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NewsForge On U.S. Advice To EU On Software Patents
An anonymous reader points to Roblimo's "interesting article about how the U.S. sold out to software patents and the EU should as well." Should be of interest to Europeans, forced as they are "to suffer from willy-nilly software development by individuals who have not been screened, approved, and trained by corporate human resources professionals."
I can see this going either way.
On the one hand, like the article mentions, Europe has a lot more socialists who aren't fans of Big Business. And they were the people who were actually able to succeed in nailing Microsoft with that big antitrust fine. (Sure that's not patent per-se, but given that every second slashdot and fark headline these days is a new rediculous MS patent, it fits.)
On the other hand, speaking from Ireland, multinations with lots of patents like Microsoft and Intel have become rather cozy here, but the tax breaks that used to be unique to foreign companies settling are disappearing from here and being imitated elsewhere. I know the local government in Ireland would be open to US style patent laws if it will keep foreign investment and jobs coming in.
Yup...
First of all, why does the EU want the US's advice? The title makes it sound more like we're just running our mouth's. The EU doesn't much like us at the moment, and this just helps to foster the whole 'america gets up in everyone's grill' image. =/
And secondly, why doesn't the EU want advice from the guys down in the trenches? Is it impossible to get some body of government that listens to the people instead of greedy corporations who pay them off?
Yea, well. We can all tell I'm high. A government for the people? Pfft. I must of taken some baaaaaad LSD.
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And this is to say what? That corporate human resources "professionals" know anything about software development? I suppose the next thing they'll believe is that programmers who learned to program in school know anything about programming.
I have some experience with that second one. I know a few people who studied programming in school, not really knowing anything about it beforehand. The way they studied made no sense at all; it was a process of memorization, like memorizing a multiplication table. This applies to everything from language syntax to design patterns. These schools turn out programmers who think they're hot stuff because they can churn out word processors using VB#.NET or whatever. There isn't the sort of deep-rooted philosophy about software design, the base in mathematics and logic, the science of the machine, or the art of putting together computer programs that accomplish a job, scale well, fit together within the overall field of computing, and age well too.
I don't know what to think about this industry. What happened to the few really good programmers who could make amazing things happen with a basically crappy machine with barely any memory or other computing resources? What happened to the respect that used to apply to this field? Nowadays, it seems like corporate managers look down on the programmers and the software, as if it's a given that software is some mindless trivial crap that takes two seconds to bang together, and the fact that it takes a really long time to engineer is scorned and look down upon.
The issue of software patents stems directly from this. There is no issue of learning or advancing the field. It's simply looked upon as a bunch of flash cards that need to be memorized, and each corporation is trying to jump on that and patent as many of those flash cards as they can. Want to use a 'switch' statement? Pay $500 per application instance, or an annual fee of $5,000,000. It's just a nominal fee...
Depressing. Free software needs to win the software war as soon as possible.
the Chinese, Indians, Asia, S-Americans, Africans
are busy laughing at us, innovation wont stop but western buisness might
so i for 1 welcome our new technology masters
sponsored innovation, much in the same way that W hides behind the troops when he is criticized for the war in Iraq, or the CEO of Walmart hides behind his employees when Walmart is criticized (i.e. "I think our associates do an oustanding job." in response to the criticism that Walmart pays oppressively low wages to their employees).
In other words, the corporate lobby that wants these patents is basically taking credit for innovation, much of which is payed for by the US government. They are using this as evidence that they deserve even more rights. There is no justification for giving corporations these kinds of rights.
We have the elections for the European parliament coming up this weekend..
Are there any slashdotters here that let their vote be influenced by this, and if so how ?
It's a shame to see that this is almost definitely going to happen. With the abundance of bogus patents already granted in the US, it's only a matter of time before people start seeing obvious and old ideas being patented by corporations that exist solely to sue others into submission and profit from the legal entanglements while the lawyers are busy sorting everything out. I can't believe that Europeans would be so dumb as to bring this upon themselves, and can only conclude that the US is strongly pressuring them to come around to their point of view vis-a-vis intellectual "property".
