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EU Says No To Software Patents
Moggie68 writes "European parliament has . struck down the proposal for a directive that would have brought US-style software patents into EU." Here's another story on the decision.
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The patent lobby tried to sneak in software patents through the back door, by claiming that it was only about harmonization, that the directive wouldn't change anything, etc, etc. They failed.
The issue has led to the most intensive lobbying campaign ever in Brussels (from both sides). Whatever their position on the issue "as such" may be, there is not a single member of the European Parliament who now thinks that this is "just a small technical matter that can safely be left to the patent experts to decide on".
If the patent lobby wants to continue working for the legalization of patents on software and business methods (and they will), they will have to engage in a serious debate about the benefit/harm of such patents. And since they don't really have any arguments that can stand scrutiny in daylight, they will have a very difficult time.
Sure, the FFII would have preferred a directive that reaffirmed the ban on software patents in Article 52 of the European Patent Convention, and led to greater harmonization in Europe. Alas, that didn't happen, because the patent lobby got cold feet and preferred to kill the directive rather than risk a vote in Parliament that they would probably have lost.
But at least we didn't get a bad directive that wiped out Article 52 and forced national parliaments to introduce software patents against their will. The situation now is that software patents are illegal in Europe (as they always have been according to the EPC), but that we still have a European Patent Office that needs to be reined in so that it starts to follow the law.
But the law remains unchanged, and computer programs and methods of doing business are not considered patentable inventions.
Today was a great day in the battle for a free and open information infrastructure, and for a favorable business environment in Europe for enterprises that use or produce software.
Christian Engström, Former Member of the European Parliament 2009-2014 for The Pirate Party, Sweden
a day to celebrate a major victory for freedom and innovation everywhere.
Ok so the current score is 1-0 to the good guys, but I'm pretty sure the game isn't over yet...
Underholdning.info
The so-called software patent directive, rejected by a 648-14 vote with 18 abstentions, would have given companies EU-wide patent protection for computerized inventions ranging from programs for complex CAT scanners to ABS car-brake systems.
PWNED!!!
Hero of Allacrost, a FOSS RPG for *NIX/*BSD/OS X/Win
Congratulations to the http://www.ffii.org/ and all the European citizens!
:)
Today we're a bit closer to freedom
May the source be with you!
I knew they had hearts and thought of this as an alien invasion of their civil rights like in the 1950s.
Congratulations to the FFII for all their hard work and patience campaigning against the directive!!! These people deserve all the support they can get.
For the time being I can rest assured that working as a programmer I do not have to watch my every statement.
Coca-Cola, sometimes War.
It was a hard job, but we made it!
"Open source lobbies beat professional lobbies 100:0" - says an MEP
Although this definitely counts as a victory, it's not the best of all possible outcomes.
That would have been having the right amendments accepted, turning a bad law into a good one. (And having the law in place for all of the EU would have meant that it'd be impossible for the big software lobby to still push this through in individual countries, something which they're now likely to try.)
The battle has been won, but the war is far from over.
From the article on BBC:
Responding to the rejection the European Commission said it would not draw up or submit any more versions of the original proposal. .
Sounds like excellent news, but I doubt they'll give it up just yet, but this is a major setback (another one) for them.
hejdig.
/OF
Besides begin good for EU and Europe it is also good for the Third World where cheap things can make a big difference towards democracy.
Read the comments by the proponents of software patents. They view this as a minor setback in their quest for software patents.
This will be back for consideration, and sooner than most people realize.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
.....abolish the G8!
The individual countries can still regulate their own software patents, and this measure only made it so there is no EU wide guideline for sw patents.
What we really need is a directive to *ban* software patents on the EU level...
Here is a link to the offical EU press Release:
http://www2.europarl.eu.int/omk/sipade2?PUBREF=-/
Some really good comments in there from some clued in and angry MEPs...
Pablo
see also http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/low/technology/4655955.stm
Personally my only problem with software patents is the length. I think that an 18-36 month patent is reasonable but anything over that is not.
So it turns out the EU Parliament has power, and actually can stop the EU Commission. I wonder how this would have turned out if the EU constitution in France and Netherlands wasn't rejected. I think this was a good moment for EU Parliament to show their muscle.
Perhaps this will mean the banner that has existed on VideoLAN's site for the last several months can finally go away... (previous slashdot coverage)
I'm curious to know which effect petitions and campaigning has had on this decision. To an extent, it seems to be a bit of internal power struggle as well: "The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) says the rejection is a logical response to the Commission and Council's refusal to take parliament's will into consideration."
see a Text Widget
The UK PTO in particular has quite a hard on for patenting, and it is a UK Labour MEP who has been pushing hardest for patents.
"To any truly impartial person, it would be obvious that I am right."
That's a pretty big majority. To be honest, I expected the bill to slip through, or at least be a pretty close call either way based on what people have been telling me about the responses they have recieved from their MEPs.
I realise this wasn't really the best outcome, but it's a damn sight better than seeing that brutal directive sneak it's way into EU law.
She's built like a steak house, but she handles like a bistro....
... in German by Spiegel Online charon
From the article:
"You don't patent a mathematical formula, for software is merely a connection of a mathematical formula," said Michel Rocard, the former French Prime Minister who was in charge of steering the parliament debate.
Rocard, a deputy for the Socialist group, said patents worth tens of billions of dollars (euros) were potentially at stake and, in terms of impact on businesses, the bill was the most important piece of legislation the assembly has ever dealt with.
The patent system seems to work best when patents cover things. It seems to cause real damage when it covers such things as mathematical knowledge and software. Broader than just those two, though, is the application of patents to "systems" wherein the thing being patented is just a step of instructions. It is a far cry from a tangible item to a way to do something.
Some 178 amendments to the bill were tabled by lawmakers before the vote. In the end parliament decided to vote down the law, fearing the amendments would dilute it and make it an inadequate compromise.
"It was a mess. Better no directive than a bad directive," said Tony Robinson, spokesman for the Socialists.
Unfortunately, that seems to mean that the topic may come up again, only in a more streamlined and possibly more palatable bill. It is nice that OSS advocates are crying foul against the patent system, but the real change will come when private businesses understand the threat posed by an all-encompassing patent system.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
http://wiki.vrijschrift.org/EP050706 (CoralCache) has the videos and transcripts.
Trollem mirabilem hanc subnotationis exigiutas non caperet
NOW is the time for everyone in the USA to start protesting against the same practices in the US. No software patents anywhere!
(Of course, the US will lose significant competition against european companies who will be much more at liberty to innovate... this hurts YOUR business)
Big congratulations to all those who fought for this.
Finally some good news today
We would like to play the Kevin Bacon's game with those 14. If they are found connected to Microsoft or other pro-patent monopolies - I suppose google bugsmear could help. Same action if ignorance and/or apathy detected.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
Luckily i will not have to feel ashamed of being european (i already have to feel ashamed of being italian, for many reasons).
Wondering why i am doing so strange posts? I am trying to get a "+5,Flamebait" or "-1,Insightful" rating.
Anybody got a list of those MEPs who voted in favour of this? Just want to make sure there are no familiar names.
Too bad the EU constitution was rejected, it would have given more power to parliament instead of the comission which is composed of appointed bureaucrats instead of elected representatives.
"You don't patent a mathematical formula, for software is merely a connection of a mathematical formula"
More proof that the people making the decisions don't know what they are doing. Software is not a derivative of a mathmatical formula. This isn't 1940 where computers are simply solving math problems.
Software development and mathematics diverged a long time ago. They have virtually nothing in common anymore.
One very good outcome of this is that the average European Joe Schmoe is now more aware of the issue and the MEPs are more aware of the sentiments within the industry. No more will the pro-patent lobby be able to sneak software patents in through the back door. That, in itself, is a huge victory.
A huge thanks to everybody who helped defeat the directive, be it with a single short e-mail to an MEP or actively spending hundreds of hours on the issue.
Thank you!
Lemon curry???
... because it's only a No to the proposed legislation. Even MEPs who favour software patents voted No, because they prefered to have no directive instead of one that restricts patentability. Unfortunately software patents do exist in Europe (more than 30000) and they can be used to menace IT companies, as there is always the risk that a judge interprets the patent law the same way as the patent offices who granted the patents. So the discussion is not over yet. Probably it will go on in the European Patent Office, controlled by 30 governments.
