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."

Comments

...EU software patents?

[_mArk]

I thought we did not have patents as of yet in the EU....
How come?

Re:...EU software patents?

[jkabbe]

This is a nice clear-cut example of software patents stifling the market. And one would hope that this little lesson might help people re-evaluate the idea of having software patents. But that's probably too much to hope for.

Re:...EU software patents?

[gilesjuk]

Well they were writing the laws earlier in the year, they have plenty of people warning them that these sort of problems would occur but they didn't take notice.

They have to provide value for money for EU citizens and this unfortunately puts them at odds with the nice businessmen who give them nice envelopes of cash (EU commissioners are unelected and don't exactly have a reputation for honesty).

Re:...EU software patents?

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Re:...EU software patents?

[_mArk]

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.

Re:...EU software patents?

[bigman2003]

Or, it is a case of idealism running smack into the wall of reality.

Re:...EU software patents?

[Shisha]

EU commissioners are unelected and don't exactly have a reputation for honesty

You're right, they're not elected, but they're appointed by their respective national governments, which arise as a result of democratic election. I know it' debateable whether this is good enough or not, but then again, there are countries that don't have directly elected presidents.

I think a lot greater problem with software patents is that the issue is well understood only by a few people. Knowing enough about programming AND law is a rare combination.

It is very easy to confuse (and bribe) anyone into supporting the patents. Hopefully the case of Munich will actually be a good thing, because it will make politicians realize, that yes, software patents do matter to them!

Re:...EU software patents?

[njcoder]

I think it's always good to look at the other side. Yes it makes it stiffles the market for open source software but it gives the person that came up with the idea a fair shot of making money out of it.

The problem isn't software patents. The problem is that some software patents are just rediculous and they should be given to someone that at least tries to implement the idea.

Just imagine, you spend years coming up with something that ou think is great. Some big company sees it and copies it. They have the money to promote it and they corner the market. You've wasted a couple of years without any return.

Most of the patent litigation that gets reported on slashdot is usually the other way around, heck most of it is just the potential of a patent to be used in a bad way, but there are cases where the little guy that poured his heart and soul into something was able to prevent a bigger company from ripping him off.

Granted, if you're just someone who doesn't innovate, just copies other ideas, then you don't want software patents.

Re:...EU software patents?

[Tim C]

That of course didn't stop the european patent offices from granting thousands of software patents even though they are illegal.

They're not illegal, they're just not legally enforceable; there's a big difference.

Re:...EU software patents?

[laurensv]

EU commisioners are generally very law-abbiding citizens, we've had a few who used their function to get personal gain, but there has been an inverstigation (a limited one, I agree) and some still have to face the court(s). But more importantly, those commissioners don't come into play on this one now, now it's a thing between EU parliament en the council of the ministers (of commerce I believe) of the memeber states.

Re:...EU software patents?

[Sebby]

I wonder - what's their responsability for doing something illegal (assuming it is technically "illegal")? Could they be taken to court? Or could patent infringment claims be even considered since their not officially recongnized (as yet anyways)?

Re:...EU software patents?

[Shisha]

Just in case any of you were still in doubt about how outrageous the software patents are, here are a few examples from the German PDF:

- "One click ordering" I'm sure there's no one here who has not heard of this one, even though I'm unable to figure out how Munich could be in trouble for this one...

- Spam challenging (in Mozilla mail) and Spam Caller ID, held by Microsoft

- Some 60 firewall patents, apparently iptables is in trouble

- "Auswahl von Kompressionverfahren", choice of compression methods (Gimp)

- USB telephone, method and graphical interface for operating .... ... I guess there's no need to go on. There seems to be a common theme amongst software patents and that is: they do not patent anything clever, they're just very clever in figuring out trivial things that can be patented!

Re:...EU software patents?

[cHiphead]

actually i see it more as idealism trying to build a wall against reality. the reality is that patents promote greed not science/knowledge/research, and the reality that people really can come up with the same idea in the same context without ever knowing about the other person's work. (!shock!)

Re:...EU software patents?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, it is a case of idealism running smack into the wall of reality.

But it's a reality that doesn't have to exist.

Linux being abandoned in Europe because software patents "have" to be introduced would be a bit like the cure for cancer being discovered and promptly suppressed because cancer "has" to be incurable.

There is no sight more demoralizing for the idealist than seeing work on the construction of the wall of reality speed up as he approaches.

Re:...EU software patents?

[sjb2016]

Granted, if you're just someone who doesn't innovate, just copies other ideas, then you don't want software patents.


But Microsoft seems to be all for software patents.

Re:...EU software patents?

[Ambassador Kosh]

I disagree the problem is software patents. Patenting ideas is just too general purpose and the same idea tends to be come up with hundreds to hundreds of thousands of times all over the world without anyone knowing about the patent. Software patents just give a monopoly to the first person to get the idea patented no matter how many others come up with it.

Nobody comes up with ideas on their own since none of us is on an island completely seperated from the rest of humanity. You added your small piece to the idea of many others and that should not give you any right to control that.

Look at how many came up with stuff like read-copy-update stuff. Things are independently come up with so many times in so many places that software patents are just not a good idea. We all build our stuff on the backs of others and when we get to a certain level of knowledge as a whole the same idea will be come up with in many places.

Re:...EU software patents?

[jkabbe]

You have to look at the cost-benefit comparison of patents and see how it relates to software:

Cost:
people can't use an idea for a certain amount of time without paying the inventor (this time is incredibly long in any high tech field, including software)

Benefit:
- it encourages spending on research and technology (the software patents we hear about didn't require much of this other than writing the code - the "invention" was just a natural result of the design of the product)
- it encourages inventors to disclose their inventions (while this may be useful for things like manufacturing processes that would otherwise be trade secrets, software almost inherently discloses the invention when the software is released)

I think that the cost side for software patents outweighs the benefit side. IOW software patents give less to society than they take away.

Re:...EU software patents?

[JaredOfEuropa]

You're right, they're not elected, but they're appointed by their respective national governments, which arise as a result of democratic election.

The problem is not really their appointment, but it is the way they operate. They don't have a reputation for honesty because hardly anyone watches them, and they are answerable to hardly anyone. Not enough checks & balances, that is the problem.

I think a lot greater problem with software patents is that the issue is well understood only by a few people.

You'd be surprised. Most people can at least sort of grasp the problem and the effect on the economy and themselves, if it is properly explained to them. The real problem is that no one is doing the explaining. This whole issue, including the backhanded and patently (excusez le mot) undemocratic way in which software patent laws were ushered through the European legislature, has been notoriously absent from the mainstream media. The whole way in which the EC Parliament and the Commission have handled this matter would have been front-page material for any newspaper, if this was a subject that was of any interest to them. But this isn't about farming subsidies, immigrants, social benefits or education, and so the media aren't interested. In contrast, onee MEP commented that she was rather surprised from the interest in this subject she noticed from companies and the general populace. The interest is there, but the coverage is lacking.

The only time I have seen anything about this issue in the newspaper, is when a minister was called to task by our national parliament for lying about how he voted on this matter. Even so, normally this would be cause for a big row in parliament, but the subject of software patents wasn't something to get all worked up about, apparently.

Re:...EU software patents?

[zerblat]

Just imagine, you spend years coming up with something that ou think is great. Some big company sees it and copies it. They have the money to promote it and they corner the market.

Okey, lets hypothetically assume that you have a software-related idea that's taken you years to come up with -- as opposed to most software patents in reality, which are mostly obvious solutions to the problems they solve.