Who's in the US pressuring Europe into this, why are they doing this, and how can we stop them?
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Am I the only one who sees the irony here?
Things don't happen in a vacuum. US software corporations are lobbying intensely for software patents. The idea is that if they can patent software concepts, they can provide a reliable and consistent revenue stream.
This has to be the most obvious manifestation to date of the threat that OSS presents to the traditional software vendors, led by Microsoft. I doubt they would be bothering to do this against corporate competition. All corporations labor under the same constraints. They have to pay people to do the work. OSS breaks the rules in a significant way, and is disruptive to traditional proprietary software houses. They don't have any value-add anymore.
Patents are primarily defensive in nature in any event. Most attempts to use them offensively to crush competing technologies, or shake down entire industries, eventually fail.
I don't understand exactly what the current Administration thinks it is doing trying to pressure the EU to adopt software patents. It is not like the revenue stream is going to land in Europe. What goal or self-interest is fulfilled by adopting software patents in the EU? (beside the obvious cash payoff previously documented to the Irish Presidency) How are jobs created in Europe? How does this benefit Europeans of any nation?
I wonder what kind of arm-twisting by the US is going on in the mythical smoke-filled room (where all such decisions are being made).
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I'm voting for a person who has shown clear opposition to software patents.
You have to expect a large amount of corporate (well, American corporate) and even gov't FUD over this. Corporations want a sure thing - secure investments and market control. Patents in every form are a lock (to some degree) on money and a preventative measure on competition.
I personally wouldn't mind software patents if they were truly fundamental breakthroughs or such (RSA cryptography comes to mind), but with Microsoft patenting "To Do Lists" the EU should be really concerned over what kind of silliness is going to be submitted as a software patent.
For that matter, if the EU was to adopt software patents, what % of those patents would be American?
Should the EU choose not to adopt the software patent idea, we'll see the EU become the hotbed of software creativity for the next 20 years. That's something that'll rankle America, but will it bother the U.S. enough to suffer the pain of changing the patent law?
-- "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars" [Oscar Wilde]
I think patents in the U.S. slow down the product development process to some extent. By slowing down the process, Open Source competition can grow, and allow for software "alternatives" to arrive on the market first. The other problem with software, which is stated in the article, is that most new software is based off of previous software and this can lead to stunted growth of otherwise good applications.
Also, the fact that patents cost money can lead some software projects to open source licensing directly in order to ensure protection. I see this as good for the open source community, but bad for the software industry. Although, maybe I am misunderstanding the article.
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Open Source development, however, is PEER reviewed. The bullsh*t walks, in any project of a substantial size and momentum to produce, say, an office suite. Someones screws up enough times and they get kicked from the project. Peers have the actual knowledge to say, this guys work is crap. HR can say, well he showed up in a clean suit with a good haircut and had a great handshake. Thats real nice, but Ill take the open source software anyday.
Half the reason proprietary software sucks, aside from not being free, is that its written by the guy with the best handshake, or whatever cosmetic thing the HR weenie was looking for that day. Never trust a bureaucrat HR rep to make a decision that a peer could make better.
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And that is to get the government and private industry so hooked on open source software that software patents would wreck the economy. The fastest way for the public to begin to realize that this is a terrible legal system is to make it hit home.
But then open source developers often just don't get it either. OpenOffice for example doesn't even have a word count feature nor the ability to print multiple slides on the same page. These are two features that are absolutely critical in an academic environment for students. With academia firmly against proprietary software giants, we can use universities as a weapon against them.
We really need for a group like Knoppix to make a LiveCD with the ability to do a very clean, intelligent install to the hard drive. LiveCDs are the way to go for installations. The user can play around with them all they want and then ideally, just run an installer to copy it to the hard drive and configure the bootloader.
Right now we have about 1.5-2 years before the next version of Windows comes out. Now is the time for the major projects to conduct user surveys to find out what is missing, add the features and get the product out the door. The fastest way to take down Microsoft, the biggest threat on patents, is to make them stop growing their profits. Since the company makes a lot of its payments from stock, if we can stop them from growing, maybe even cause them to actually have slight negative growth, it would unbalance their payment system which would cause them to have to burn through more cash.