This is just brilliant. I had a the honor of having one of my photos used in the anti patents posters. I am very happy that someone has made them see sense.
We made history today. This day will be remebered as the day when Europe dodged the bullet. Few more years, and all technological progres will grind down to a full stop here in the US and we technologically clueful people will all have to go look for jobs elsewhere. Pereferably a place where we will not be sued for infringing on trivial patents...
I'm teminally incoherent
Please keep idiotic flame baits out of this thread. Thank you.
Alex (a European, and a proud one today)
Heisenberg may have been here
Except that the underpinnings of all the abstractions the average programmer uses are mathematically based.
I don't think we can patent the basics of logic either, so even when the syntax actually doesn't have any numbers, it's basic reasoning is still mathematical.
And honestly, I can't think of an actual programming language that doesn't use mathematical operators of some kind. Even VBScripting uses it in some bastardised fashion.
It sounds like the ostrich head-in-the-sand argument. I can't see it, hence it doesn't exist.
Linux - because it doesn't leave that Steve Ballmer aftertaste.
At least one good thing today. I'm glad it's something as important as this, because it goes a long way towards alleviating the pain.
Yeah, I live in Paris.
This isn't a "victory over patents", it just means that the situation isn't resolved.
EPO (the European Patent Office) still have given out several thousands patents for software (and they continue to do so). These are not void until they are tried individually in court.
Så, basically there could be three results:
1. The directive was accepted with the possibility of software patents (which would be preferred for pro-patent-people)
2. The directive was accepted without the possibility of software patents (which would be preferred for con-patent-people)
3. The directive was dropped
The latter is the case. So there are no general guidelines. Of course this still means that bunch of patents wouldn't hold in court, but that road is much longer than a general guideline preventing the patents in the first place.
- Peter Brodersen; professional nerd
Seriously: why?
That's because pro-sw-pat MEPs realized that they will not win and that amendments that will explicitly ban them may be intruduced. So they changed their position for keeping the status-quo. It's only a small defeat for them now.
The real majority of anti-sw-pat MEPs was very small.
Save the bandwidth. Don't use sigs!
Yesterday's article said that most MEP would probably vote NO - but the vote was only done today.
Thus, there existed the chance that they might get a change of heart etc. and vote YES instead...
We already had prematurely celebrated the Patent Directive dead once already - when Sweden etc. said it wanted to move it from a A-point to a B-point, but then was basically ignored by the Council during the meeting - and the Directive was passed to the EP for second reading.
NOW we can say that the Directive, in its current form, is dead.
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
A great day for the UK (London getting the olympics) and great for the rest of Europe too (this bill overturned)
I think people are getting tired of the present crop of autocratic leaders - Schroeder, Chirac, Blair , Berlusconi et al.
For far too long , they have imposed their will over the people of Europe and they have been able to get away because there werent any alternatives.
But now we realize that we have just been feeding their megalomania.Beginning with the 2005 General Elections in Britain and the Referendum in France the people have made clear that the present european leadership is not in tune with their wishes.
And this defeat is a realization by MEP's that ultimately , its us , the people who vote them into office.
Wanted : A Signature.
Man....now moving to Europe sounds even better. I won't be prosecuted for "developing" one-click shopping.
Thank god there's somewhere that understands what's going on.
P.S. I'm a Computer Science major, who's intending to go on to law school...does anyone have any suggestions where to go? I'm looking for a good school with a strong department in intellectual property/patent law/internet law/etc...I'm also looking for proximity to large cities (especially NYC and DC)...
AccountKiller
No, it's not a dupe. That other story was about yesterday's development that the members of the EU parliament seemed to unite on the side of those that are opposed to software patents.
Today, and that's what this story is about, they really shot down software patents. So after several months of back and forth, this is really the end of the initiative to introduce software patents in the EU.
The fact that so many votes were cast against the directive was only due to the last-minute turnaround of the lobyists. They were seriously afraid of the proposed amendments[0], to the point that they killed the directive instead of taking the chance that it would be modified.
[0] Amendment no.21, as co-sponsored by IBM, states that a patent's description must be sufficiently complete so that it can be used...
WOO HOO!
The FFII server is horribly overloaded at the moment, so here's their press release. (Slightly edited for anti-lameness) You can get info on todays vote at http://wiki.ffii.org/PrReject050706En once it gets back up.
From jmaebe ffii.org Wed Jul 6 15:15:16 2005
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2005 13:03:50 +0200
From: Jonas Maebe
To: news ffii.org
Subject: [ffii] European Parliament says no to software patents, yes to innovation
**European Parliament says no to software patents, yes to innovation**
Strasbourg, 6 July 2005 -- The European Parliament today decided by a large majority to reject the software patents directive. This rejection was the logical answer to the Commission's refusal to restart the legislative process in February and the Council's unwillingness to engage in any kind of dialogue with the Parliament. The FFII congratulates the European Parliament on its clear "no" to bad legislative proposals and procedures.
This is a great victory for those who have campaigned to ensure that European innovation and competitiveness is protected from the threat of software and business process patents. It marks the end of this attempt by the European Commission to codify into law the US-style practice of the European Patent Office. We believe that the Parliament's work, in particular the 21 compromise amendments, provides a good basis on which future legislative projects can build.
Rejection provides breathing space for new initiatives based on all the knowledge gained during the last five years. All institutions are now fully aware of the concerns of all stakeholders. However, the fact that the Council Common Position needs 21 amendments in order to be transformed into a coherent piece of legislation indicates that the text is simply not ready to enter the Conciliation between Parliament, Commission and Council. We hope the Commission and Council will at least respond to the concerns raised by Parliament the next time, in order to avoid this sort of backlash in the future.
Jonas Maebe, FFII Board Member, comments on the outcome of today's vote:
"This result clearly shows that thorough analysis, genuinely concerned citizens and factual information have more impact than free ice-cream, boatloads of hired lobbyists and outsourcing threats. I hope this turn of events can give people new faith in the European decision making process. I also hope that it will encourage the Council and Commission to model after the European Parliament in terms of transparency and the ability of stakeholders to participate in the decision-making process irrespective of their size."
The FFII wishes to thank all those people who have taken the time to contact their representatives. We also thank the numerous volunteers who have so generously given their time and energy. This is your victory as well as the Parliament's.
Background Information
Free ice-cream for patentability
http://wiki.ffii.org/CampIcecream050601En
Software patent lobbyists add boats to their arsenal
http://lists.ffii.org/pipermail/news/2005-July/000 297.html
Pictures of the boating
http://gallery.ffii.org/Strasbourg050705
Permanent link to this press release
http://wiki.ffii.org/PrReject050706En
Contact Information
Hartmut Pilch and Holger Blasum
FFII Munich Office
info@ffii.org
++49-89-18979927
Rufus Pollock
FFII UK
rufus.pollock@ffii.org.uk
+44-7795-176976
Jonas Maebe
FFII BE
jmaebe@ffii.org
+32-485-369645
Dieter Van Uytvanck
FFII BE
dietvu@village.uunet.be
+32-499-167010
About FFII -- http://www.ffii.org/
The Foundation fo
Any sufficiently advanced libertarian utopia is indistinguishable from government.
The EPO (European Patent Office) has granted patents on algorithms for years, despite the fact that they are illegal under the current European legislation. And it seems that the fight will go on there (cf. this article).
However, considering today's vote, the patent offices can not anymore claim that their interpretation of the law have a political backup.
--Go Debian!
Also, if the law was rejected, it is because a few ppl had a large bunch of amendments ready that would have "denatured" (in the view of large software companies) the adventage software patent could have given them...
:
r ective/
/ ar52.html of patent bureau clearly says that purely software patent are not to be, and that should be enough to cancel the existing ones....
see The Register article here
"According to the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure, conservative MEP Klaus-Heiner Lehne is trying to establish a majority of MEPs to vote for a rejection of the Council's "Common Position", even before any amendments are discussed.
The FFII says it is no coincidence that supporters of the Common Position, like Lehne, are now calling for the directive to be dropped. It claims that parliament is close to establishing a majority of MEPs in support of the amendments tabled by Michel Rocard. The amendments would put limits on patentability, it argues, and so the directive should only be rejected if the 367 votes needed to pass the changes cannot be found."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/05/patent_di
So in effects the cancelling of the law is not so much a victory as a move by the opponents to pospone the problem until they have a better chance of passing it under their own terms, US style....
