes so abruptly every 5-10 years that it becomes perpetually impossible for the citizen to adapt.
In the UK, people brought up during a socialist era struggled to cope with the capitalist revolution imposed by Thatcher throughout the 1980's. Those who managed to adapt were then thrown to the wolves when the Tories were deposed by New Labour in the early 1990's.
Nobody wants to live like that. Most people will find it difficult to prosper without stability and a degree of certainty. You learn the rules and you figure out how you can make a living within that. If the rug keeps getting pulled out from under your feet, it gets hard to stay on your feet.
I think a better solution is to reform the electoral and political systems so that it becomes impossible (or at least very difficult) for one party to obtain a large majority. That way, the only legislation that can get passed is legislation with broad cross-party support, eliminating laws based upon party ideology and also leading to fewer laws crafted to serve the interests of a small and influential minority.
Critics of proportional representation say that you must allow large majorities or else you don't get "strong government". I say, to hell with "strong government". No more serial dictatorship! Let the people run their own lives.
Weren't you listening? The only EU representatives we elect are sent to the EU parliament, which has no power.
Decisions are taken by the Council of Ministers, who are appointed by the national governments of the day. Who as we all know, turned out in practice not to be who we thought we were electing.
In any event I've been recently finding out just how hard of hearing those MEPs are. If the EU parliament did obtain executive power, it would hardly make any difference. Most of them don't claim to represent you or me, once elected: they just do whatever they like. Usually this means following the party whip in order to boost their career prospects. They're so very far away from their consituents you see.
Okay, quite simply, here's the interpretation of the Book of Habakkuk. When we raid other countries for ill-gotten profits [and remember, Enron, IP, IMF loans+insurrection in Zaire, our tariffs against non-1st-world-owned tropical fruit, the WTO helping only the 1st world, our oil companies in the 3rd world...], we destroy the infrastructure of our neighboring countries. That, in turn, makes them incredibly vulnerable to disaster, especially to external attack. If you want to measure vulnerability, it is inversely proportional to the number of independantly operating economic units. When we raid these things, and have Chevron own Nigeria, it makes Nigeria vulnerable to attack. That makes *us* vulnerable to barbarian attack. If you think that can't happen, you're wrong. ("that you will not believe, though it be told to you.") So destruction comes, and there is nothing that we can do about it, except to live righteously and faithfully despite everything. Of course, after the infrastructure is destroyed, you're going to have famine, and then plagues. That's natural to the state of things, too. You can have lots of farms exporting food to the city, but if there's no infrastructure to take the food to the city, then the city starves. If you're starving, you're also liable to get sick. But when destruction comes, we can pray for mercy. Meanwhile, we can also take refuge in God. To me, that last part that I put in italics is the most beautiful, wonderful statement of faith, when Habakkuk says "even if the crops all fail, even if everything is bad, I trust that my God is good, and that He loves us, and will strengthen us." Would that we all had that faith.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
I disagee... but you make an excellent point.
While in you example M$ may end up owning the company, it is still a seperate legal entity and its IP and agreements do not automatically accrue to its owner (ie M$). In order for a full transfer to take place contracts need to be novated and this involves a negotitations step.
Furthermore M$ in their own licensing agreements have set the precedent that the license does not transfer via an aquisition.
Agreed. Government by dictat is a just a huge confidence trick, relying on the people's fear of what will happen to them if they dare to withdraw its authority, pending political reform (actually nothing would happen, except more controlled government).
They also try to promote the idea that they are so powerful that you can't force them to acquiesce to to the public's expectations on any given issue. A major riot exposes that lie quickly enough (in teh UK anyway...remember Thatcher's aborted Poll Tax? Labour's attempted petrol tax hikes?), but they know that as long as the middle classes are comfortable enough, there will never be a sufficient number of people willing to risk exposing themselves to a face full of tear gas and a night in the cells.
Whenever government meddling results in the middle classes hurting badly enough to take to the streets, therefore, you can bet it wasn't done on purpose. But that doesn't excuse it. If we are ever to achieve peace, justice and representative government then the habitual arrogance of incumbent government must be broken and they must be placed on a leash. Of course those in power always like it just the way it is so I don't believe any kind of meaningful political reform will ever be possible without direct action from a massive popular movement.
Unfortunately a handful of disgruntled geeks isn't it.
You make excellent points here.