So, you patent your idea and turn it into a product. However, some big company comes along and "steals" you idea. You contact your lawyer, who contacts their lawyer to get Big Company to pay for a license fee. Unfortunately, it turns out that your own product infringes on 53 of Big Company's patents, so your lawyers agree that the best solution is a cross-licensing deal, where they get to use your patent, and you get to use their 53. In the end, the only winner is: patent lawyers.

Most of the patent litigation that gets reported on slashdot is usually the other way around, heck most of it is just the potential of a patent to be used in a bad way, but there are cases where the little guy that poured his heart and soul into something was able to prevent a bigger company from ripping him off.

Have any such examples? One?

Remember, patents exist to promote innovation -- to allow inventors to spend their time working on inventions that wouldn't be possible if you couldn't prevent others from copying it. What kind of software innovation is only possible thanks to software patents?

Re:...EU software patents?

[mopslik]

/.rs get really mad because they don't think Microsoft should be allowed to own it's ideas

The general /. consensus has always been that a software company can copyright its code, but should not be allowed to "patent" an idea. In other words, Microsoft should be free to claim ownership of their DoCrazyStuff() function, but should not be granted exclusive rights of "providing an method on a computer by which crazy stuff may be facilitated".

Re:...EU software patents?

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Wow, how brave you are, telling us several times how unpopular your opinion is, and how no doubt you will be modded troll or flamebait for daring to tell The Truth(R)(TM).

Anyway ... what's wrong with your post isn't that you're trolling (you're not) but the factual errors you make. To wit:

And before i get flamed, yes I know a license for code is different from a patent, but guess what, in software, the most valuable part of the software is the ideas, the algorithms. It's usually not very hard to implement the ideas(though that doesn't mean it isn't often screwed up).

Okay, I have an idea: an O(log n) sorting algorithm. How brilliant I am! I should patent it and make a bunch of money immediately! Oh, okay, there's the matter of implementation, but that's for the little people to worry about.

You see where I'm going with this? Ideas are easy. Implementation is 99 44/100 % of the work -- always has been, and probably always will be. And yet now, we're at the point where not only are companies patenting specific implementations, which I would have a problem with in and of itself (copyright vs. patent) but ideas before an implementation even exists. It's not like they've done the work and want to protect the fruits of their labor; they're saying, in effect, "If anyone ever does this work, we own their ass."

Open source has created a lot of new ideas, and will continue to create new ideas. These should be embraced, if you hate patens so much, don't use the stuff in the patents.

The new ideas F/OSS has created tend to be in specific implementations, not in Big Ideas. (NB: the Big Ideas tend not to come out of companies like Microsoft, either. Mostly they come from academic research, or from corporate labs like Bell Labs or PARC that function almost as separate entities from the parent corporation.) Now, I'm not saying it will always be this way. We may be starting to see the age of F/OSS doing genuinely new things, not just improving old ones. LAMP, f'rinstance, although it consists of a combination of older ideas, has become a social as well as technical phenomenon, moving waaay beyond Just Another Server Setup. But Most F/OSS and proprietary developers spend most of their time implementing improvements on ideas that have been around in academic CS since the Seventies.

In fact, that time period brings up something I hadn't thought of before. Why, exactly, are almost all of the "modern" programming techniques we use based on academic CS from the Seventies and before? Well, in 1980, there was this little thing called Bayh-Dole ...

Re:...EU software patents?

[Wolfbone]

"I remember when some of the windows source code was leaked, so many /.rs were looking for GPL code in it,.."

For copyright violation.

"...and yet when it comes time for Linux to lift ideas from Microsoft, /.rs get really mad because they don't think Microsoft should be allowed to own it's ideas."

It's patented ideas.

Really - I cannot understand what is the matter with the moderators this morning - this drivel isn't even factual and rational, let alone insightful.

Re:...EU software patents?

[wolfb]

- Use of browsers for eCommerce (Oracle patent)


How is this issue specific to linux?

Re:...EU software patents?

[Minna Kirai]

The problem isn't software patents.

No. Even non-rediculous software patents are a problem. MAYBE software patents would be OK if software had always been patentable... but it hasn't! We've been writing software since 1960, but people only started trying to patent it in the 1990s.

That's 30 years of time when many inventions were made, but no patents were filed. So tons of software ideas were invented, used or not, and then programmers moved on, leaving old ideas free to be patented decades later by someone who wasn't really the first at all.

Just imagine, you spend years coming up with something that ou think is great. Some big company sees it and copies it.

Just imagine, you spend years coming up with something that ou think is great. You write a program, self-publish it, and the shareware-fees begin to roll in. Then IBM calls you and says they patented it years ago. Sure, they never brought it to market- they just have lawyers who patent every little idea that crosses their engineers' heads, without checking if it's practical or profitable.

But now that you've generously done the work of building a market for their patent, they'll be happy to drop the lawsuit against you, as long as you cease your business immediately. You took a big risk, it paid off, and you lost!

You've wasted a couple of years without any return.

The argument that patents protect little inventors from big corporations is mostly backwards today. Filing patents costs money, but it's something a big corp can handle easier than a little guy (by rolling the price of a dedicated IP lawyer into the overhead).

Patents are useful in some fields like pharmaceuticals, but not in software.

Granted, if you're just someone who doesn't innovate, just copies other ideas,

Note that copying other's ideas is the foundation for capitalism...

Re:...EU software patents?

[Jason Earl]

Now let's run this through a real life example. You spend years creating something completely different. Something new enough that it truly deserves a patent (say something on the order of public key encryption), and you create a product and start to market it. The big software companies, especially Microsoft, immediately set to work cloning your work, and within a year they have competing products.

However, you have a patent on the really clever bits, right? So you are saved.

Wrong! Instead, when you approach Microsoft and friends about licensing your patents they simply show you 20 patents of theirs that you violate. Microsoft has patented the double-click, for crying out loud. Your patent lawyer then advises that you sign a cross-licensing deal with these companies, and asks you for a big fat paycheck. So now you have spent years creating the software, and tens of thousands of dollars patenting your ideas and you are still screwed.

The only way for the little guy to win with patents is to see where the market is going, patent ideas that are likely to block upcoming software innovation, and then sit back and wait. The trick is to write absolutely no software. That way you don't violate anyone else's patents. In fact, that's what a lot of companies are doing. They don't actually create any software, they just lay out landmines for the folks that are actually doing the real work.

Don't tell me that promotes innovation, because I don't buy it.

Re:...EU software patents?

[Halo1]

Yes it makes it stiffles the market for open source software

Not particularly for open source software, but for independent developers and small companies (a lot of open source developers are in that case, but certainly not all of them; just think of IBM).

but it gives the person that came up with the idea a fair shot of making money out of it.

And prohibit a lot of authors to make money from their own individual creations.

The problem isn't software patents.

The problem actually is software patents. Although other kinds of patents have their problems too, there are tons of studies that show a lot of problems with software patents in particular. Patents are simply unfit for allowing monopolising abstract ideas/advances, because they were never designed for that purpose.

To slightly adapt the old adage: when your preferred tool is a hammer, you try to make everything into a nail.

The problem is that some software patents are just rediculous and they should be given to someone that at least tries to implement the idea.

s/some/most. Yes, I do have read software patents. A lot of them.

Most of the patent litigation that gets reported on slashdot is usually the other way around, heck most of it is just the potential of a patent to be used in a bad way, but there are cases where the little guy that poured his heart and soul into something was able to prevent a bigger company from ripping him off.

A few cases of a little guy winning is not enough to justify a system that has tons of negative effects for the economy and society as a whole.