Also I totally agree with your view on the grey area actual patents are in, but article 52 http://www.european-patent-office.org/legal/epc/e
We just need someone to enforce the existing rules....which is an other problem altogether...
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
The MSN story is really weird, they don't even know what to call the EU commission! Reminds me of some localized versions of MS software :-) Funny.
Other than that, congrats and a big thanks to FFII and all who did great work with the parliament. Where it not for the Commision and the Council, I would regain my belief in democracy.
Congratulations to all who pushed for the right (left) decision. The battle is over, however the war is not. Cheers!
Um, I write programs for a living and I can assure you that mathematical operations is about 1% of what I do.
Take a hypothetical software patent where someone tries to patent the method of drap and drop between web browser programs. It has nothing to do with mathematics. It doesn't even have to explain the actual programming implementation.
Obviously if the politicians made their decision based on the idea that "mathematical equations can't be patented and software is like that so it can't be patented either" then they have made a big mistake.
Except that the Commission said in advance of today's vote that they wouldn't be attempting to push this through any further if it was voted down. In the absence of that, I believe there is a minimum 3 year gap before the same issue can be considered again.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I get the feeling this is a war that will continue for as long as American corporations have software patents. Can this rulling be used to restart the debate in the US? What is the point of patents if they can only be enforced in one market (all be it a VERY large market)?
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
By definition software patents give you more freedom because they promote the growth of open source software rather then having one gigantic company that makes all the software because they have all the patents. Also since this promotes better software its helping to fight terrorism. If windows was the only OS terrorist would be having a field day.
Just imagine if guns were free.
How does free software even come close to relating to guns and terrorism. That's like saying that people who speak out against the government are terrorists because they are exercising their right to free speech.
I haven't seen a list of MEPs who voted against striking it down, or those who abstained.
If anyone has a list it would certainly be useful when the next elections roll around.
Cheers,
Noims.
This is not the greatest sig in the world. This is just a tribute.
And unfortunately, the GATT TRIPS agreements mean that the WTO will be forcing the individual signatory countries (such as the UK) to enact software patents.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
For the sake of gloat and whatnot, does anyone have links to sources complaining about this decision which we may read and then bat around like fed kittens with a ball of yarn?
I want to see what kind of stories hit stateside presses first, assuming this news makes it past that Aruba-Dutch-where's-whitey thing.
Direct away from face when opening.
Next we'll see Latin Americans countries fighting against software patents.
According to Alca preview all countries shall accept the copyright laws existing in US, including software patents.
Prepare for the next fight.
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
It's not really a duplicate post.
Yesterday, we heard that the bill could be rejected. Now we know it has been rejected. I think the topic is important enough not to be relegated to a Slashback update.
Your second point is entirely correct. I too would have preferred if software patents actually got banned EU-wide.
It may hurt, but it is the truth. Sometimes the truth hurts. Just think of how Canada feels: we have to live beside them...
1%? I can't understand how than can be the case. What about if statements, for/while loops, arrays? What kind of programming are you doing?
Don't forget to mention it's a real slam-dunk:
680 votes, 645 yes, 14 No, 18 abstentions
If Microsoft was mass, stupidity would be gravity.
Duh, software runs instructions in processors, and every single one of these instructions is a basic mathematical operation. Softwares are awfully complex mathematical formulas generated through several levels of abstractions, but they're still nothing more than that, mathematical formulas.
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
European parliament is correct against software patents
The European parliament rejected the disputed draft from European Union commission and European Union advice to the introduction of software patents. The delegates rejected the European Union law today in Strasbourg with an overwhelming majority.
Strasbourg - who would have that thought. Still few days ago it seemed hardly possible that of Europe parliamentarians in Strasbourg would express themselves so clearly against the software patent guideline. Today the European parliament of the commission collecting main with a clear majority refused the agreement in addition. 648 voted against the guideline and only 14 for, it compiled by the European Union commission, 18 contained.
The European Union commission explained, it respects the decision of the parliament and does not want to the refusal not with a new suggestion to react. A speaker said, patenting of inventions which are based on software was further possible, however it remains now the different rules in the individual European Union states and with European patent office.
The result is to be attributed above all to the "scandalous procedure" by advice and European Union commission, said the socialist delegate Michel Rocard from France. Advice and commission would have reacted with "ignoring and Sarkasmus" to the demands, which the parliament had raised in first reading. "the vote for today should be a lesson for the advice", stressed Rocard.
To the originally submitted draft the delegates had submitted altogether 178 requests for modification, which were also result of an unparalleled lobbying of opponents such as proponents. Many parliamentarians were afraid last that the guideline thereby could become a bureaucratic monster. Therefore the European Union commission is to submit a new suggestion, was called it in several parliamentary groups.
Large enterprises such as SAP or Nokia endorsed the regulation, while free software developers are against it. In the USA software is patentable; Companies such as Microsoft or IBM have themselves already hundreds of patents secured.
Open Source trailers and smaller software producers fear that they are over-accumulated up after patenting even simplest software modules with financial requirements by patentees. Planned however in principle only patents are to computer-implemented innovations, thus applications for instance for cars, mobile telephones or washing machines in the guideline. Disputed under the delegate is however, as clearly the boundary is to be pulled here.
The fact that the guideline in the parliament would fail had appeared in the past days. The parliamentary group of the conservative EVP tended directly before the crucial tuning to reject the collecting main lying on the table. Also the Greens and Social Democrats had informed themselves first to reject the guideline. "we against it to be correct", the chairman of the socialist parliamentary group, this morning in Strasbourg had announced Martin Schulz (SPD).
"The emotions are at present in such a way loaded that no rational decision is possible", was called it with the EVP. The European Union commission is to compile a new suggestion. The EVP aims at in contrast to the current collecting main that copyright regulations for software were taken up to for years the planned European Union joint patent. The joint patent lies at present however on ice.
The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
Welcome to the 51 United States. 48 contiguous states, Alaska, Hawaii and the rest of the world. Speak out against your government and you're going to Gitmo.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Oh, and by the way even though the analogy is flawed (because you don't create softwares the way you create mathematical algorithms, I'll grand you that) Rocard is far from a stupid guy, my guess is that he wanted something that would clarify the matter in the minds of the ones less tech-savvy and informed than him.
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
The colour refers to the FFII comparing the European Commission to a banana republic.
-------
Warning: Slashdot may contain traces of nuts.
don't confuse copyright with patenting. they are absolutely different. can you guess which one has served literature, music and science since around 1710?
Back in March, in the week that Microsoft successfully lobbied the EU Council of Ministers to oppose the EU Parliament's version of the directive, and import the US software-patent regime to Europe, guess what else they did.
A mere four days after trying to foist software patents on Europe, they announced that the US system needed to be reformed. Of course what they had in mind is not necessarily what the rest of us want - though they are aware of some of the problems. They suggested:
But it's interesting that Bill Gates recognised publicly that if the current patent regime had been in place when Microsoft was young, they never would have made it!
Paul "Say no to feeping creaturism"
The insane belief that most Americans in this NG espouse...
This is not a newsgroup, this is Slashdot. You pasted into the wrong window.
Nuffsaid
________
Don't know about his cat, but Schroedinger is definitely dead.
Any given piece of software can be represented mathematically; this is sometimes even done, for sufficently important software.
Me (Blog)
Ignore the syntax you program in, and essentially your application is mostly moving numbers around and performing operations on them.
Think of logic gates, then more complex digital circuitry (adders etc.), then simple microprocessors (adders and other such things), then think what happens to your code when you compile it and execute that.
Heck - the device you're programming is a *COMPUTER*. It computes based on your instructions, which are indeed pretty much a set of mathematical procedures.
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
I searched some on the webpage but couldn't find any list on this.
Anyone know where I can find it so that I decide on who will get my vote next time?
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
"This isn't 1940 where computers are simply solving math problems."
:
This is possibly the most idiotic statement I have ever read. In what way is software not entirely a mathematical field? Have you the slightest inkling of what computer science is?
