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City of Munich Freezes Its Linux Migration
Jan0815 writes "Yesterday I received disturbing news from the CTO of Munich, Wilhelm Hoegner. As previously mentioned, there is a rising concern that software patents could stifle development of open source worldwide. FFII has complete coverage of what is going on in Europe." (FFII stands for Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure.) Reader jmt(tm) writes "The call for bids was supposed to be published in late July, but the Munich Green Party had pointed out about 50 possible patent conflicts which the city wants to evaluate before moving on."
Maybe no "software patents", but something else on protocols, methods, ..?
We don't have them yet. That of course didn't stop the european patent offices from granting thousands of software patents even though they are illegal. As it is now these patens are useless as they will not be enforcible in front of a court, however the moment software patents become a reality that will change.
Stop Software Patents!
OK, I am replying to my own post...
Some important issues they raise in the 'patent PDF'
- mozilla tabbed browsing (from opera?)
- GIMP image export formats (ie. JPEG, GIF)
- OOo macro support
- OOo XML schema (from MS Office)
- CIFS / SMB
- Use of browsers for eCommerce (Oracle patent)
Seems to me that they have been exaggerating some patent issues.
Others might apply, such as CIFS, Gimp GIF issues etc.
I can only urge you to read the study that lists the potentially infringed patents./ swpatmuc.p df
http://www.ffii.org/~blasum/basisclient
Even though it is german there are a lot of patents listed in english and you will be able to see how incredibly absurd this whole thing is.
For example there are patents for:
- Tabbed Browsing
- Multitasking
- Using your browser to browse online forums
- Creating documents through macros
to just name a few.
The list of example patent claims (most of which would be easy to fight but we aren't really rolling in dough here in Munich at the moment) should be clear enough and translation sites don't mangle them too much.
Note that this is mostly based on patent applications, not accepted patents. The majority of concerns become moot if the EU denies software patents.
Cheers,
woof.
the green party just brought up the software patent issue to get some attention to an existing problem - software patents.
:)
They are pro Linux (at least for Munich), and against (pure) software patents.
Just to prevent misunderstandings...
The city of Munich's switching project to an open-source based infrastructure with a standardised Linux base client is eagerly watched worldwide. Meanwhile, attacks are taking place against open-source projects by means of lawsuits against important reference customers. These lawsuits are initiated by companies whose financing clearly stems from declared enemies of the open-source movement (1). We have done a patent search to reveal possible patent risks of the base client in its current form. The indicated patents can be searched at (2) and have for the most part been taken from (3). The patents mentioned below should be understood as being just examples of the 30,000 patents submitted to the European Patent Office. It may be assumed that at least 10-20% of these 30,000 patents are applicable to the client. To point at future threats, a part of patent applications have been taken into account; the acceptance rate for the European Patent Office is greater than 50% (4). In brackets, software packages of the planned base client are indicated.
[Image with a caption about the danger of JPEG and MPEG]
They are with Linux and they are against software patents. I know that because I helped them last Friday with some of the PR work for their motions that made the city administration put the LiMux project on hold for now.
.NET framework. I really love .NET but I want its developers to face open source competition because that's the best assurance that they'll do their best in the future.
If everyone in the industry and in politics understood that you can only be either for open source or for software patents, it would all be a lot easier. Some say that software patents have not hurt open source so far but today we have the first incident that shows how software patents can put a hallmark Linux project in jeopardy.
What people need to understand is that the competitors and enemies of open source may very well accept today's stack of open source software, but they lay huge patent minefields in new areas of technology so they can arbitrary restrict the functionality of open source and keep its market share limited in the future. However, the best that can happen to all of us is an unfettered proliferation of open source.
I'm not just involved in open source. I'm also developing a closed-source computer game based on the
OK - I admit I can't read much German but there isn't much Linux involved here.
It all seems to be userspace. Even CIFs is still a SAMBA issue rather than Linux.
