Slashdot Mirror
Major Blow to Opponents of Software Patents in EU
Sanity writes "According to a FFII report, and a Financial Times article, proponents of software patents have just won a significant victory against smaller software companies and open source software proponents as the EU's legal affairs committee rejected most of the effective amendments that were proposed to the Computer Implemented Inventions Directive, which is widely perceived to usher-in U.S.-style software patents in the EU. All is not yet lost as the rejected amendments can be re-tabled when the entire European Parliament has the opportunity to vote next month. If you value the freedom to code without worrying about getting sued, and you live in the EU, now is the time to take effective action." And JasonFleischer writes "Richard Stallman has a piece in The Guardian which does a nice job of explaining the problems with the EU patent directive that will be voted on next month (and for that matter software patents in general), using literary examples."
If people stopped consuming protected media, including songs from iTunes, it would make a difference.
In fact, businesses looking for a niche market in the entertainment business could get in and make it big by selling non-protected media, and marketing it as such.
...to explicitely forbid the use of GPL'ed software for public institutions in countries where software patents are enforced.
Personally, I'd like to see the copyright system not be applied to software. The kind of argument Stallman makes about patents not being a good fit for literature can also be made for why copyright is not a good fit for automobiles or planes.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Once a battle like this is lost in any one location, then the war is lost in that location.
Don't believe me? Look at the state of copyright around the globe. It has been monotonically increasing over time. Not once that I've ever heard of have we seen a reduction in copyright strength or an increase in the rights of the general public.
And not once has a location gained software patents only to lose them again.
I agree, if we lose in the EU it doesn't mean we've lost completely, but it does mean we've lost completely in the EU.
If the EU adopts software patents (and I guarantee they will -- it's only a matter of time and money), there will be precious few places left in the world where one is truly free to write software.
Not that such a trend would be in any way out of character with the overall trend the entire world is following: a descent into an oppressive global police state in which the masses are only given the illusion of freedom.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
I for one hope some enterprising freedom fighters destroy the USA entirely, before it can further contaminate the actual free world with the next round of infectious pure insanity. If we can't disassemble corporate personhood, maybe we should disassemble the populace? Viva la fucking insanity.
---- death to all fanatics
No, they're not free anymore, actually! You're just an idiot if you've missed the fact that things like mplayer, openoffice and firefox are illegal (or at least exist only at the whim of some MBA waving an overly broad patent) in the USA - the only reason you have them is because currently, the laws are unenforceable on the internet and projects can shelter in free europe.
Patents (not just software patents) are about people wanting to restrict what engineers can do, by definition. They are pure evil. Other industries with patents AREN'T "okay". Most are dominated by cosy oligopolies of long-entrenched multinational corporations - Lockheed-Martin, Ingersoll-Rand, etc.
ALL PATENTS should be abolished. Those who preach "free trade" while at the same time pushing for more and more patents are simply hypocrites (hi, USA!).
Right, me, Adam Smith, the father of Capitalism and two Nobel prize for Economy winning free-market capitalist supporters.
"Extremists". Sure.
I think you need to reevaluate your position a bit. And maybe study some economy instead of repeating corporate propaganda.
"It seems to me beyond doubt that in these fields a slavish application of the concept of property as it has been developed for material things has done a great deal to foster the growth of monopoly and that here drastic reforms may be required if competition is to be made to work. In the field of industrial patents in particular we shall have to seriously examine whether the award of a monopoly privilegie is really the most appropriate and effective form of reward for the kind of riskbearing which investment in scientific research involves."
(F.A. Hayek: "Free" Enterprise and Competitive Order, 1947)
Perhaps you should read up a little on the subject before you start declaring your views as absolute truths.
And yes, patents do cover ideas. That's the whole point with them. As opposed to copyright, which covers the expression of ideas.
Please feel free to Google for more background information before making you next post. Perhaps you will want to start with something that Dr. Stallman has written. He appears to be considerably more well informed on the subject than you.
Christian Engström, Former Member of the European Parliament 2009-2014 for The Pirate Party, Sweden