Software, in all its forms, from the highest level Haskell to the tightest x86 machine code, from the elegance of Scheme to the pure sickness of Befunge, is represented as regular groups of symbols encoded in a numerical form. The abstract machines that give meaning to these symbols can also be encoded in any of these forms . The presence of hardware is incidental : everything that has been done or can be done with software is performable by a purely mental process. How anyone can believe this does not qualify as a field of pure mathematics is beyond me.
In summary, you don't have a clue what you are talking about. I think a better statement might be
"This isn't 3000BC where mathematics is simply solving mathematics problems."
The only sad thing is the feeling of surprise this generated...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
well, thank you Bill Gates!
What was the name of the operator patented by microsoft? ifnot or something?
I'll do the stupid thing first and then you shy people follow...
Who's this "us" that you're talking about? I do not consider myself a part of your mob, so please stop making speeches in my name.
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
TRIPS vs EU Patent Convention. Prace bets now!!
I'd agree with that. Technology moves so very fast in the software sector that the duration of patents, which is fine for normal inventions, is far too long. If it was a whole lot shorter, then software patents become reasonable. If you invent a cool new algorithm to solve problem x, you can monopolise it for maybe two years, muscle in on the market if you like, license it to M$ for a fortune if you prefer... but after that it's free for all. That would be fair. But keeping it proprietary for years on end is bad for progress, and contrary to what patents were supposed to be about.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
648 MEPs all voted to reject the directive, but for how many different reasons? This number probably includes both supporters of software patents who feared an amended directive (for no good reason, I should add) and those who were angry at the Council for scrapping all the amendments already made by the Parliament back in 2003. I don't think it means 648 MEPs are decidedly opposed to software patents.
I don't know who those 14 were, but I'd like to know. However, I wouldn't rule out they may have included one or two brave individuals who wanted to give the 21 Rocard-Buzek-Duff amendments a chance (to reject software patents, rather than reject the directive). If your purpose with asking "why" is to identify potential allies, then fine, but why not ask all the other MEPs the same question?
If I understand correctly, the plan was to go through all the 178 (?) amendment proposals and vote on each one, after which a final vote would be held on whether the directive was now in an acceptable state or should be rejected anyway. The advice from FFII was to first vote for the 21 Rocard-Buzek-Duff amendments, but later vote to reject the directive if those amendments didn't achieve the necessary majority.
Now the proposal to reject the directive was made already before the amendments, meaning that we will never know how our elected representatives would have voted on the issues of substance, and I fear that may have been yet another reason for some MEPs to vote "no" early - they preferred not to show their cards if they didn't have to. In that light, kicking 14 MEPs in the back for asking to see the result of 178 amendment votes seems like a bad idea. They are too small a group to even be concerned about, and you will only encourage future MEPs to take the safe option and vote in unison like a flock of sheep, regardless of the issue.
a "no software patents" european law already exist, though far from perfect i admit.
Something good happens and the Slashdot crowd reply with, "It could have been better!" But joking aside, it could have been better. You see, I come from the small Island of Malta. The LUG here is tiny and few people are even aware of Software Patents. Were MS to push for patents here (and it would have a lot of backing from the government, since it's been giving us discounts on MS Products and stuff), there wouldn't be enough protestors to be heard. I imagine this might be similar for other small countries new to the EU.
Here is the slightly worrying meat of the matter (from TFA):
So it seems that the bill was not voted down because the anti-SWPAT people were able to persuade the voters of the rightness of their cause, but that it was spammed with amendments until it collapsed under its own weight.
Still a good thing, of course, but it would have been nicer to have this stupid idea explicitly faced down.
--
What short sigs we have -
One hundred and twenty chars!
Too short for haiku.
Maths != arithmetic
Please, mod parent up. Sure, this might hurt for some patriotic people, and some won't even see the truth in it, but I'm sure this guy get's support from a lot of people all over the world, including the US.
I posted a comment this morning in response to yesterday's EU story. I was more verbose there!
Basically, I was saying that I don't think that this rejection is really any kind of moral victory. Rather, European politicians are making sure that European business interests are not undermined by a system that would require a proportion of their profit to be sent abroad, particularly since the current state of the USA's economy means that the Dollar may soon fall in value (possibly leading to American businesses trying to extract maximum value from patent holdings in the EU and other areas).
But an engine uses these physical forces to cause a physical effect on the real world. Crap explanation, but I believe that is the gist of M. Rocard's proposed alterations to the CIID to draw the line between a computer-assisted patent, and a pure-software patent.
You clearly have no idea what mathematics is.
Do you think that all of maths is simple arithmetic? I hope you realise that apply is a mathematical operator : this is what you would refer to as "calling a method". Defining a function is an equation. Do I really have to spell it out for you? Everything in your programs is mathematical. Not necessarily arithmetical. Please learn the difference.
Practically all programming language semantic research is couched in the terms of category or set theory. That you don't know this doesn't mean it isn't so. Look it up if you have more than a passing interest in your career.
When a patent claims something like the "method of drag and drop", it is claiming that all possible symbolic forms that implement this method are infringing. These forms, like every program you have ever written, are mathematical. The big issue is that the form is not being claimed as in a copyrighted work or a physical patent: it is the very concept of solving the problem that is being claimed. Once you have spotted a problem, you immediately control all possible solutions.
Ironically, 'software patents' do not protect software, they seek to protect ideas expressed in the software. With minor changes to the subject of software patent law, music or literature could easily fall under similar duress.
Copyright, however, protects what has is actually made and so serves software very well; copyright, (eg. the GPL) can be placed in the very code itself whereas a patent is a legal abstraction held in patent office archives and is expensive and timely to research. Secondly patents can only be contested in court. Copyright however tends toward user/developer transparency and breaches happen when the protected artifact in question is misused.
Remember also that though prior art is required to grant a patent, this 'art' need not include a product or a work. 'Prior Art' requires a dated expression of an idea and can even discuss what a product derived or based around that idea might constitute.
With copyright you own what you make not what you haven't yet made (or may not ever make).
physical inventions can be broken down into abstract physical phenonema. An engine uses explosions, inertia, and friction. None of these are patentable
I think you are talking about two different things. Physical processes cannot be patented - they are facts of nature. As you say, you cannot patent an explosion, inertia or friction. However, physical objects can be patented - a piston can be patented, but it's up-and-down motion, or the explosions that make it go up-and-down, are not patentable.
The processes themselves are not patentable, but the means to generate the processes are. This is a central issue in software patenting - is software a process, or a means to generating a process? Is software a fact of nature, or an invention. I would argue that its a fact of nature.
I just can't imagine them giving up so soon. As has been stated even before this vote, they will go after more local governments next. Following that, what is to stop them from trying it again later? (Is there some rule that says they can't?)
As for the US needing patent reform? Yeah, it's pretty clear to "us" from our perspective, but the average joe doesn't care one way or the other but the moment they hear "they are trying to stop us from patenting things" the public will conjure up images of Ben Franklin and Thomas Edison tinkering in their home laboratories and think how un-American it would be to prevent people from patenting stuff. It has to be shown how it hurts them before the public will care about this and telling them "hey, you could have had much cooler and cheaper stuff..." it's a particularly effective argument since it's essentially viewed as speculation rather than fact.
It's easier to see in Europe what the potential harm to their market would be -- the U.S.'s head start in patent portfolios would make the sting pretty obvious.
So then I wonder, what angle or spin would be most effective against the general public to help them understand the need for patent reform in the U.S.?
Alex, I'm going to single you out for my token gesture from across the pond. **shakes Alex's hand** Well done, EU!
IIRC - "IsNot". It is a "shallow" test for inequality, much like comparing two pointers.
I'd like to know the names of those few who voted YES.
The council is composed of the ministers of each member states. So to say it is undemocratic is the same as saying the elected governments in each state is undemocratic.
The commission is more like the civil service in member states, it's members are apointed by the member states governments. I do not know of any country where the civil service is elected. This is why the commission hasn't been given the powers to bring in laws on its own, with out the aproval of the council and the European parliment.
The EU is as (or more) democratic than it's member states. The bigest problem is some times goverments say one thing at home and vote the oposite in Europe and then try to say Europe is imposing something on them.
Yes, there is a US mailing list of FFII. Don't complain in webfora, get involved in the US patent reform discussions. the time is right. Time is crucial in these debates. Organisation building takes time.