I am a member of the EFF BTW, and I have written them and implored them to start doing some things in the patent area. I have heard not even a peep back. But I do think the EFF does excellent work and I do support them.
I think your last paragraph is revealing. "Many users won't pay". Well - to be frank they will if they have to. It is unfortunate to have to force users to anti up for an anti-patent protection scheme but then we are not to blame here... we are just trying to solve a problem we did not create.
Then you say "The larger projects may end up being forced to do it themselves"... and to this I respond that again it is a situation I would rather not see. Instead of valuable resources being channeled into areas such as legal make work projects I would rather we become proactive and set up a structure that any project large or small and for that matter any developer can avail themselves of with little tax on their resources.
I do not see this as a situation where we depend on pro-bono patent lawyers, rather I would like to see a situation where maybe 50,000 developers initially (there are 500,000 registered in sourceforge) volunteer to join an association for under $10 bux per month because they perceive value and that this association then picks the best of the best ideas and organises patent applications on behalf of everyone.
In the latest version of OpenBSD for instance there were at least 5 excellent patentable innovations. These were real innovations... and they are in the public domain. Meanwhile we have obvious things like XOR sitting with a patent and ridiculous one-click claims.
So, if we developers are going to be faced with a patent minefield then I see no other choice but to go on strike (which is what vested interests want... strike, quit, waste our time in court, whatever... as long as we don't develop code) or we have to fight back.
As it stands the number of us who can afford to defend ourselves from an invalid patent is probably less than 0.01%. If any of us hold valid patents the number of us who could afford to defend it also probably fall under 0.01%. As the RCA vs Philo Farnsworth lawsuits illustrate, the idea of fairness in the legal system is rather far fetched.
Holland is a country. In holland they speak dutch. In France (another country) they speak french. In Belgium they speak both, as above.
French and dutch are also spoken in other countries, eg former french and dutch colonies.
my password really is 'stinkypants'
Mega-Anony-Co is likely to charge everything they can for their substandard product, export jobs to Burkina Faso, pay their CEO ten times what he's worth and generally screw all and sundry for a profit.
I'll leave the reasonable conclusions to the interested reader.
It's as quick as email and guarantees an actual piece of paper will appear in someone's office somewhere.
It's also completely free.
They check your postcode to make sure you're sending it to your own MP. then 2 weeks later they email you to ask if you've been replied to, and publish stats on how quickly each member replies.
I believe the site said something about sharing their code, so maybe it exists in other places by now.
my password really is 'stinkypants'
mod this guy up, I was extremely surprised when I read the letter , that neither Linus or Alan mentionioned their role, and its importance.
...
You are absolutely right your average joe has no idea who these people are, let alone what Open Source is all about. They should reccommend reading Rebel Code by Glynn Moody!
A Freind of mine emailed his local Green Party MEP regarding this issue, she was surprisingly well versed in the matter. If anyone else wants to have a look/send a mail... heres her website Jean Lambert
nick
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
From the letter:
Really? What's the evidence? I look at things like PNG (Portable Network Graphics file format), which was an innovative, technologically superior solution that probably wouldn't exist if it weren't for the patent restrictions on the compression used by GIF (CompuServe's Graphics Interchange Format).
If we think that patents are useful in some fields but not others, what distinguishes those fields? How will we draw the line? What happens when the line between software and hardware blurs (microcode?)? Is the real problem with software patents that software is somehow a different beast? Or is the real problem that overly general patents are granted?
I suspect the problems aren't fundamental. I'd like to see an honest attempt at fixing the problem by tuning the system before we chuck it all. Eliminate business method patents (software or otherwise). Increase patent application scrutiny. Shorten the duration of patent protection for rapidly evolving fields.
Has anyone started to Wiki the law to see if we can come up with something better than the current Software Patent Directive proposed to the European Parliament?
A vote on it would be nice.
In the latest version of OpenBSD for instance there were at least 5 excellent patentable innovations
With respect to building a portfolio of patents to engage in cross-licensing deals with major patent holders, just how many software patents do such companies like IBM, Oracle, Adobe hold? IBM alone holds more than 37,000 patents and this number is currently increasing by thousands per year.
Faced with patent portfolios like that, which represent annual R&D and legal expenditure in the billions industry-wide, I don't see how parity can ever be achieved. So how can we ever achieve parity in order to bring the buggers to the negotiating table? Rather than let us have access to their huge number of patents in exchange for a paltry few, they might consider it cheaper to just invent their own alternative. Or to fight it in court and bleed us dry that way, as noted above.