Granted, if you're just someone who doesn't innovate, just copies other ideas, then you don't want software patents.

Oh please. First of all, if someone manages to monopolise a mere idea, he's the one stealing from everyone else (which is in fact the case with most software patents). Secondly, whether or not you copy is completely irrelevant as far as patents are concerned.

Copyright protects you from plagiarising (and that's a lot more than just literal bit-by-bit copying), patents are also enforceable if someone else came up with exactly the same thing entirely on his own. And, surprise, this happens an awful lot in software development. That's not just my opinion, that's what the National Research Council wrote (search for "But there is little or no market in software components") in its book titled "The Digital Dilemma - Intellectual Property in the Information Age".

Re:...EU software patents?

[Dashing Leech]

I disagree the problem is software patents.

I agree that software patents aren't the problem. In fact, I'm unaware of any actual patents on software. There are patents on methods or algorithms that are implemented in software, but that's justifiable. For example, if I made a control systems algorithm that I implemented mechanically or electronically it would certainly be patentable, so why shouldn't it be patentable if I implement it in software?

What seems to be the problem is the defacto removal of patent restrictions regarding obviousness and prior art, along with the patent duration. Very obvious things are getting patented in software. It's like patenting a plastic doll because it now has a new hat.

But my biggest concern with this Munich thing is why the concern over Linux specifically? Patent violations are just as, or more, likely in proprietary software. In fact, all litigation I'm aware of for so-called "software" patents have been between proprietary software companies and there have been no lawsuits over Linux violations yet. Plus it is quite obvious that Linux developers would be quick to make new "non-violating" implementations very quickly if anything was found. In other words, the reasoning behind slowing Linux implementation in Munich makes no sense to me.

Re:...EU software patents?

[dasmegabyte]

Fuck you, man, thinkers got to eat. They shouldn't have to hope nobody else can figure out what they're doing and sell it better than they can (which wouldn't be hard...inventors are as bad at marketing as markeeters are at invention). And "hey, we developed the same thing at the same time, what a coinky-dink" isn't an excuse -- if it were, there'd be less impetus to publish ideas, resulting in less knowledge. Anybody could read the journals and claim coincidental development. It's impossible to prove somebody didn't have an idea unless they get it out in the open, known to you and I as "Prior art." Without patents, you'd have even more secrecy and even more backbiting, because you'd have to rely on copyright (which is worse) or trademarks.

Or maybe you didn't realize that every published patent includes detailed information on how to reproduce the invention being patented...thus guaranteeing documentation of a process for future generations in exchange for a few years of possible profit. No need to reverse engineer the process -- just wait.

Maybe you also didn't realize that very few of the broad patents issued recently have been successfully held up in court. Shit, it takes specific infringments of specific implementations -- like the LZW algorithm -- to even make it to court. Unisys' LZW patent didn't stop a hundred variant dictionary compression utilities to pop up (RAR, ZIP, ARC, ACE, MOO etc), nor did their lock on GIF prevent the development of PNG, SVG, etc. If a patent is too broad, it will be struck down. That's how patent law is set up...courts, not patent clerks, decide enforcability. A patent clerk could give you the patent to printing on cardboard, that doesn't mean you'll be able to successfully sue Kellog's.

Finally, maybe you didn't realize just how easy it is to work around most patents, especially if you're aware of them. Which is easy to do...they're freakin' published! Read their published docs and improve on key components, and patent it yourself.

Re:...EU software patents?

[njcoder]

"So you're saying that patents are useless then? Because they'd 'do what they do' anyway."

Not really... I'm saying patents are good because it gives those people the time to do what they want to do without having to work at starbucks.

It's easy to take advantage of people like that that are happy to do what they love. The patent system should help protect them. Somewhere along the way, things went wrong. That doesn't mean patents are bad, the patent system needs major work.

Re:...EU software patents?

[NtroP]

Really - I cannot understand what is the matter with the moderators this morning - this drivel isn't even factual and rational, let alone insightful.

That's because there aren't enough moderation options. This poster is maybe OVERRATED but only because s/he was rated in the first place. They aren't TROLLing. You want to give them some credit for an opposing view (to keep the discussion "fair/balanced" (yeah, right)).

What we need is a MISINFORMED or IGNORANT moderation option.

Re:...EU software patents?

[borum]

Its not patents that promote investing - it is the idea of exclusivity that promotes it.

Proposal: Lets stop accepting patents. Inventors will have to have companies sign an NDA before showing their secrets.
This happens ALL THE TIME anyway, when seeking funding from investors. Inventors are protected that way.

One benefit from this would be that obvious ideas can be duplicated in a 'clean room'.
This would remove the problem for open source projects and companies currently suffering from submarine patents. /K

Re:...EU software patents?

[dasmegabyte]

I make a living.

Selling ideas.

I am not very rich. But I am comfortable. My company is small and has never had trouble competing with our larger competitors, because our R&D budget is higher than our marketing budget.

Maybe you should realize that just because you want something to be true doesn't mean you can make one sided statements like "software patents are helping businesses stamp out competition from those with less money." I *AM* those with less money. Software patents are helping me compete. Should I go fucking die just because I want some credit for doing something better than my opposition? Or should I just let them get all the good ideas and go back to a bullshit IT job?

Re:...EU software patents?

[Ender Ryan]

Oh really? What exactly does your company do? Does your company actually create software? Or does your company just follow where the industry is going and try to obtain patents on what you think people will be doing so you can collect on their hard work.

I'm pretty certain it's the latter, even if you yourself can't see that. Ask yourself, what have you done that is truly new and innovative in software that noone else in the industry didn't already think of or would find obvious if they were working towards similar goals.

That I, an average programmer, an average thinker, of average creativity, am always coming up with things that violate patents, just in the normal course of my job, tells me that most of these patents are obvious. That this is such a problem for software developers tells me that patents on software is inherently flawed.

And as for my saying, "go fucking die", I was just responding to you being a complete asshole. You were the first to start throwing "fuck you"'s around.

Re:...EU software patents?

[dasmegabyte]

You make a lot of assumptions. I work for a non-contract software company with definite products in a specific market. I won't tell you what products or what market, because I haven't cleared this post with my boss and he's very stern about giving our competitors any ideas. See, there's a lot of cloning that goes on in niche markets...company A builds a product, then company B builds a product that does exactly the same thing in exactly the same way for $100 less. This isn't really fair, because most of our budget (as I've mentioned) is R&D. If we had the ability to take somebody else's program and make one that just did that, we could afford to sell our software for $100 too (and indeed we've done that in the past)...but in that model of development, the people who had the idea in the first place are never compensated. Which makes having ideas a libaility, not an asset.

Ask yourself, what have you done that is truly new and innovative in software that noone else in the industry didn't already think of or would find obvious if they were working towards similar goals.

I don't have to ask myself that. It isn't what patents are about. Patents are about protecting development of specific products so other people can't do the exact same thing. We spent a long time researching the most intuitive way to handle the differences between our clients' address databases. There were at least seven different entry methods used, some of them broke out addresses, some of them broke out names, some of them used fields for things other than what they claimed to...basically, there was a lot of different information, and they needed to merge it all. What we did was build an on demand contextual data mapper...it performs fuzzy searches on the fields of these databases, and "clumps" them together based on the percentage of matching fields and the exactness of the match. Nothing new, nothing somebody else couldn't think up if they were good with regular expressions, Tries and SQL -- but nobody did. And it's driving the sales of our product, because it cuts the work to associate records -- many of our clients no longer have to hire temps to spend weeks pruning bad data.