Dr. Tom's advice: If you're posting from work, go grab a coffee. If from home, hit the bed for a couple more zzzs.
Shouldn't we then propose a europe wide patent law which is sane and acceptable then?
Or is this too dangerous given the way amendments can completely change the meaning.
Deleted
If the EU passes a common directive banning the software patents, then even the WTO is not going to have it easy, forcing the EU to comply.
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
It was a typo. There should be a no in there somewhere.
Holy crap! Does it mean companies will have to be satisfied with EU-wide patent protection only for computerized inventions ranging from complex CAT scanners to ABS car-brake systems instead? Now that seems like a real threat to European innovation; these companies will surely fall victims to foreign competitors selling computerized ABS car-brake systems involving no hardware components at all...
The more reinforcement from lots of people that software patents are a bad thing, the better. And apart from their salaries and pensions etc, I'm sure they feel generally unloved.
Deleted
I understand what you're getting at, but I think you're wrong. Let's take your drag-and-drop example. You're arguing that it should be possible to patent "using an input device to move an icon from one place to another to initiate an action" (given no prior art). You say you don't have to explain the implementation, but you'd at least have to specify a sequence of events (press button and "pick up" icon, move, release). But then we're back to specifying a system that can be expressed using logic (if numbers representing pointer location are within bounds of icon AND button is pressed, pick up icon, etc.). Logic can't be patented for the same reason maths can't.
This argument generalises to all software, because anything you can write as software can be reduced to a set of logical and mathematical operations. On the other hand, a mouse could be patented (absent prior art, again) because you can't just reduce it to logic in the machine.
That's how I understand it, anyway.
I
Please would you post some of your mythical non-maths based code? I have a feeling you are beyond help.
A pure mental process that is based on consistent symbolic manipulation is extremely difficult to paint as anything but maths. What do you think it is ? Interpretive dance? Woodcraft?
I would love to know what you believe mathematics is. I'm guessing that you think it is arithmetic.
And as to your MS : the standards for getting a degree in this field are shockingly bad. I know people with even less clue than you who have degrees in CS. I have one too, but I don't think that it alone proves anything. Your statements show that you are very confused.
>look forward to a lot of pressure being put on national governements to pass legislation.
I agree, the pressure will rise, but unless every nation on earth accepts a central patent scheme (something coordinated by i.e. WTO), it would be too difficult to acquire a patent on all nations at the same time.
You have the same problem today when you go for a universal patent. You have to apply to the US PTO, to the UK PTO, to the PTO on Geneva, etc. That is excaltly the reason why 10.000 big corporations lobbied for unified European Software Patents.
I was trying to figure that one out myself.
The only answer I could figure is that he creates static HTML pages and uses Javascript 1% of the time.
But them HTML is a markup language, not a programming language. So, still, he must write some really boring code that consists of next to nothing but arrays and lists.
Linux - because it doesn't leave that Steve Ballmer aftertaste.
Yes, Microsoft wasted 30 Mio $ in the EU lobbying debate and hired all guns they could get. Really stupid lobbyists, an insult for intelligent people.
Hope we will now be able to talk to the real patent guys of Microsoft in the future and not the lobbying scum. Please get involved in the US patent reform debate before Microsoft will write the patent reform.
The funniest event happened yesterday with the CompTIA astroturf guys "CampaignforCreativity".
From FFII-News: "The pro-patent campaigners of "Campaign for Creativity" chose to be present on water, the Parliament being surrounded of visible channels since the buildings; they chartered a small yacht which carried a large yellow and blue banner (as usual, copycatting the FFII symbols). The FFII side reacted by bringing a half-dozen kayaks on to the ">water with banners calling for a "vote for Buzek-Rocard-Duff" between two blows of paddle. On the footbridge which hangs over the channel and connects the two wings of the building, MEPs laugh. Somebody exclaims: "this seems to prove that creativity is rather on their side"!"
I understand your sentiment. However, it takes at least 18 to 36 months to get a patent in the first place! The legal processes simply move slower than the technical developments they cover. Keeping an algorithim "proprietary" for years on end is perfectly fine. If you invested a million dollars developing an algorithim (or other process), why should you not have more than 18 months to try to recoup that investment? Underlying a lot of criticism of software and algorithim patents is the unspoken thought that these would have been invented anyway. At least that's what I think is the issue with the Amazon.com one-click patent that everyone always complains about.
Stop being an elitest asshole and listen to the points being made.
Eating food is nothing but constant manipulation of chemicals and interactions of electrons. Does that mean that cooking is a purely a chemistry field? No, only an idiot would think that. There's a few (read: lots of) levels of abstraction to get away from the chemistry, just as there are many levels of abstraction in coding to get away from the 1s and 0s that are actually doing the calculations.
If you want to show your appreciation, don't even consider e-mail. Use snail mail instead, maybe even handwritten. It clearly demonstrates that you think it's worth both the postage and your effort to write and send it, and the recipient hardly risks getting spammed that way.
Sending e-mail to congratulate someone is almost like sending a get-well-card postage-due. It's cheap, in every possible sense of the word.
You are a real nutcase.
If I have the rules to the machine, abstract or physical, and I have the code, then I can laboriously perform the instructions. Are you seriously denying that this is the case? Can you imagine doing one instruction?
push 20h
Can you imagine doing the next one?
call 401010
Oh look, by induction, you can imagine performing the whole program. Big fucking surprise.
I never said it would be easy or fun, or that it would finish in a single lifetime. But clearly it can be performed as a mental process.
On to planes. Planes, and all other mechanical devices, work because they obey physical "laws". These laws are mathematical generalisations that we have tested against the world for a long time and failed to disprove. The maths does not generate the laws, it is merely a statement about them. That we can use the maths to design other physical items does not mean that these items are suddenly pure maths. They simply obey the same "constant conjunctions" that we have observed for everything else in the physical world. Read some Hume, ingrate.
Your logical fallacies are unbeatable. Keep it up.
And in general, much as I hate to say it, the EU isn't far off being as obsessed with profit as the US is. Sure, we have better worker protection laws and social welfare systems, but we exploit the REST of the world nearly as much.
Me (Blog)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The European Patent Convention from the 80s already prohibits patents on "programs for computers". The catch is that the EPO doesn't follow it, although it should.
Doesn't that provide a slam-dunk defense for anyone accused of infringing a software patent? It seems that if you were sued for infringement you could just point out to the court that the patent was erroneously issued. After a couple such cases, the precedent would be firmly established and future defendants would hardly have to do more than show up.
Further, it would seem to deter holders of such invalid patents from pressing their claims, because pressing a claim would just get the patent invalidated. Since a valid but unenforceable patent is a (very) little bit more useful than an invalidated patent, holders would have to think twice about filing "harassment" suits that they know they'll lose.
Obviously, it would be better if the EPO didn't issue those patents.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
1. The US has started (and "encouraged") more wars and murdered more humans in a 50 year period than anyone else before in recorded history.
Nope, sorry. Try again. Think "Hitler".
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
is a list of representatives voting FOR the patents available somewhere? I would like to know who voted YES
Deliriant isti Americani.
Oh, frighteningly stupid people get degrees all the time... I know someone with a II.1 in CS from the country's top university who struggles with the idea of pointers.
Me (Blog)
"to get away from the 1s and 0s that are actually doing the calculations."
So you really do beleive that mathematics is just arithmetic. I think this is where the disconnect is: mathematics is by its very nature the process of abstraction that you use to get away from any other representation you already have. It is not just adding and dividing, or other simple operators you learned when you were two.
Look up some fields of more abstract maths: category theory, topography, etc. Are you going to advocate promoting a small field of discrete maths to being "not maths" merely because we can make machines to perform that maths easily? Or that some people who use the machines don't understand them? If so, then arithmetic is not maths, because a lot of people use calculators, and don't know how to divide numbers without one.
Clicking through all the links that have been posted I came across this comment:
Thomas WISE (UK) spoke for the Independence and Democracy Group. He said computer entrepreneurs were independent spirits and they rejected restricted monoliths like the EU and this directive. But, he said, Mr Rocard's amendments were not trying to block the directive, they accepted the basic principle of harmonisation. "We will vote to reject the directive completely. I have always said that if the EU is the answer it must have been a silly question. Now that is patently obvious!"
I like it.