Most European countries have proportional voting systems, and rather strict party discipline. I think that make "campaign lobbying" less effective, it is harder to bribe a party than to bribe a person. Of course, rich interest organization do donate to parties they believe will promote their views. Given that most countries have many parties, it is easy to find someone allready aligned with you.
However, there are plenty of lobbyists, and the parliamentarians need them. They explain how the legislation affect the interest group they represents.
EU parliamentarians are largely ignored, so they are happy for any feedback they get from the public at home. The experience you have with US politicians do not translate to EU.
If you want to "just be a hacker" you will hate software patents, as they make it impossible to be "just a hacker" unless you work for a huge corporation. Otherwise, you will have to be "a hacker and a lawyer" to know what code you are allowed to write.
Well the policy makers are not usually the policiticians, you could call the politicians the policy managers. You have to relate to them in a management style, then they can go back to their advisors and rethink their plan.
Well - I think you see my point. If an association with 50,000 members has as you suggest a snowball's chance in hell to prevail, then any company with a market cap less than say $25 million also cannot prevail and hense the logical conclusion would be to forget software development.
As individuals and small startups, legislation that allows software patents and a USPTO that is basically totally out of control have the effect of putting us out of business before we can even start.
If so, then I think you can agree there is a need to come up with a solution to the problem.
You bring up the point that: How much would it cost to fight just one patent lawsuit against a major software company like SCO or, heaven forbid, IBM? More like $25 million probably judging by extant examples.
Well - if you are an open source developer how would you like to face this issue alone? And on the other hand, we might find that a company such as IBM would actually support an association and contribute software patents on a cross licensing basis. You see, AFAIK IBM has never sued anyone with regard to software patents. Perhaps they feel they are being pushed into patenting software as a defensive move (so they have their own protfolio which can be used to cross-license and hense neutalize this mess).
The _ONLY_ benificiaries of software patents are patent lawyers and the courts and attendant infrastructure who all benefit by the LEGAL MAKE WORK that these laws create.
The software development industry DOES NOT benefit in general. If there are exceptions - then I'd like to know about them. Along this line of thought... the Feeny Patent comes to mind. Certainly many have profited fromt his patent... who? The legal community. Has anyone else seen any benefit?
The short of it is that a patent generally does not protect your work. It only creates a situation where you have to pay $100,000's to millions towards lawyers for painful litigation.
The history of Philo Farnsworth should be soberly considered because he was destroyed by this system.
Many applications (i.e. the entire gamut of KDE applications EVEN AT VERSION 3.2) *still* don't come with adequate (or even *any*) documentation, for example.
Could you give an example? My installation (3.1.4) seems to have multi-chapter manuals for three or four dozen of the KDE programs.
I don't know if it's still the case, but certainly up until recently at least, many help pages would just state the program name and version and along with a list of empty headings there was a single brief comment along the lines of "Sorry, we don't have time to write documentation".
In my humble opinion (as someone who develops software for a living) if you can't document then you shouldn't be pushing software in the first place. Who else is going to do it? Is some telepathic volunteer supposed to read their minds?
If as you suggest this problem has receded somewhat in recent versions, that's a good thing.
There's nobody here disputing any of that. I agree in principle with what you are trying to achieve and I have written several letters to my MEP stating broadly the same things.
Where I do disagree is that I don't think a community-held patent portfolio can be made into a practical defence strategy.
Try to remember that patent law has evolved (like most law) to serve the wealthy and powerful, at everyone else's expense. Under current "intellectual property" law (and I do mean patents, trademarks *and* copyright), in most cases - no matter who is actually right - the winner is the one with the most money. This rule of thumb is only broken when both parties have sufficient legal resources to go all the way.
As I pointed out, it is unlikely that the EFF could accumulate sufficient resources out of subscription fees to fight even one patent lawsuit against a major player. I'd go further: I don't think the OSS community will ever be able to match those industry giants' investment in IP protection. They can afford to spend all that, and they even like it that way because in the end they make even more money out of it. Whereas we don't make any money out of it even if we win.
For these reason the *only* way we can hope to retain control of the fruits of our labours is to seek a change in the law, and specifically one which drastically reduces the role of courts and lawyers for arbitration purposes. This would level the playing field so that all participants could seek protection under the law without incurring huge legal bills. A patent office that was more open and didn't grant stupid patents would be a start; a law that clearly forbade patents on abstract processes such as software and business methods would more or less eliminate the problem altogether.