There's a strong amount of "Gee, I could have thought of that" in software, because good software works exactly how you think it should. But the fact is, they didn't think of it, and if they did, they didn't do anything about it. Thanks to patent law, they can't just do what we did and charge $100 less...they have to do it a different way, and hope it's better. This helps insure that competition is based on innovation, and not just undercutting prices. It helps protect R&D which helps those who make new products.

Re:...EU software patents?

[AstroDrabb]

Should I go f*@king die just because I want some credit for doing something better than my opposition?

And exactly how do you know that you are doing something better then your opposition? A patent wouldn't allow your opposition to compete. It is all really childish to me. It is like a child saying, "I thought of this 1 minute before you did, so it is mine, mine mine." If what you are doing _is_ really better then your opposition, they when the need for a patent? Why not let your opposition try and out do you? In the end, that competition is what drives the economy that the US is based on. Patents have slowed that way down.

Or should I just let them get all the good ideas and go back to a bullshit IT job?

That comes down to if you think an idea can be "owned". I don't think it can. No one can tell me what I am allowed to think or know in my mind. Patents have slowed down every industry they touch. Drug companies are just big patent holders now. Imagine what medicines we might have had by now if there were no patents on a drug. People go without medicine around the world and in the US because of patents. They allow one company to charge way too much for drugs. If 50% of all patents are thrown out in courts, that tells me there is something very wrong with patents. They are too easy to get and too broad. The problem with court is most people/compaines cannot take the finanical hit to battle a case in court. Look at MS. They are able to lock out tons of competition, not because of a superior product, but because of patents. MS doesn't have to take anyone to court. The threat of litigation with the massive costs is all that MS needs to stop most competiton against any of their products. The only companies that can give MS competiton are big companies that also have a a big patent portfolio as well.

If your company cannot comepte in the market without patents, then your company deserves to go down in flames.

Re:...EU software patents?

[enjo13]

It's a problem with open source software in general. One of the roadblocks to patent "enforcement" is provability. In order to prove infringement you have to go through a rather laborous process of getting at the code that was used to implement it. This process is expensive, time consuming, and more often than not doesn't bear any fruit at all. In order to prove that Microsoft infringes on a algorithm level patent is going to require a LOT of effort just to get to the point where you can see if they actually infringe.

With open source software you simply look at the code. In this case the "openess" of open source software is a severe detriment. The biggest roadblock to patent enforcement is essentially removed.

At the same time you have the question of liability. While I can technically be liable for using a close source product that infringes, it's probably much easier (and more lucrative) to go after the company actually making the software. In the case of open source software, however, there is no central entity to pursue. Since everyone "owns" the code, everyone is potentially a target (see: SCO). Generally the person who wrote the code is actually the LAST one you'd sue (no $$$), while a big user (like the city of Munich) is a potentially profitable target.

That's why Linux is such a risk..

Re:...EU software patents?

[Master of Transhuman]

"Fuck you, man,"

Fuck right the hell off, man.

"thinkers got to eat."

How does primate requirements apply to the issue? So does everybody else - in fact, the explicit justification for IP is the notion (unproven and demonstrated to be false by current corporate behavior) that patents will allow IP to be developed specifically to assist the species to gain access to new knowledge. The actual effect has been the opposite.

"They shouldn't have to hope nobody else can figure out what they're doing and sell it better than they can"

Why? Other people have to eat, too. Where in human evolution is it stated that "thinkers" should be immune from evolution and primate competition like everybody else?

Also, "thinkers" should be smart enough to hire people who CAN market their stuff - which is the way it's actually done, if you haven't noticed.

"(which wouldn't be hard...inventors are as bad at marketing as markeeters are at invention)"

Which is why they hire marketers to market their inventions - which is done anyway.

Your arguments are ruminant evacuation.

Intellectual property is an oxymoron and an attempt to extend contract principles over basic property principles - in other words, an attempt to use coercion to justify monopoly profit without effort.

Re:...EU software patents?

[brlewis]

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.

Re:...EU software patents?

[Master of Transhuman]

"company A builds a product, then company B builds a product that does exactly the same thing in exactly the same way for $100 less. This isn't really fair, because most of our budget (as I've mentioned) is R&D."

Bull fucking shit. I see where you're coming from now. You're some lame that "invents" something that is fucking obvious to anybody who spends ten minutes considering whatever problem your "innovative" software is trying to solve. You put it out for $100. Somebody else says they can do it better for $90. This is called "competition", asshole - which is what you can't deal with. So you whine for patent protection for what was undoubtedly a minuscule advancement (if that) in whatever industry you work in.

"If we had the ability to take somebody else's program and make one that just did that, we could afford to sell our software for $100 too (and indeed we've done that in the past)"

So in other words, you're "not fair", either.

"...but in that model of development, the people who had the idea in the first place are never compensated. Which makes having ideas a libaility, not an asset."

This is moronic. You really have absolutely no clue how the free market works, do you? This is exactly how things are supposed to work. Somebody comes up with an idea, makes it work, produces a product. Somebody else figures out how to make the product cheaper and better or more available - even if it means cloning. The net result is that the product is available to more people and makes it small or large contribution to human progress.

And you want to stop that because you think someone who comes up with an idea isn't "fairly" compensated - according to your notion of "fair" which boils down to "I want ALL the money".

"Nothing new,"

I rest my case.

" nothing somebody else couldn't think up if they were good with regular expressions, Tries and SQL -- but nobody did"

(Maybe I don't rest my case.) Says who, you? You are the one hundred percent natural monopoly in your industry? If so, why do you need patents? If you aren't, then your stuff ISN'T a natural monopoly, and you should be subject to the same competition everything else is.

It's not patents that produce value for the species, IT'S THE COMPETITION, STUPID!

Re:...EU software patents?

[dasmegabyte]

From the USPTO:

"Utility patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or compositions of matters, or any new useful improvement thereof.

Design patents may be granted to anyone who invents a new, original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture"

Software can receive patents for design (interface appearance or overall look and feel, such as Apple's Aqua UI patents) or utility (new algorithmic functions but also new overall uses, such as a web browser that runs on a ballpoint pen -- even if you're just using Apache and standard tech).

The "novel" and "non-obvious" parts are not so clear as you seem to think they are. The novel part does not mean that everything in your interface has to be novel...especially if your product is built on a number of others, such as a new way of attaching a spring to a suspension system or a new way of searching a database with the same syntax of other methods. The non-obvious part just means you can't make cosmetic changes -- it does not necessarily mean you can't use a similar system in some new area not covered by the patent and not have it be a new, patentable product.

If you perfect a new way of searching magazines, it might be non-obvious to use it to search books...but would not be non-obvious to use it to search through a stack of hay. Remember, your patent wouldn't be on the search mechanism, it'd be on its application to books and magazines (and ther other guy's on searching hay).

Re:...EU software patents?

[aussersterne]

Patents are useful in some fields like pharmaceuticals, but not in software.

I don't even like the idea of patents in medicine. Aside from the fact that the only possible use for patents in medicine is to limit the distribution of cures to those who can pay for it, thereby callously disregarding the value of human life, there's a deeper concern.

There are several arguments that run along the same thread, but all of them is a permutation of profits driving interest in further R&D:

- If we don't let them patent, and thereby profit, what's to encourage future cures being developed?

- If everyone can get the cure for cheap or free, why will anyone pay the prices necessary to help the developers recapture their investment?

These for me are just a bit to close to saying that we need to keep people dying so that the medical industry can keep making money. After all, isn't the ultimate goal to put the medical industry out of business? I'd like to think that the goal (however unrealistic) is a world in which people are so healthy that drugs and complex medical products are no longer needed for the most part.

