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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."
I thought we did not have patents as of yet in the EU....
How come?
Because the companys having patents might have a deal. Ms makes deals like that every day with companies like Sun , SAP and so on. Dont sue me and i wont sue you and lets exchange patents.
Owners of linux usually dont have patents to trade with, exception might be novell who owns suse. No dont count ibm. They have patents but they dont own a distribution who can be targeted. Very clever or dumb depending how you look at it.
What I don't understand is why was the Green Party the one which raised those issues. I assumed they were a leftwing party, therefore less prone to accept doubtful patent claims.
Europeans readers, can you clarify this?
Yep, this is pretty bad, as you can register a patent pretty much for anything, there is not much supervision/oversight.
But once registered it can be a powerful force for fear without every actually being tested.
If you wanted to design something to create the most FUD for the least action, you couldnt do much better than this.
ok you are not wording it right, but you have a valid point.
Everyone is running around screaming about the "liability" of using linux and it "possible violates" some patents.
please, I guarentee that hese same patents arebeing violated by microsoft, if not more of them.
why is it that people think that if I use Microsoft I am immune to being sued while linux= anyone can sue me for any reason?
when did this sillyness in thinking come about??
IBM is being sued for breach of contract by SCO, nobody is being sued "because they use linux" contrary to the hype and fud spread by the media.
so yes, please can someone in the know enlighten us as to why?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This whole story is mainly an attention whoring attempt of the Green party to fill in the summer gap. Traditionally 2nd rate MPs spew out pretty stupid proposals during the summer holidays for journalist who don't know what to write as nothing happens in politics.
It's very that any of these announcements has consequences. But I think we can assume that the responsibles for the Linux migration project are on holidays, too, and some 2nd level guy overstepped his competences.
.. FUD! Not only are patents not currently legal, but there aren't even any patents! These people are afraid to deploy something that might possibly conflict with a patent application. This is just plain silly. Why is it that the only time politics has to be involved with the choice of a software product is when the software product isn't one sold by Microsoft?
Steal This Sig
In principle, this sounds like good business practice to me. If choosing a particular product seems to expose you to nasty legal action against you, you naturally want to assess the risk and consequences before making your decision.
Products from Microsoft or Sun are just as likely to contain infringing code as Linux, but if such code is found, it's likely that the producer of the software finds itself at the wrong end of a lawsuit, not the users. The scary bit about the problems with Linux and purported IP infringement, is that the people laying claim to parts of Linux go after the users, since there is no real producing company to sue.
So it is accurate to state that software patents stifle free, open software development specifically. To use software patents against an incorporated competitor isn't very practical. You'll have to actually fight your claim in court, since your competitor's product is their bread and butter, and it'll be worth it to them to defend it. But to fight an OSS competitor, it is enough to threaten potential customers with a lawsuit... to them, the risk of a lawsuit isn't worth it, and they are likely to choose a non-OSS solution (unless they think the claimant has no case whatsoever).
You can be sure that Gates & Balmer are dancing a little jig after hearing this news... I'm not against patent law per se, but lately we see too many examples of corporations threatening to sue over the most outrageous claims on IP, and getting their way by scare tactics, not having to prove their claims or even spending one penny in court. I fail to see how this practice is in the 'publics best interest', as the proponents of software patents claim it is.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
I wouldn't downplay it like that.
If the EU were to pass the "directive on computer-implemented inventions" (commonly known as software patent directive) in the May 18, 2004 version, then there is no assurance that Munich can continue on with the migration project.
I was in the audience a week and a half ago when Wilhelm Hoegner, the CIO of Munich, talked about the threat from software patents in the light of that EU legislation that is in the works. He understands the problem really well. Today we are talking about the patent issues that have been identified by the FFII. In the mid to long term, we are talking about suitability-to-task. If new areas of technology are increasingly turned into vast patent minefields by larger players on the one hand and productless patent profiteers on the other hand, then that will stifle innovation and will impose restrictions on the future functionality and feature set of Linux.
My theory is that the current open source stack is kind of acceptable to the market incumbents. However, I doubt that they would just sit on thousands of tens of thousands of patents on a per-company basis and not leverage those if open source continues to gain popularity.
Let's hope that all of this will be reduced to a purely political thing. In order for us to be able to say so one day, the EU has to disallow the patentability of computer program logic in a truly effective manner (such as the proposal that the European Parliament made in September of 2003, which would really solve the problem in a dependable fashion).
Could this be a cunning plan to show the Germans and the rest of Europe exactly how patents on software would screw everyone over.