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
Yep, it is amazing how many people in the places I usually work ( big name investment banks) just randomly play around with & and * until they get something to compile. Then they assume it is all ok ;-).
I think it is to do with the way things are taught : I strongly believe CS needs to be taught both top down and bottom up at the same time. All too often an approach known as "Java is all the world, and all the world is Java" is used in preference to showing people everything from AND gates to dependent type systems. Multiple passes through all these layers are needed too. But then unis would need to chuck out 75% of people in the first year...
Envy? ENVY? Of the Nightmare over the Water? No, not so much. You can keep your torture, your exploitative practices, your religious mania interfering with government, your institutionalised racism and homophobia. No, we're by no means perfect here, but we're at least not getting WORSE, like you are.
Me (Blog)
Passing any amendments would not have meant the amended directive becoming law; it would have meant negotiations between the Council and Parliament to resolve their differences. Even Parliament itself would have taken a final vote on the whole directive after the 178 amendment votes, to make sure they would be happy with the result. And if Council and Parliament were to agree on a version different from the original proposal, I think also the Commission would have been able to pull the plug and withdraw it entirely.
The notion that the Parliament's amended version might have left Europe with an inconsistent piece of legislation subject to no further discussion has been spread by pro-swpat politicians who didn't even want to see the amendments tabled in the first place; they would rather kill the directive than allow people to consider alternative texts. Warning about imminent legal chaos helped achieve that.
I believe it is time the United States harmonized its patent laws with the European Union. This will foster more trade and have an economic benefit for both sides.
Buwahahahhahahhahahh!
I contacted the lib dems and UKIP a few months back.
lib dems: Email back about how they were very unhappy about the way the council was ignoring parliament, possibly planning to take a stance simply for the power-struggle between parliament and council, rather than for the merits of patents. Though I guess if they had been in favour of the legislation, they would have gone with it.
UK Independence Party: a letter in the post (!) back complaining about how the EU was always interfering, it was our right to set our own patent laws, etc. I don't know if they were in favour or not; their ideology was in the way.
Im sure there are also arguments that can blow that out of the water, but the point is there can be compromise and software patents should not last so long that long obsolete technology is still covered...
Here's somebody who's succumbed to the dark side.
At last a vaguely sensible objection...
;-)
;-)
I think you are getting mixed up between the program being referentially transparent and stateless and it being purely mathematical.
The two are not the same.
You can't be referentially transparent in the presence of I/O - true.
But all the I/O you do still boils down to pushing a numerical symbol onto the end of a list. This is eminently mathematical. And think about it : it is evidently possible to emulate stateful machines with I/O within the confines of a stateless referentially transparent language. Referential transparency is important because it greatly helps reasoning : it makes it tractable. Without it, all the forms of reasoning are still possible, but maybe intractable.
I/O instructions are just another part of the instruction set of the machine. All the I/O that you do is still a bunch of symbols numerically represented at the end of the day. You can always transform I/O to either explicit state or to extra arguments you pass around that eventually contribute to the result of the computation. For intertwined I/O, this is only possible with an extension to a basic declarative model, such as dataflow concurrency.
Remember why monads actually help : they are effectively a cheeky way to thread extra arguments to all functions. You can do the same by adding a world argument on to every function you use, but this loses type safety. And even ghc gets grouchy if you use 50+ arguments to a function
If you like this kind of stuff I strongly recommend Concepts Techniques and Models of Programming by Peter van Roy and Seif Haridi.
Actually, all of this is pretty wordy. Maybe the best thing to do is remember what the turing machine was doing with that paper tape, and then consider if it is a mathematical construct or not
...which correspond to mathematical vectors and have an index set (int usually).
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
If so, this would seem meaningless as most of the EU is part of the WTO. (Anyone know for sure?)
The EU is a member of the WTO in it's own right. Since trade policy is an EU-delegated matter, the EU speaks for it's 25 members on almost all WTO matters.
As most copyright holders (or enforcers) would have an office in the US, would it not make sense for them to just offically copyright it in the US and then seek WTO enforcement?
The European Parliament has just killed a bill to introduce software patents. Copyrights are an entirely different legal concept and not in anyway affected by today's result.
-- Nick "Hallo this is Beel Gates, und I pronounce weendows as
At last a vaguely sensible objection...
;-)
I think you are getting mixed up between the program being referentially transparent and stateless and it being purely mathematical.
The two are not the same.
You can't be referentially transparent in the presence of I/O - true.
But all the I/O you do still boils down to pushing a numerically encoded symbol onto the end of a list. This is eminently mathematical.
Maybe the best thing to do is remember what the turing machine was doing with that paper tape, and then consider if it is a mathematical construct or not
0h gno35!!111 T3h t3rr0z!5t h@v3 teh pwn3d u5!!!111one
It sounds like the ostrich head-in-the-sand argument. I can't see it, hence it doesn't exist.
No, no, no. The ostrich's argument is, I can't see you, therefore you can't see me, therefore I don't eNO CARRIER
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
So the EU Parliament voted it down...so? The individual national patent offices still have the last word. In this case, the EUP has about as much enforcement power as I do.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
You could also argue that, since all machines are just variants of the Turing Machine, and just do bit addition/subtraction/copy anyway, that all computers - in the end - are just mathematical machines.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
First off, I'm a big fan of Europe. I think getting the continent on the same basic human rights, and in a good trade zone, are all good things. I even like the euro (speaking as a Brit, we've yet to decide as a country). But I can't stand the behind-closed-doors, elitist attitude of the Commission and the European Central Bank.
"Patents will continue to be handled by national patent offices ... as before, which means different interpretations as to what is patentable, without any judiciary control by the European Court of Justice," said EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, representing the EU head office at the vote.
At least the way I read it, the guy is saying that it was a bad decision, and if only those poor ignorant elected representatives had made the right choice and rubber stamped what the bureaucrats asked them to, everything could be a lot better under superior, central control with limited accountability. Just like the recent votes on the constitution, the idea that just maybe the "elite" are fucking up big time and need to get back in touch with what their citizens want simply doesn't seem to occur to them.
Pisses me off big time, I tell you. I want a Europe for all the people, not a bunch of wannabes who often seem to view the European project as a more acceptable alternative to war as a method to conquer, rather than a democratic opportunity.
Sorry, I'm ranting here. Congrats to all those that made our views heard. Yes, the pro-patent lobby also voted against the bill out of fear of the amendments, but those amendments may never have been there in the first place without the anti-software patent people doing their thing.
The council consist of ministers from the local governments, who are appointed by the prime minister, who are elected by a majority of the parliament, whose members are elected by the people.
The commission consists of people apointed by the local governments.
In both cases the best we can hope for is a tripple indirect democracy.
This is ok as long as the directly elected representives can propose and reject legislation. This is the case in the national parliaments, but in the EU parliament they cannot propose legislation, and the rules have deliberately made it very difficult for them to reject legislation. This is actually the first time the parliament have managed to get enough votes to reject a law.
Indeed. Although some of us belive that Benita Ferrero-Waldner may have been spinning, to use the currently fashionable euphemism
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Is one of the requirements for WTO acceptance that you enforce copyright law of the host country?
1,000,000th time on Slashdot: Patent != Copyright
As if it it wasnt hard enough getting work this side of the atlantic! Not only do we have to deal with work getting outsourced to india - pretty soon we'll have to compete with the wave of hungry refugee-programmers pouring in from the US :-(
"... always going forward 'cause we cant find reverse! "
Does anybody know how to find it? It is quite easy to look up such thing on Polish Parlament WWW and I am used to it but European Parlament seems to be less open.
Warning, the article is pretty disgusting. ~Knaldgas
Yeah, it might not be over yet, but I think this is cause for celebration! Now about that bill to permanently ban software patents in all member countries..
Engineering is applied mathematics. So dose that make a bridge a mathematical construct? Is it not possible to think of a computer program in the same way?
You can download the full European Parliament press conference after the vote with this torrent (AVI file (DIVX), 48 minutes).
Magnet URI for Azureus (remove the space before the last two chars):
It's very interesting because it shows that the MEPs really know what this is all about and most of them have a position surprisingly similar to the FFII!
Josep Borrell (EP President) and Michel Rocard (MEP) speak very clearly about what's wrong with software patents, the Council of the European Union, the European Commission, Microsoft, etc.