So long as we continue to reason along the lines of, "But who will support the drug companies, and how will they make a buck?" we are espousing a mentality that needs continued suffering and death, because a) if people aren't suffering and dying of diseases, there's no impetus to develop drugs because there's no market, and if people aren't suffering and dying because a drug is b) so freely available, there's no motivation for the wealthy who can afford it to actually pay for it... ...and yet, I'd say that both (a) and (b) above are ideal cases: we don't want people to suffer and die prematurely, and if they have to, we'd prefer that everyone gets treatment, not just the wealthy, even though simplistic supply-and-demand wisdom would suggest that limiting drug access to the wealthy would be more likely to turn a profit and thereby enhance chances for future cures.

I'm just not sure patents in general are ever a good idea.

Re:...EU software patents?

[PhilTR]

I have two problems with patents. First, they abuse prior art attempting to make distinctions where in many if not most cases none exist as all ideas borrow and build on earlier ideas. Second, the big dogs use patents as weapons against the small who have few resources. A fair hearing on the merits rarely occurs as the small are forced to fold prematurly. This strategy seems to foul the idea of fairness leaving society the poorer.

Re:...EU software patents?

[kcdoodle]

"As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously."

-Ben Franklin

Re:...EU software patents?

[Wolfbone]

Mmmm... I often find that when I read the words of a 'thinker', it reminds me of the contributions of other great thinkers in history:

Like Einstein:

"Fuck you man, I'm tellin' ya - E=mc^2"

Or Gauss:

"Shit man - I think I'm gonna call this coinky-dink li'l theorem the Theorema Egregium"

Or Blake:

"Oh Rose, thou art freakin' sick man"

I suggest you return to Earth - you are not a thinker - you are a run-of-the-mill programmer, tossing off mundane and trivial little algorithmic ideas that are no more than programmatic expediencies which only an absurdly inflated ego could possibly describe as the works of a thinker. If the abstract ideas embodied in patented software inventions were were worth according their authors the title "thinker", then it would be essential that they not be patentable. As it is, they are at least abstract ideas and like the ideas in a complicated proof, or the component ideas of a literary narrative, or of a musical work, they belong to the mental, not the physical world and it is absurd and obscene to make them patentable inventions.

Ethics aside, your economically based arguments are hopelessly flawed. The opposition to software patentability in the U.S. was led by some of the most successful software entrepreneurs of the time but you would have us believe that you know better? Your penultimate paragraph is beyond reason - you would promote progress and innovation by dragging every incremental new idea in software through the courts? You know full well that the innovators you pretend to speak for will never be able to afford that privilege anyway.

You claim these software idea patents are somehow necessary for the progress of the useful art of software development, yet the software industry flourished long before they existed. Hundreds of thousands of professional programmers disagree with you. Scientists, economists and the representative organisations of 2 million European businesses disagree. Show us your patented ideas so that we can see what a truly patent-worthy software idea really looks like.

You condemn trade secrecy and say how much better to have these marvellous inventions public knowledge, that they may be used "a few years later". Perhaps you meant decades, which would've been nearer the truth - and a substantial fraction of the entire history of the field. But more importantly; you have it backwards: Trade secrecy would be ideal for these mundane and incremental inventions, at least for proprietary software.

With your final comment, you sweep away all free software and the community of hobbyists, enthusiasts - professional and amateur alike - that have rediscovered a more vigorous, productive and engaging way to develop software. You would have them "work around patents" or "improve on key components" of existing patents. But in the former case it is often simply not possible - an official standard for example or a whole field sewn up with fundamental patents, like fractal compression. And in the latter case, you'd force the free software developer to somehow find the license fees for the original patent anyway. But perhaps you are not really interested in the genuine development of new and varied software - real software that is - not just the idea of it. Perhaps you are only interested in promoting the stagnant and fruitless trade in the already myriad and burgeoning software patent pool, that large and wealthy corporations are so fond of.

Darl's cronies did their damage then?

[ClosedGL]

Would this to be anything to do with all the SCO crap from recent months? The effect of which is being seen here?

duH

[linuxislandsucks]

How can facing the saem problems with patents as closed source stop the installation..

Sounds like FUD to me..

Re:duH

[raffe]

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.

Attempt to stop those patents

[laurensv]

Ask yourself: Why would the FFII do this research if it hinders the proces of linux in Munich? Altough their document has the following statement: In May the EU Council and Commission have reached "political agreement" to legalise software patents and reject all limits of patentability for which the European Parliament had voted in September 2003., software patents aren't already decided, the newly elected european parliament have to have their say and I think this is an effort to keep everybody focused. I'm thinking this focused maily on the ministers of the member states,last meeting they had this was past silently, but lateron the Dutch minister got some noise from the Dutch parliament. Now seeing Munich has much the same coalition as the German government, this might be directed to the German minister who's in that meeting.

Freezes Linux

[LordHatrus]

Oh, common, did anyone else read "Munich freezes linux" and for about 10 seconds I'm like WHOAH It really IS cold over there....

Business more powerful than Government

[barcodez]

It just goes to show that business is more powerful than Government - but hey we all knew that anyway.

Even though its german, read the study

[Anonymous Coward]

I can only urge you to read the study that lists the potentially infringed patents.
http://www.ffii.org/~blasum/basisclient/ swpatmuc.p df

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.

A political decision

[mocm]

The decision to freeze the project is more of a political statement to force the federal government to take a clear stand on the EU patent directive.
The green party wants to point out what harm a law that allows software patents can have for small and mid sized companies.

Re:A political decision

[FlorianMueller]

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).

Re:A political decision

[Dr. Evil]

Corporations provide patent warchests which protect their products from frivilous patents. Non-frivilous patents and/or "patent profiteers" get paid off... since the objective isn't generally to crush the author of the software, but to profit from the software patent.

Linux to my knowledge hasn't needed to deal with any profiteers yet... probably because there would be too many lawsuits to launch.

Large corporate backers like IBM can protect Linux from strategic patents with their own patent warchest. Just as easily as IBM can protect their interests in DB/2, they can protect their interests in Linux.

In cases of "legitimate" patents, like GIF, or MP3, the free/open software community has responded by creating alternatives and generally honouring the patents.

It is the ultimate weakness of FOSS, and it is the only reason I know of that widespread adoption of FOSS is important to its continued existance.

Re:A political decision

[I_redwolf]

At least with MS software, you can hand the defence over to them and their fancy lawyers, whereas with Linux you'd be pretty much alone. I think this is the biggest obstacle to FOSS takeup.

WRONG, who is given you people this idea that you can hand your case over to Microsoft? Where did Microsoft say they will indemnify their users? What EULA? Point it out to me.

The fact is this, you are not indemnified by patent suits against stuff in Microsoft Software. The plantiff in the situation might decide to go after Microsoft. Nothing is stopping them from coming after you though.

Re:Translation . . .

[BadDoggie]

I don't have time to translate it. Basically, it says that Munich's project is being watched worldwide and that there are a lot of attacks against Linux right now. It lists some examples of infringement threats should the EU accept software patents (currently about 30,000 submissions, 10-20% of which directly affect client software).

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.

Thanks, Greenies!

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:Thanks, Greenies!

[ninthwave]

Europe doesn't have patent law on software yet, they are making a point to stop the patent law on software going through.

Re:Thanks, Greenies!