So if there are any limited resources available to be spent on fighting this issue I think the EFF are absolutely right to be concentrating on seeking changes in the law and the way it is applied.
BTW I know what you mean about IBM, one does almost get the warm fuzzy feeling about them these days. But that's only because it suits them to snuggle up to the OSS community as things stand right now, with IBM in its current form. That could all change pretty quickly if they decide to de-emphasize their software support and consultancy business. So do beware of any cross-licensing deals containing a revocation clause - because then IBM could do to us exactly what SCO is trying to do to IBM right now.
I can't imagine it, sorry. I can pick up and hold a fork. I can't pick up and hold a method of managing people, delivering goods and so on.
Business patents are a tax on doing business, pure and simple. The downside is that the money raised from the tax is not invested in roads, schools, health or even Iraq.
-- Free software on every PC on every desk
The EU parliamentarians are elected. If you didn't vote in the election don't blame it on anyone else. You'll have another chance next year.
While I think that Linus and Alan Cox are doing the right thing by voicing their viewpoints on the patent issue, they are doing it in the wrong way. When I read the letter, Linus and Cox did not ID themselves as the people behind the Kernel. Instead I saw a from two EU citizens concerning the patent issue. If they wanted a fuller impact, they should have written to their local MEP's instead of the whole parliament. I have learnt this from dealing with my local elected officials.
Support the Chagossians
Actually the council of ministers can choose to ignore them and enact it regardless. And there's no nead to be vulgar.
I voted for Gore, and I wanted him to win, BUT:
No matter what action could have been taken, I saw 3 possible outcomes:
1: Choose Bush swiftly
2: Choose Gore swiftly
3: Drag the process out for weeks or monthts with no clear president. I'll leave the problems of post-Jan 20 as an exercise for the reader.
I wish Gore had been made president, but I respect him for stopping the fight farily quickly. The vote was just too freakin' close, and a large portion of the population would be unhappy and screaming "cheater" no matter which way it came out.
Even then I knew it would be bad to not have a clear president, but can you imagine if the debate was still continuing on 9/11/01?
We can argue about what the "right" solution was, but the fact is a whole lot of people are going to disagree, especially back then during the fiasco. So as much as I am suspicious of Florida's election process, I can't jump up and down and give a "better" solution short of amending the constitution, and I doubt that solution would be any better. The only solution is to vote this time around if you didn't last time.
Even then I knew it would be bad to not have a clear president, but can you imagine if the debate was still continuing on 9/11/01?
Oh please, knock it off with the 9/11 exploitation. The attack probably wouldn't have happened in the first place if Bush hadn't undermined the war on terrorism by diverting resources from it during his first 8 months in 2001 in favor of pork projects like the missile defense boondoggle. The Clinton administration had the war in Afghanistan essentially set up and ready to go, but they deferred it to the incoming administration, which promptly adopted the mantle of undoing every executive action of the previous 8 years as part of its ideology. Ironically, Bush gets high points for his handling of the "war on terrorism" even though he pulled the plug on it. It took 19 guys with boxcutters to make him realize that thwarting terrorist attacks is important.
And even if the debate had still been raging at the time of the terrorist attack, so what? What do you think would have been done differently? The initial response to 9/11 had bipartisan support.
Oh please, knock it off with the 9/11 exploitation. .
. .
And even if the debate had still been raging at the time of the terrorist attack, so what? What do you think would have been done differently? The initial response to 9/11 had bipartisan support.
It was not my intent to exploit 9/11. The initial response to 9/11 was bipartisan support centered around the president. Even at the time I thought Shrub (aka W) was an empty suit corporate sell out, but you have to rally around someone. If there were no clear president at the time, who would we rally around as a nation? Who's the commander-in-chief? The point is not specific to 9/11 but any national emergency.
As far as what would have been done differently, if the presidency was in dispute then who commands the armed forces to attack Afghanistan? Or do you think Clinton would have stayed in office until the Bush/Gore issue was settled? That's a whole other furball. (Actually that would've been okay with me.) If the presidency had been in dispute at the time, my fear is that Americans would have divided as to who should be the CiC instead of rallying together.
I have no argument with your other points. Bush's isolationist stance at the beginning of his presidency deeply disturbed me.
Also, I agree that the U.S. Supreme Court stuck its nose where it didn't belong. I just don't know what the "right" answer was.