Unfortunately the first 4 minutes are only translated in Italian, but all the important things are in English.
Please after completing the download continue to seed as long as possible.
There's a hidden treasure in Python 3.x: __prepare__()
Software isnt a process, it is a human invention: a TOOL that helps ppl do things. So if you patent a tool, you can patent a piece of software.
It's the computer that's the tool. Software is the means by which you use the tool. You can patent an axe, but you cannot patent an axe swing, nor the response of the tree to the axe swing.
Thanks to the 680/732 deputies that were present and voted against software patents ! I was expecting an amended vote, but this choice is good too (maybe not the better choice, I don't care, OSS is here and the lobbying and sponsor of m$ for the European council has been defeated !) Thank you European Parliament !
For more details look at Charlie Falconer
Now that this directive has been defeated, now is the time to write congress and get them to think - if the EU has voted against this, perhaps it's time they take alook at our own system and engage in reform.
Especially if presented as a case for helping small businesses (the engine that drives the economy) it seems like at least a few people in congress would be willing to champion a second look at the mess we have today, when presented with some rational arguments why they might want to roll back the power of software patents as they stand.
This further helps the EU as well, as it turns the battle into one of multiple fronts instead of just letting pro-patent people focus on the EU until they break.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
http://www2.europarl.eu.int/omk/sipade2?SAME_LEVEL =1&LEVEL=2&NAV=X&DETAIL=&PUBREF=-//EP//TEXT+PV+200 50706+TOC+DOC+XML+V0//EN
ALDE: Ludford, Newton Dunn
IND/DEM: Lundgren
PPE-DE: Roithova
PSE: Fernandes
UEN: Aylward, Crowley, Didziokas, Krasts, O Neachtain, Pavilionis, Ryan, Szymanski, Zile
***
List of the 18, who abstented (or forgot to vote):
ALDE: Birutis, Bonino, Busk, Duff, Duquesne, Jensen, Lax, Pannella, Riis-Joergensen, Samuelsen, Sbarbati, Takkula, Toia
PPE-DE: Brezina, Cabrnoch, Fajmon, Jordan Cizelj
UEN: Vaidere
As long as the brakes in my car actually work, I don't care whether the code controlling them is dull, stupid, or unoriginal. While an invention is expected to be original, I know of no restrictions against either dull or stupid inventions. However, I'd rather not find my brakes suddenly disabled and the "patent infringement" warning lamp lit up because my car dealer failed to pay his license fee, so maybe "unoriginality" is actually a feature of life-critical systems we should strive to preserve, in order to keep them unhampered by patents?
I'll accept and respect patents on inventions as such, but not on legal tricks. For an invention to be considered an invention as such, it must have Buddha nature. A legal trick does not have Buddha nature, and is therefore not considered as such, even if it constitutes or forms part of an invention. The question of what constitutes "Buddha nature" is left as an exercise for the defendant.
is at http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/07/06/business/pa tents.php if you want to read the International Herald Tribune's take on the decision.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
CompTIA, representing small- and medium-sized information technology companies, echoed this view. "Conflicting views have confused the issue and made it difficult for the parliament to reach a clear and balanced decision that would adequately support innovation."
Translation: "We're happy the legislation was shot down, because it didn't go far enough."
"Anyone that has ever gotten an idea based on any of my work and done something better with it-good for you."--J.Carmack
No it isn't. Yes there is some truth there, but quite a few exaggerations and obmissions, too.
I doubt that the US "... murdered more humans in a 50 year period than anyone else before ..." - WW2 cost roughly 50 million lives.
And while the US-Americans could certainly do with taking some responsibility for the actions of their government and look honestly at the crimes which were commited and mistakes which were made, other countries should do the very same.
The US might be the biggest polluter, but the EU and Canada are not that far behind. The US is not the only country selling military technology to corrupt dictatorships and propping up criminal regimes. The US is not the only country who stands by when genocide occurs in Dafur or Rwanda. It's pathetic that the US refuses to do anything about global warming, but the little the rest of us does about it is pathetic, too.
Explain how your knowledge of the digestive process comes into play when you are shitting. Or when you are talking shit, like now.
Whether you know how something works has no bearing on whether it does or does not work in a particular way.
The point of the original mark was in the context of programming.
And yes, a mathematical operation ( made up of many smaller ones) is performed in the machine when somebody uses a program ( a sequence of numerically encoded instructions for petes sake) to draw a circle. A creative process may also be occuring in the mind of the user. Whether you believe the later is a mathematical process or not I don't know; a good book on that subject is Godel, Escher Bach by Hofstadter.
Long live innovation through competition - not litigation.
I produce roughly 20000-25000 lines of code every 4-5 months, and I hate the thought that I can be accused of stealing someone elses idea every time I write 10-20 lines code - in fact it insults me. Lets hope europe will some day move to illigalize software patent on a national level. I want fredom to develop thank you! Not this thing the pro-patent politicians call "protection". It only protects big companies with big patentportfolios from having to compete by way of building the best products.
Now we Americans will have to compete against Europeans with technology instead of lawyers.
So close! We almost had them!
There are seven states in the US with under 1 million people, according to the Census Bureau. Those 14 senators have no excuse. Though I would like to point out that some senators do send personalized letters. My wife got one from our senator regarding some healthcare legislation last year that she had requested support on.
Intellectual property law ideally should strike a balance between rewarding producers of intellectual property and allowing society to benefit from innovation. Through the efforts of lobbyists, the system has become skewed to benefit technological incumbents, at the expense of the public good.
s /maurer.htm
While a market based means of rewarding producers of intellectual property is essential, its primary goal must be to maximize benefit to society. Intellectual property protection comes with a cost. Protection is an artificial legal monopoly. It is an economic fact that monopolies are anticompetitive, restrict the functioning of the free market, and result in higher costs to consumers and lost opportunity for businesses.
The 20 year duration of a "utility" patent is an eternity in the world of technology. The video cassette, for example, ran its entire course from invention to obsolescence in about 20 years. In software, this cycle is more like 5 years. The 20 year period is entirely inappropriate for software.
The United States granted patentability to software and business methods. The result has been the granting of absurd patents, such as the "one-click" patent awarded to Amazon. There are numerous examples of equally absurd patents for software that are as obvious to a software engineer as the "one-click" idea is obvious to anyone who's ever used a mouse. Billions have been wasted on meritless lawsuits like the SCO lawsuit against IBM. An entire industry of "patent terrorists" has evolved which produce nothing but IP lawsuits. Clearly this is not furthering innovation.
Sadly, the US congress is so controlled by corporate lobbyists that the plain and simple best interest of the public loses out to the narrow, but well financed interests of intellectual property holders. It's nice to see that the EU parliament is not quite so corrupted, yet.
I refer you to Stanford professor Lawrence Lessig and Berkeley professor Stephen M. Maurer for more information on this issue.
http://www.lessig.org/
http://violet.berkeley.edu/~gspp/people/affiliate
For those so inclined, consider supporting the EFF:
http://www.eff.org/
-cbare
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
Um... USA in favor of software patents... EU against them...
I think I finally know why & how the Third World War will start...
Thanks, I'm signed up.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
MMaybe. But some software patents involve algorithms, such as those used in compressing GIFs.
You should take our special package tour: 10 Turkish prisons in 10 years.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
This doesn't mean that there aren't software patents in Europe. It means that there aren't uniform software patent laws in Europe.
A very different thing.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
The posters who claim that software is fundamentally mathematical are entirely correct.
;)
... " ?
;-)
The fact that there are many layers of abstractions and interfaces between the world of pure mathematics and your daily work involving computers (programming, playing games, MP3's, whatever) does not change this fact. That these abstractions allow software to be used by people with no understanding of mathematics does not mean that software (and the inner workings of computers in general) is not mathematical "under the hood". Those programs are all bits. So are the graphics in those games. So are those MP3's. They are all being manipulated according to mathematically-defined rules.
People can certainly cook without knowledge of chemistry but this doesn't change the fact that cooking *is* chemistry, albeit in a high-level and abstracted form. Maybe I am an idiot, but I don't think this statement doesn't make me one.
And let's not lose sight of the topic here: patents.