[Skunkhead]

you are right, the greens are generally counted to the left wing. on a national level they are against software patents, and imho this was not a bad move from them. They only raised the question what will happen to the migration if the EU passes software patents. The migration is at a point where going back isn't really an option given the money which was spent already, and the money which is available (which is next to none). Therefore it raises awareness about the whole issue and shows the average politician the link between software pantents and FOSS.
The paradox about this is, that the german domestic department recommends using FOSS in public service, whereas the department of justice voted for software pantents in the EU. Should stir some people up, me thinks.

the problem with Linux - intellectual property

[Ubergrendle]

The good news about Linux is that as a distributed, non-owned asset, its difficult for owners of 'intellectual property' to pursue lawsuits that would prevent further kernel development. Who do you sue? Linus? If so, someone else will take over stewardship. If its problematic in the US and Germany, move repositories and organisations to Canada or Italy or Thailand...who cares?

The next generation of spurious lawsuits will be targeted at users of the technology. Without a blanket organisation to indemnify (sp?) the users, I suspect widespread adoption will slow very quickly. I was hoping IBM or a big player would step into this space (as per the one-off SCO lawsuit situation re: HP) but right now the scope of lawsuits is so vast that it would be suicide to do so in a blanket fashion.

When I buy and deploy MS, at least I know that EOLAS won't/can't come after me. Linux however faces increasing paralysis as this 'death by a thousand cuts' discourages widespread adoption.

Can anyone comment on the largest linux deployment in the world? How many large scale deployments exist? I'll ask people to ignore academic installations, as they are rarely relevant to corporate/government environments which drives the IT industry.

Re:the problem with Linux - intellectual property

[Waffle Iron]

When I buy and deploy MS, at least I know that EOLAS won't/can't come after me.

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.

some more details who supports what here...

[w4rl5ck]

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... :)

Re:some more details who supports what here...

[johannesg]

Losing the city of Munich to Microsoft would be a minor setback. Losing the European patent battle would be an unmitigated disaster.

So, yes, they are doing the right thing. Let's pray it works out.

Microsoft VS a country?

[Turn-X Alphonse]

That could be fun.. "We're sueing you for using Linux"
"Try it... you can come to OUR courts and do it"
"..er..erm..but we can't use our money to win there"
"...hmmmm.. indeed"

I hope they do move over to it and then if Microsoft try anything they'd have to win with evidence and not with money.

It's call to arms...

[Pecisk]

because problem is became so obious. It's not about will you or not use open source if software patents will be granted in US. You simply won't. Imagine all the good things what open source brings - Apache, PHP, MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc. INCLUDING BSD operational systems, will be hard to use in the work and in enivorements you would like to. Even I guess Mozilla Firefox and OpenOffice.org could be in harm. It's time to stop program patents, NOW. There's no discussion about half-backed solutions. It must be stopped.

I wonder...

[dcollins]

...the Munich Green Party had pointed out about 50 possible patent conflicts which the city wants to evaluate before moving on.

Gee, I wonder where they got such a coMprehen$ive list from?

it should be labeled as german

[zogger]

I just wasted someone's bandwith downloading a pdf in a language I do not speak or read. A simple change in the story headlines labeling it as german would have prevented this. Hint.

Anyway, I wonder why people are surprised. Too much under the table cash available to not have software patents become "the law" everywhere, no nation or group of nations is immune to corruption in government. In fact, I'd go so far as to state as it's more fact than not that all governments are by default corrupt. Anytime you have individuals in charge of making a decision, and there are billions of *monetary units* in the mix, some of those units will change hands to get reality morphed. "Government" is just as much a for-sale business as any other human endeavor. Altruism basically only exists in the dictionary, it doesn't exist in the global marketplace, especially in the markets known as "governments". Patents, DRM other sorts of schemes will continue to increase in scope, all over. In fact, I'd say things like the SCO deal going on right now are just the first of many that will make it harder and harder to have free and open source software of any quality, it's only a matter of time before the developers start finding themselves in court. Big international software business is not going to remain passive, even with a few large companies giving the illusion of support for FOSS right now. That is temporary, and the proof is that you see zero efforts by those billion buck companies to lobby for any change in the laws. If they were serious, you'd see them sponsoring and lobbying for a change to the IP patent laws, and they aren't.

Now is the time...

[mbbac]

For the FSF and Open Source Software organizations to begin filing patents for any applicable technology. You can't fight this by not holding any.

Re:Now is the time...

[Telex4]

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.

Re:Now is the time...

[jacoplane]

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.

Byebye $CO, hello Patent FUD.

[fatgeekuk]

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.

Not only a danger to Open & Free software

[Anonymous Coward]

The FFI press release says "Software patents are considered the greatest danger to the usage and development of Linux and other Free Software."

However, it is MUCH worse than that. Software patents are a danger to ALL software development, particularly software done by small firms or in-house, which is where most of the software development is done. If software is patentable, and if all those obvious patents are granted and upheld. No-one will be able to develop any software for fear of being sued.

I hope the software patents issue is not seen to be only an issue for Open Source and Linux. It's not. It's a danger to all of us. Even if companies will still create new software, it will be much more expensive due to research and defense of possible patent infringement, patent fees, and additional coding to work around expensive patents.

Re:Translation . . .

[hak hak]

Patent search Linux base client for Munich

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]

1. http://www.statskontoret.se/pressrum/press/2003/pr ess030915invandning.pdf
2. http://ep.espacenet.com/
3. http://swpat.ffii.org/, http://patinfo.ffii.org/, http://patdb.ffii.org/, ...
4. The average processing time for a patent application has been halved in the past 10 years and lies between 11 and 12 hours.

Re:that's crazy

[Lumpy]

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?

Re:Munich Green Party

[FlorianMueller]

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.

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 .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.

And the winner is ....

[z0ink]

.. 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?

Re:And the winner is ....

[kellererik]

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

Re:And the winner is ....

[Wolfbone]

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!

How Software Patents Should Work.

[Bruha]

Looks like SCO has managed to create enough of a fuss to get things like this looked at. IMO software patents are the devil and here is one result of them.

Lets consider tabbed browsing, and 169 degre opening doors on these new Nissan Titans.

My company spends millions building this door, the hinge is a peice of work requireing many hours of effort and testing. We pantent it all of course and are awarded it and people buy our trucks for it's superior way of opening vs say a ford with the same feature.

Tabbed browsing should be considered in this same light. Everyone should be able to implement tabbed browsing. Company X could code it one way and Company Y would code it another way. Both have tabbed browsing, one's method is superior, provides more features, and the code size and memory footprint per tab is lower than the competitor.

Just blindly posting patents for the idea is wrong. Software patents should be more specific and not on the general idea. Yes you can have a patent on a tabbed browser but not on the tab metod itself just your way of coding it.

Re:How Software Patents Should Work.

[Alsee]

No. Issuing patents on software is fundamentally broken. Software is not an invention. Computers cannot implement inventions. The only thing a computer can implement is calculations. Calculations, math, are not inventions.

The US screwed up and went against globally accepted patent stanards and reversed it's on accepted patent standards when it began issuing software patents.

Specifically the US abandoned the "Mental Steps Doctrine". The Mental Steps Doctrine said that mental processes are not - cannot be - inventions. And that anything that can be done mentally is not - cannot be - an invention.

It may be slow, but absolutely any code can be executed mentally. I am a programmer, executing code mentally is a routine part of writing and debugging code. All software is fundamentally mental steps - mental processes.

Physical objects and physical processes can be inventions. Mental processes and calculations are not inventions.

Answer me this:
If I choose some convient/simple software patent, and I then proceed to in fact execute that software through pure thought, have I committed patent violation? Were my thoughts a violation of the law?