And as an aside, ironically to those who are thinking G-ddamn he is a socialist.... I'm voting libertarian in 2004.
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OpenOffice.org does have a word count feature, click on File > Properties and then look under the Statistics tab.
I find your comments interesting. I've been developing data acquisition and process control software for twenty-five years in a number of fields and industries, and never was able to land a job by going through Human Resources, or "Personnel" as they used to call it. I'm unfortunately a square peg, as far as HR is concerned. Lots of experience but no degree, and as I was an independent developer for 18 years I had no convenient "salary history" to show. My current full-time position I got because the director of software engineering did all the interviewing himself, not trusting anyone else to make such an important decision, and was more concerned about my accomplishments and my technical capabilities than my grip. Too bad more managers aren't like him.
I agree with you about the monkey and the football.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Software patents party trends, candidate statements and voting behavior for many European countries (it's a wiki, add your country if you feel it's missing ;)
... as I give a test to my students. You need to stop posting these threads on Wednesday night when I generally don't have time to read them. (Like the infinite twin primes proof from two weeks ago.)
:)
Thank you for your consideration.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
that there is a firm and long-term strategy in place by certain groups to find ways of outlawing the act of writing code for public consumption without a license. the end goal being simply to create or perpetuate existing monopolies by the creation of artificial barriers to entry into what has become an incredibly open market.
i think the first real attempt (or mockup) was certification of code which found its extreme in palladium. This principally technical solution has since been abandoned.
the current wave is based around so-called intellectual property rights. the term is a joke, but has many proponents, from the media industries through to the software business. you do not own that idea, it belongs to someone already. the space in your head has a 75-year lease.
this will also fail imho. it is - like palladium - too ludicrous a proposition and fails the basic darwin test: any society that allows its common technological culture to be partitioned into 'property' will suffer competitive disadvantage and eventually either change or die.
i expect the next phases to be based on security, but only after the current market leader is long dead and gone, its laughably insecure products being replaced with "professional" ones from other, older players.
who will, i think, be in the fore-front of the lobby to license software programming.
i've been programming for 20 years but i am very sure that my children will not be allowed to do this freely, any more than i can distill liquor and sell it to my neighbours.
software is just too fundamental, too valuable to be left in the hands of the common people.
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That a punk-kid college drop out started what's now a mulit-billion dollar company!! Where the irony comes in is that those very same companies...it doesn't matter who: Cisco, HP, SGI, nVidia, Microsoft, Apple...and the list goes on... Young out-of-work innovative kids. Would never have be allowed their success in today's world. The very companies they founded are continuing to work harder and harder to make sure that NEVER happens again... that's the lesson here more than anything else. Look where all the successful companies came from...so why do we need new/stricter laws?
If everybody in the world lines up with the US system, in the end only Microsoft and IBM will be legally able to write code.
Maybe the solution is for all the open source programmers to form some sort of guild and patent every damn stray thought like the big boys are doing. That way we'll have leverage if they threaten us. We can even set up do-nothing companies to sue Microsoft for patent infringement every time they fund an SCO or AdTI, you know, like whacking your dog with a rolled-up newspaper. Baaaaad Microsoft. Whack!
Right now, they're trying to justify patents in the EU because of the great economic prosperity in the US. Unfortunately, it's not the first time those in the US has used this kind of argument...
To paraphrase "look at the great wealth and prosperity of the plantation system, the grand architecture, the vast and rich land, the free markets ... they paid for those slaves God blessed, surely that alone shows slavery is good, and the negros have been saved from their barbaric condition" ....
I wish I could say that patents are causing less harm, but when they recently lokcked out 10's of millions of Africans dying of AIDS from getting generics because "they had no incentive", because patents are "a property right", becasue "the wealth of the pharmasutical industry in the US is proof that patents work" ... etc. - it really causes me to think twice.