I mean the no i'm sorry governement X you can't do that as MS owns your software and their licene says the souls of all the inhabitants of your city. So stop using that linuxy stuff now or pay us $$$$ stupid price so we don't sue you then move to windows this very second.
It seems this event is showing the world how dangerous software patents are. It's better to put a project at risk and rise awareness about this issue, than go on doing business as usual and wait until MS decides to shut OS/FS down using an unjust patent system.
Why not? If a patent holder were in a dispute with Microsoft, harassing Microsoft's customers with lawsuits to generate FUD would be an excellent tactic to pressure Microsoft to quickly settle the matter.
Are the greens complete idiots? They aim to abuse and destroy the most famous success story of Open Source Software just for the sake of software patents. They have created more harm to OSS than Microsoft managed to create in München with all their money and dirty tactics.
The guy who made the inquiry to the München administration claimed to be a "supporter of OSS". Uhh. All the Microsoft's FUD pales in comparison with this "self-FUD". Oh how they must be laughing right now.
While I entirely support most of the environmental and economical issues of the greens, and have voted for them occasionally, they have proven amazingly irrationally stubborn in their opposition to nuclear power and certain other issues. Politicians are not guaranteed to be from the brightest class of humanity, and this case very much proves that.
The problem, of course, is that most of the others are even worse choises than greens.
Ok, so I can't mod this discussion anymore, but it has to be said ...
Seeing all the stunts that have been pulled by the big lobbyists in the last year or so, in order to pass the software-patent litigati^W legislation (I live in Europe, and followed the debate, more or less), it is not at all unlikely that the Green Party of Munich uses a different tactic now to get a broader audience's attention. Remmeber, the upcoming law might be ratified by the Europeean Parliament in no more than 6 weeks!
You're wrong on three counts.
First, you can't distribute software under the GPL and then further restrict its use with patents.
Second, activists from around Europe, in concert with anti-swpat businesses and political parties, have already got the Parliament to vote for a directive that prohibits software patents, and with more help from concerned Free Software users we can do it again this winter.
And finally, even if the FSF Europe did go and file a load of patents in the European Patent Office, they'd cost so much to defend (~1 million Euros) that they'd be an easy picking for any large company.
this is why we decided to freeze this huge project, that the SPD, the major partner in the german administration and our political partner in this project, just cant allow to fail. The had too much trouble with toll-collect, a recent huge waste of tax money. That way the SPD just cant continue to silently support software patents in the EU. Without a EU software patent law, we happyly invite you to OUR courts to discuss this in full detail.
Yours sincerly, the greens of germany
P.S.: Did you manage to unbundle your software from your OS in the meantime, or do we need to call the EU to fine you again?
It's a strange idea, but I've been thinking that we need for government to think about implementing a "defensive patent" registry where ideas can be registered for defensive purposes only. The barriers for a defensive patent examination might be much lower and have no "expiration." They could not be used as a basis for regular patents, but could be used to establish a standard for what "practicing experts" in a field are capable of for review of unique patents.
I suppose the difference is that Microsoft has a lot of cash in a single basket, which makes it a target for lawsuits and whatnot, whereas there is no central money basket to go after for "linux" -- lawyers would go after wealthy because that's where the money is; legally, though, would there be anything to keep them from going after Windows users with a claim to the effect that those users are knowingly collaborating in patent infringement (or are using a system they aren't sure doesn't infringe upon others' patents)?
This is from U.S. Patent Office:
Novelty And Non-Obviousness, Conditions For Obtaining A Patent
It seems to me that many of the patent applications are obvious to those in the informed community. Perhaps something is gained in the public eye in merely applying for the patents? As I recall, IBM used to publish statistics on how many patents they created each year as a sign to how progressive they were.
I would like to see a GNU or EFF project aimed at documenting prior art of 'obvious' inventions to aid the USPTO in expelling such claims. Perhaps a web crawler or blog format that gives a voice to the EFF community to prevent these outrageous claims.
Suncoast Linux - Sarasota, FL
Write your software. Period.
If it is infringing on anybody's patents, you will show diligence and stop infringing.
If it is an innovative product, you are creating prior art thus blocking any idiots trying to patent your idea. Of course there is always somebody trying to pull a SCO in legal systems that are utterly broken, but you can't do much about that, can you?
Write code, learn, enjoy it and face the situation if it arises. There is nothing the common person can do about this, the most softwar is produced the more difficult it becomes for any stupid dishonest company or person to appropriate ideas they did not create.
And of course do all what you can to abolish software patents. They are an aberration and a danger to knowledge advancement in societies that uphold them.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.