And if not, then please explain how it magically become an invention and a violation when I take the obvious and non-novel step of using an ordinary computer merely to speed up that exact same non-invention calculation?

I really really want you to answer that. It's funny, every time I ask that of a software patent advocate they completely ignore the question. They can't rationaly answer it, so they pretend the question was never asked. So I will state right now that if you reply in support of software patents, yet completely ignore the previous two paragraphs, I will just repeat the question. Can thoughts executing the software violate the law? And if not then how does the obvious use of a computer merely to speed things up turn a non-invention into an invention?

-

No, it is something else

[johannesg]

What I think may be going on is this: the green party may be attempting to show the effect patents have on Open Source, thereby influencing the political opinion of European decision makers on the subject of software patents. If the Munich project fails as a result of this, they will be able to go to the European Parliament and use it as pretty conclusive evidence that patents are bad for us, serving only the needs of foreign monopolies and destroying local companies.

If my theory is correct, it is an incredibly dangerous game they are playing. However, if it helps stop software patents in Europe it is worth it, even if it means losing Munich to Microsoft. It would be losing a battle to win the war.

Disturbing indeed

[JaredOfEuropa]

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.

Re:Disturbing indeed

[gonvaled]

I'm not sure they are happy and dancing: tt is possible that this event is what the European Parlament needed to think twice about SW patents. And if they are not accepted, or only accepted in a very reduced scope, the MS strategy of killing OS/FS with lawsuits (directly or by proxy) will be severely undermined.

All operating systems share the same risk

[Ded Bob]

All operating systems run the risk of infringing upon patents. How can anyone choose one system over another based on the same type of risk?

Since Windows is much bigger (code-wise) than *BSD/Linux/Amiga/etc., would that not mean that it has a higher chance of running into patent issues?

Would the users be immune to the issue since they did not infringe (the software developer(s) did)? Eolas did not go after the users but Microsoft.

Great news

[gonvaled]

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.

indemnify, indemnify, indemnify

[Laz10]

I thought that big linux companies like Novell and Sun announced that they would indemnify their customers a long time ago. Why shouldn't it be safe for Munich to go on with the bidding process as long as they ensure that the bidder must indemnify them from patent claims on linux source code.

NOT JUST LINUX!

[Alsee]

They should NOT be painting this as just a Linux problem.

They need to immediately do an excruciatingly thorough search for software patents that Microsoft software may be infringing. Be sure to include ALL of the software in the Microsoft package - from Windows to Office to Media Player to Outlook and Exchange to Microsoft IIS webserver to PowerPoint to Internet Explorer, everything.

Presuming they find a few, then obviously the EU needs to "freeze" any Microsoft purchases as well.

Oh, and while they are at it, IBM has a couple of active software patent infringments against SCO in court right now. So if by some odd chance some EU government office is dealing with SCO software, well I guess they'll just have to "freeze" that too. Chuckle.

-

Re:NOT JUST LINUX!

[Lumica]

Why should they? If there is anything in an MS product violating some patent somewhere MS will be sued, not the customer (already happened, think EOLAS). So why should the customer bother if MS is being sued? One more lawsuit won't matter to MS at all.

Re:NOT JUST LINUX!

[Alsee]

If Redhat or Suse customers can be sued for using Linux then Microsoft customers can be sued for using Windows.

Software patents are process patents, and the person using the process is the person using the process infringingly and is the person liable for infringement.

And if for some reason you were right that Microsoft users cannot be sued, then Redhat and Suse customers cannot be sued either, and then there's is no need for Munich to "freeze" their Linux plans.

-

Re:drawbacks of civilization

[hugesmile]

I NEVER saw a single legal Windows installation, though 4 years in IT.

Want to see a legal version of windows? I can make a copy of mine, so you can see what it looks like.

Make a mental note: greens scary

[magi]

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.

Re:Make a mental note: greens scary

[gonvaled]

Is it maybe you the one who is not thinking clearly? What the greens are doing in this case is rising awareness about a very important issue for the OS/FS community. They are not against Linux - on the contrary.

Next time you post, read first, breath twice, and then write.

Re:Make a mental note: greens scary

[Alsee]

Really?
And please explain to me how it would be better not to raise issue now? How is it better to simply wait for it to pop up later in the form of an actual patent lawsuit after the EU passes the Software Patent Directive?

The worst case scenario is that the Munich Linux project gets killed now rather than later by actual patent suits. The best case scenario is that raising the issue now will dissuade the EU from legitimatizing software patents in the first place.

-

tin-foil hat conspiracy

[vogon jeltz]

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!

Software Patents == Bad

[Bandit0013]

The only protection any software needs is a copyright. A copyright protects the owner's right to the expression (code). You can't copyright an idea (As shown in that texas case posted earlier, having thoughts of a program grants no rights, only writing the code implies copyright. This may have been part of the grounds for the ruling.)

When you really think about it, that is what software is, it's the expression of whatever you're coding (a tab, a purchase order, an email sorter).

So what needs to be decided is this: Is software an artistic expression of a concept (copyright) or is software an invention (patent)?

I tend to think of my software as an art form, expression of a concept (copyright). No one can copy my code, but anyone can see a program and say "hey that's a good idea, let's do something like that". This is how ideas evolve, ultimately benefitting society.

Imagine if some music artist patented the C chord, how much would music suffer if no other artist could use that sound? However, the sequence of sounds (like software code) is rightfully protected by copyright.

To: Mr Hoegner

[arete]

[I couldn't find his email at a cursory glance - maybe someone can 1) email him and 2) post a reply saying they did so he doesn't get 20000 emails]

1. Please be aware that there are a great many people who are invested in helping you be able to roll out linux in Munich.

2. Assuming that EU patent law bears some similarity to US law and that the body of software patents bears some similarity, the key to destroying poorly issued software patents is prior art.

3. A call from you for us to help you find prior art would meet with tremendous response. Even moreso if you could arrange to translate the list of probable patent violations into English.

thank you.

[Really, anyone with appropriate linguistic capabilities could put up a webboard for discussion and translate the patent pdf]

Re:To: Mr Hoegner

[Alsee]

the key to destroying poorly issued software patents is prior art.

3. A call from you for us to help you find prior art would meet with tremendous response.

No! Absolutely not!
The goal here is not to invalidate a handful of stupid software patents. The goal here is avert the EU from passing a directive legitimizing and legalizing software patents themselves.

If the Council's version of the Software Patent Directive passes it will legalize the patenting software. If software is established as patentable then defeating these few patents isn't going to help. There will be tens of thousands of software patents issued every year and we inevitably lose.

However if the Parliment's version of the directive passes then it will affirm that the existing European Patent Convention which explicitly excludes software from patentability does in fact prohibit software patents. That last sentence is confusing, but it is correct. There is already a European Convention saying you cannot patent software. The problem is that some people are playing word games, by their interpretation the text prohibiting software patents doesn't actually accomplish anything, by their logic it was intentionally written to do nothing.

If Parliment's version of the Directive passes then all previously issued software patents will be established as invalidly issued. All of them are invalidated in one fell swoop and no new software patents can be issued.

So the goal of raising this issue was to shine a spotlight on the disaster to ensue if the Council's version passes. The intent is to ensure the Parliment's version passes, preventing these patents from becoming valid.

-

Software Patents are a horrible idea

[Ambassador Kosh]

Any program of any size will infringe on dozens to many thousands of them. I don't think you can even write hello world in any language without infringing on at least a few patents. Stuff like java,python,perl,php, slashdot, mozilla, opera, kde, windows, probably violate thousands of patents and realistically you can be sued at any time for any of those since neither open or closed stuff gives you any kind of warranty from that kind of stuff and realistically they can't.