The people who know understand that the USA works because of freedom that exists inspite of patents, not becaus of them.
I'm confused. Doesn't one have to show "how" the thing to be patented does what it does? I heard through the rumor mill that Coca-Cola won't patent it's formula because then others will now know how to copy it.
So if this is true (and it might be wrong, that's why I am asking) wouldn't a closed source company patenting something then make it's source open for all to see and look at?
Correct - explain - enlighten me, please.
Xerox could have sat on the idea, but sued Apple, Microsoft, and anybody else who came along with a use, into smouldering red-ink ruin.
The patent would have finally expired sometime around the early- to mid-90's.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
suffer from willy-nilly software development by individuals who have not been screened, approved, and trained by corporate human resources professionals
I work for Siemens. A rather huge multinational based in Germany. That's Germany as in "right there in the middle of Europe". Maybe the neo-anarchist software developers of Antwerp and Barcelona are a different story, but the software developers from Germany are the epitome of "screened, approved and trained" mobile resources.
Tell a German that product is more important than process, and they'll call the men in the white suits to haul you away! To them, process is the product, and what you sell to generate revenue is merely icing on the cake.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
But they should be limited to a 6 month life-span after which they go to the public domain. 6 months IMO is plenty of time to bring an idea to market with software. :)
Like double-clicking.
To be fair to the HR people themselves, they are particularly stressed from compression between these forces:
1. People seeking work and willing to lie, cheat and steal to get it.
2. Internal policies that are frankly illegal, if not outrightly immoral.
We ask (or demand) that HR vet the population which has members representing force#1. That alone is quite stressful, and with all the law governing the selection process, we arrive at force#2. Let's face facts; managers don't willingly do things like hire 1 women into a group of loudmouthed guys, and vice versa. (If you don't think it works in the reverse, guys, just try to get a job in a library, bookstore, etc. Odds are you'll encounter resistance to the undercurrent of "women only".) Managers of all types have all manner of biases and states of ignorance, and gender, race, marital status, etc. all come into play without prompting.
When it comes to workplace biases, about the only ways the government catches all this prejudice is (1) the company is small enough that they screw up and let a bias become readily apparent, or (2) the company is large enough that statistical methods can show a likely pattern of bias. Between these two conditions of exposure, we have a vast range of law breaking.
I've done it myself. I worked for a plating company that made it quite clear that, in general, women and blacks were not welcome. The women were seen as potential lawsuits in general ("you hire 'em and they start filing suits, so forget it"), and specifically for their reaction to the usual array of porn that tends to lay around such a facility. The blacks were not welcome since the good 'ol boys working the lines were profoundly racist; hence, who really wants to invoke strife in the production lines?
(I never want to get involved in such a small, inbred business again. I want to avoid feelign dirty in that particular way that washing cannot alleviate.)
I am very skeptical about the (you'll note, primarily female) HR population. But I have to hand them the (small) olive branch of peace and understanding with the pressures they endure.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
Times have changed though and unfortunately they have changed for the worse. Now it seems that coprorations are using the patent system as a tool to stifle competition. The claims for patents are getting more and more vague, thus covering a broader and broader scope. In the not too distant past it would have been unheard of to pantent "Software Compression", it would be considered imprudent, where patenting as specific method of software compression using a specific library and a specific algorithm would have been ok. I think the current patent laws would suffice quite nicely if the US Patent Office would wake up and reject patents applications that are frivilous and obviously not in accordance with the spirit of U.S. Patent Law.
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to all opponents of software patents in Europe.
That's not only because the American president is not particularly popular in Western Europe, so whenever Americans open their mouth, Europeans are likely to do the exact opposite right now.
It's also because even those who fight for software patents have to pretend they don't want the extremism that passes for patent policy in America these days. Even they must appear to oppose business method patents, for example.
That means that any open assistance American assistance for the project to sell out the European software industry to American patent holders will backfire. It will help the opponents of said project.
That in turn means that all opponents of legalizing software patents in Europe should welcome all the clueless interventions on part of the American government.
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