Not so, I'm afraid. At the last count I know of, there are 30.000 software-related patents registered in Europe. Most of them by US companies on a "just to make sure we can sue the competition as soon as the EU politicians are stupid enough to let SW-pats pass" basis. Means the patents are worth squat at the moment, but I'm not so sure about the future.
my 2 cents
http://www.muenchen.de/Rathaus/bb_dir/presse/2004/ 08/99502/limux_softwarepatent.html
Here's a translation:
The [Bavarian] state capital Munich certainly holds on to the Linux project that was decided on by its city council, and upholds its strategic decision in favor of an open source project. [reference to dpa report, a German news agency]
"It was just yesterday that the IT experts of the city explained the strategic benefits of its Linux project to the city administrations of Augsburg and Nuremberg [two other Bavarian cities, Nuremberg is the 2nd largest one]. We were pleased to see that those cities, like Vienna (Austria), are interested in Munich's open source solution." All that is correct to say is that the bidding process for the base client has been temporarily put on hold because the legal and financial risks due to a draft directive proposed by the EU Competitiveness Council (which would allow for the very broad patentability of software) need to be checked into.
In the opinion of the mayor, it is now the highest priority that all European municipalities and enterprises that have a vested interest in open source take influence on the EU institutions and the national governments of the EU member states. The goal must be that the envisioned directive does not take effect as a European law. In that regard, Munich concurs with a decision by the European Parliament, "which once again is attempted to be turned around and into the opposite, by small EU committees that pander to the interests of large corporations".
The GPL was not created because the FSF is against copyright. In fact, the GPL is based upon copyright law. Without copyright everything would be public domain, but it would be easy for people to 'steal' code like is often done with BSD licenses. The GPL keeps information Free, and this could not be achieved without copyright.
Now the parent of this thread suggests the FSF start patenting software. This would be surrender on the part of the FSF. I think we should do everything possible to fight the existance of software patents first.
Should this prove to be impossible, I think the creation of a collective bank of software patents would be the next step. Here companies like Red Hat, Novell, HP, IBM & the FSF should place software patents that could be used to defend any Free Software attacked by patents. So if MS were to attack the Mono project with patents, Mono could make use of the IBM patents as a shield against MS. This is the truth about software patents: you have nothing to fear from them when you have many of your own, since you can cross-license.
Good grief!
;-)
Now listen here you moderators - I've already had to tell you off once already today. The parent's post may be interesting, but only in the same sense as a novel or any other fictional work is interesting. If I have to tell you again, you will be doing an hour's meta-moderation every day after school for the rest of the month.
And as for you boy - yes, you z0ink, you little rascal! Here's a piece of chalk. 100 times please:
"There are 30,000 or more software patents on the books in Europe. Microsoft wants them all to be enforceable in each and every country in Europe. Microsoft executives interrupt their vacations to involve themselves in the politics of the software choices of foreign governments."
And make sure you've finished by the time I come back!
Although the original auther didn't bother, here is a basic list of what some of the patents are:
Tabbed browsing...
Reading fees for web based applications...
Web shopping basket....
60 Firewall patents....
Jpeg compression...
Windowing systems...
Document creation via macros...
Multitasking...
SMB/CIFS...
Web based deployment...
These patents are literally criminal. Why bother to use a computer at all. Why bother to even consider working in IT since, due to patents, you're fucked the moment you write your first line of code. Christ alfuckingmighty, Microsoft and these fucking patents make one feel like being back in the fucking dark ages when you were forced by law to pay taxes to the fucking church just because they were there.
I'm going to work in a fucking restaurant as a waiter. At least there I know why the customers and the boss treat me like shit.
There are thousands of software developers who read slashdot. Find one who says "I found this great algorithm in the patent literature". Or find a reference to one on a web page. Or find someone who knows someone whose third cousin once heard about a software developer saying that. Until then, shut up about software "patents" increasing knowledge.
I put "patents" in quotes because the EU hasn't made them legal yet, and they've never been legal in the U.S. The Supreme Court has ruled each and every time that software is not statutory material for a patent. And their most recent decision (Diamond v. Diehr, 1981) cautioned that you couldn't make nonstatutory material statutory by changing the wording, etc. See section IV of the majority opinion.