Software patents are a mine field. Anyone using//developing software is in a huge minefield and no matter where you step there is a landmine. The odds are when you put your foot down the mine will not explode but it is still a minefield. Once you are in the middle of the minefield it is too late to worry about violating software patents. Overall the only real option is just to ignore software patents and never look them up or learn much about them. At least then you can not be found to violate the patent on purpose which lessens the penalty and it makes it easier to disprove the patent.

Work needs to be done to throw out software patents but until then ignoring them seems to be best.

Re:That is helpful

[Daniel Dvorkin]

I think what the Greens meant to do was highlight the problems with software patents, not to stop the Linux migration. Unfortunately, in classic Green fashion, their method of doing so was to point a rather large gun directly at their foot, take careful aim, and pull the trigger.

Patent ideas

[nuggz]

A patent isn't for an idea, it is for an method to implement a feature.

You own your hinge, if someone else wants a wide opening door they would have to develop a new method not to infringe.

If tabbed browsing was patented, and someone wanted to group multiple web pages under one logical window, they would have to create their own new method.

It is the specific solution that is patented, be it a fancy hinge or tabs to show the web pages.

Think wide opening doors and grouping web pages as the goal. Fancy hinge and tabs as the method to accomplish it.

Re:Munich Green Party

[laurensv]

I think your fears are real,the timing for this is shit. Everybody's on holiday and the only thing that really gets anybody's attention these days is who'll be the new commissionars and what assignments will they get. Furtermore is still some more weeks untill the EU parliament convenes in it's new form.

This is the only way MS can stifle Linux

[lcsjk]

The only way to slow down the proliferation of LINUX is to tie it up in litigation. Even if there is no basis, the software can be tied up in court so long that no-one can use it. At that point developers tend to go away and we are left with nothing to work towards. The problem isn't software patents, the problem is trivial software patents. This lets big companies such as MS and others eliminate other products by owning so many software patents that new-comers cannot get a foot in the door. MS has a push for 3000 patents next year I hear. Even if a programmer comes up with the same idea, chances that there will already be something so similar that the big company can make the introduction of the competition too costly and time consuming, and the new-comer will go away.

Official Declaration of Mayor of Munich

[FlorianMueller]

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".

One-Click Checkout?

[ink]

# US5295256: Automatic storage of persistent objects in a relational schema. (owned by Racal-Datacom)
# US5819281: Notification of aspect value change in object-oriented programming (owned by EDS)
# US5983227: Dynamic page generator (Yahoo)
# US6025810: Hyper-Light-Speed antenna (also accelerates plant growth)
# US05443036: Exercising a cat with a laser pointer (note that it took two people to think of this )

So, it doesn't even have to be cool, it seems....

Inane Patents

A answer from Munich

[Sweetshark]

Dear City of Munich,
Did you know Linux may be infringing on 50 patents from other operating systems? I was concerned for your well being and thought you should know.
Sincerly, Bill

Dear Bill,
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?

Its the methods and functionality

[el_jake]

The real issue is the totally stupid "software" patents issued by ignorant offices.
I.e. the "one click buy" patent, the tabbed browsing and even methods for embedding "something" in a browser are examples of ignorance and stupidity.

There are 1000 ways to code "one click buy" commerce functionality - but only ONE patent for it. That's what's wrong. It should be the code and the algorithms there where the target for patents NOT the method. As an example I could file for a method for making a car move. That would be the engine, and that would be ridiculous in the eyes of engineers. Such a patent would never make it trough the patent offices. Of course there would be prior act, but in many situations prior act is forgotten or the little man are afraid of the battle with the "mastodont" - an whole other issue.
Therefore I must conclude that the people patenting software methods and functionality are somehow not fit for the job.
It is then up to us citizen of the world, to raise a flag saying that the entire world will be in state of limbo if the current insane software patent wave continues.

Next time I file a patent it should be for bad endings in novels!

Re:That is helpful

[NutscrapeSucks]

I have to agree that this seems like "Suicide Bomber" politics.

1) Mix Free Software Politics with Local Politics
2) Push a Linux Migration based on Values like "openness" rather than traditional cost/ROI.
3) Publicly shoot down Steve Ballmer's sales efforts
4) Become the showpiece project for Linux desktop migration.
5) Start to solve a lot of the intractable problems with moving away from Windows

(BOOM) Kamikaze your own project with Patent FUD.

Apparently they failed to understand that hardly anyone sees Linux on the Desktop as logical and as inevitable as they do, so people were paying close attention to their progress. From an advocacy standpoint, it was critical that Munich would be a "Success Story" and not a "Martyr".

I think this gets back to the Open Source/Free Software divide in the community -- is Linux a superior platform because of its Openness, or is just part of a whole ideological ball of wax that wants to overthrow the Intellectual Property system? Once you go with the latter, you lose most of your potential IT audience who just wants solutions and not revolution.

Some of those patents are plain criminal

[theolein]

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.

Formalize Defensive Patents

[aero6dof]

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.

Patent situation affects more than linux

[jdunlevy]

Wouldn't the deployment of closed systems be equally screwed up by the patent situation? In other words, if Munich had decided to migrate to Windows, wouldn't they still have to do an investigation on the possible impact of software patents? It's not like Microsoft has been clear of claims that it's infringed 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)?

If Linux Is Outlawed...

[blueZhift]

...then only outlaws will use Linux! Seriously this could be one of the outcomes if the craziness of software patents continues to spread. Because let's face it, many if not most of us using Linux are going to keep using it regardless of the outcome of current litigation. And in many companies Linux came in through the backdoor anyway.

So what does that leave us with? I don't expect to patent holders to come sniffing around every single company that may be using Linux somewhere, especially since no one will be widely advertising its use in a hostile patent environment. And of course continued development of Linux will work around the patent problem and continue as before.

Patents much be novelty and non-obvious

[SailFly]

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.

This battle was lost ten years ago.

[hotspotbloc]

We can thank the WTO for laying the foundation for software patents with the 1994 TRIPs (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement. TRIPs requires that patents be granted in all fields of technology and not just traditional patentable subject matter. This includes software and business model patents.

Face it, unless there are some drastic changes in how we are governed GNU/Linux will be basicly dead in five or ten years.

Do not forget this: It is the goal of the richest people of this world to retain and increase their wealth by whatever means they can. They hire "digital sharecroppers" to create ideas that are kept in peonage. They get laws passed that will keep others from competing with their unjustly gained bounty. Those individuals that create the works with the greatest monetary value rarely share in the wealth that is gained from them. Bill Gates is the richest man around but how much of his code is still in use today?

IMO we need to end software and business model patents and let people create in freedom.

Me bangs head in wall....

[jotaeleemeese]

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.

software patents are just wrong

[mattyrobinson69]

software patents in closed source software are just wrong. with the software being closed source, nobody gets to see the algorithms anyway. infact patenting something could be interpritted as a way of saying "here's how we do it, you cant do it this way".

Re:This IS local politics.

[NutscrapeSucks]

and Munich stops their deployment to show how stupid those laws are

That's where the politicos have miscalcuated. People generally don't remember things that didn't happen. If there is no Munich Migration, there's no positive case for either Desktop Linux or Patent Reform. There is only What Ifs and a thick cloud of FUD spread against Linux by its own supporters.

Believe it or not, most people (even in the IT industry) don't care about how something might affect Linux users. See IBM.

(Now, I understand the patent issue is open in the EU, so Munich might just be bluffing. But if they aren't, its useless martyrdom. Install Linux and invite yourself to get sued.)