Let's take your cooking analogy further. What if you could patent cooking methods? What if you were a baker who was put out of business because you were sued by someone who held a patent on a method of raising bread, and that patent was so broad that it covered the actual underlying *chemical processes* involved? Not just a patent on a particular bread oven (a physical invention), but the actual process...
A cooking patent could turn the whole chemical industry upside-down!
*That* is the danger with pure software patents. By allowing patents that cover software you are in reality allowing mathematical concepts to be patented. And allowing "ownership" of mathematics could have far reaching implications on almost every aspect of our daily lives.
Consider: "Claim I. A chemical process (software) for using an oven (computer) to convert dough (input) into bread (output)
Okay, maybe this whole cooking analogy is somewhat flawed, but hopefully it's good enough to give you some food for thought. Sorry, couldn't resist!
As others have stated already, this is not an end to the push for software patents. Each country will be lobbied by Microsoft and other corporations to institute patent laws country by country and a new push will ensue for uniform patents laws later.
What we need to do is to push for laws that prohibit software patents of any kind. Even if they are in some way connected to hardware.
If one thinks clearly it becomes obvious that pure software patents are not acceptable and in the case of hardware/software combinations that the patent on the hardware will suffice. If a company develops a piece of hardware and another company reverse engineers it and puts out better software for the device the company that owns the device benefits anyway. Software patents are just bad all the way around.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
This is over 50 years ago. Learn to calculate.
Good point. I guess I was just trying to say that having fewer representatives doesn't somehow make it easier for them to reply personally.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
With that logic anything digital can't be patented. Heck, anything that can be modeled using a device that uses mathematics as it basic building block can't be patented. After all it just boils down to discrete mathematics right?
"But then unis would need to chuck out 75% of people in the first year..."
;)
Oh they do that here hehe, this semester 6 people passed the very first introductory question from Analysis II out of 104.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
i say cue up the funky ewok music for im prepared to see a special edition fireworks show at the end of this long tedious battle for europe
"to be like god we make our own dolls to play with, but what does that make us, but dolls for god to play with?" Ikari,
I do not argue that computers have a mathematical basis for accomplishing their tasks, everyone studies that in school, but what does that have to do with whether a software concept should be patentable or not? You apparently believe just because CS (rather self-importantly IMO) claims to be a branch of applied mathematics then software that runs on a computer cannot be patented. Of course you never bother to explain why, perhaps because there is no logical connection between the two. Please explain why software should not be patentable as you have never mentioned that.
Think of this: if I can describe the operation of any system (steam engine, cotton mill) in a pure mathematical form can it not be patented? If I can model a system or invention using a digital computer can it not be patented? Or is the "virtualness" of software that people have a problem with?
Um, you certainly can patent cooking methods. Campbell soups has many patents on cooking processes.
Someone posted the warning that we should be ever vigilant, because big corps and all the pro-swpat cronies will not rest untill they get what they want, and that they would try other means if this directive failed.
Well, gues what: the FIRST SIGNS are already there. Here is a comment I stumbled upon already:
"During the debate on Tuesday, Commissioner Joaquín ALMUNIA told MEPs: "Should you decide to reject the common position, the Commission will not submit a new proposal." Attention now moves to the proposed directive for a Community patent, currently in discussion in the Council, mentioned by a number of MEPs as the appropriate legislative instrument to address the issue of software patentability."
So, now, it's not the CII anymore, but something weasily called the 'community patent'. Let's be very watchful on these sudden outbursts of 'helpful' patentreforms, and deny anyone to amend something to the point that it becomes a second software patent directive.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
I hope this means that Pirate Bay's existence would be extended. I've been hearing that they are on the verge of being shut down due to a possiblity of copyright/patent laws being changed.
I still love reading their responses to legal threats.
How about synthetic lawyers, built into Ford robots using Microsoft AI? Double whammy.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
It has already been established that the WTO's authority overrides national laws and EU laws. That's the deal the politicians in the 90s signed. As a result, governments that have tried to disobey the WTO, including the EU, have been slapped down.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
...I've been looking for this info all day.
Did they vote for the ammended or unammended version?
The concept of drag and drop is not mathematical. It is a concept. You are patenting the concept,
That's exactly what mathematics is about. Concepts. It is the science of concepts and abstraction, purely mental things (that, by coincidence, can be run on hardware). In this case, the highlevel concept of "drag and drop" is transformed by the programmer to the lowlevel concepts in a certain programming language. A purely mathematical process.
I know that CS research has a mathemetical basis, but this has NOTHING TO DO WITH SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT.
So, what do you think is the topic of CS research then? I have tried to follow the thread, and forgive me, but you don't have a clue.
I happen to have designed a programming/query language for XML (and got a PhD for it - google for Xcerpt if you are interested), and believe me, this is indeed purely mathematics. As Edsger Dijkstra said: "Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."
Sebastian
I for one welcome our new European Overlords. Hey why are all the smart people leaving the US? What's all this about China holding our national debt? Where's my tinfoil hat? Son of a BITCH, GET MY GUN!
YEE HAAAAAWWW!
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Ouch - how about a little reading comprehension for you? The US is supposed to have murdered more people in a 50 year period than anyone else *before*. Do you see how that "before" refers to the time before that 50 year period? Or is the meaning of "before" somehow in doubt?
Vectors are mathematics, comparisons are mathematic, sorting is mathematic, and so on. When you write software, you define sets of problems, and sets of solutions to those problems (though different methods say it in different ways.) If you ever read higher order mathematical problems, you would find that they read like programs.
As far as not having to know math, people calculate trajectories and velocities all the time without the foggiest notion that they are in fact carrying out some comlicated mathematics. Just because you do not know how what you are doing is mathematical does not mean what you are doing is not mathematical.
InnerWeb
Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
Not at all. But governments don't like those kind of statistics.
Try "Stalin".
Historians' estimates for Hitler: 11 million.
Historians' estimates for Stalin: 20-40 million.
Democracy, freedom, self governance, what ever you want to call it was advanced today. The defeat of EU sw patents was only the secondary victory. The primary victory was the will of individuals and SME's winning out over narrow special interests.
The real struggle isn't whether "we the people" can keep the "powers that be" from screwing us, it's whether we can take control of the governing process and force it to serve it's primary constituents, the majority, "we the people".
And as far as that struggle goes, today was a resounding sucsess.
Funny how people talk about competition between the two blocs like it's Cold War v2...
Me (Blog)
The list linked to is very nice, but it tells only a part of the picture. Another part is when WTO helped to fight blatant protectionism, like with steel tariffs in the USA. Besides, what do patents have to do with trade?
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)
Ok, cooking is a manipulation of chemicals, and CS is a manipulation of mathematical formulas.
Now. why the chemistry is patentable and cooking isn't.
And why the mathematics is unpatentable but software can be?
"basic elements" "complex systems"
chemistry -> cooking
mathematics -> software
Applying the cooking analogy, the mathematics will be patentable but software not.
I suspect that the train company in my area uses your steam engine constructed from mathematical operations, but most people prefer a physical thing to pull their train. Although you can use maths to describe the operation of a steam engine, it is not itself made of maths and logic. A computer program is pure maths and logic, and any "computer implemented invention" must be reduceable to that, otherwise it can't be implemented on a computer. You can implement a mathematical model of a steam engine on a computer, sure, but it isn't going to pull a train or pump water for you.
I
"If you invested a million dollars developing an algorithm"
Does not happen.
You can blow a million dollars developing a whole program, but thinking up a patent-grade algorithm costs you merely a few bucks spend on a average coder.
Which is precisly the point. Developing and TESTING a new drug costs 50-500 million dollars. The first pharma to do it will be at a disadvantage. Patents are very good at protecting this kind of investment.
Fight Frist Psoting!
Browse Slashdot with 'Newest First'!
Whether it ends up inside or outside the computer has no bearing on whether the entire process is mathematical : the entire system of machine, program, and input and output can be emulated on a turing machine. There is no difference between I/O and internal storage other than differences external to the machine : one is observable by an external observer, the other is not.
Look at it another way: lets say I have a sealed machine with no I/O. I then introduce an ultra-sensitive bit of equipment, which allows me to read and modify the internal state of the machine. Does the machine now have I/O? Have the processes governing the machine changed?
I still think you are equating mathematics and arithmetic.
I only addressed your single idiotic point because that was the idiotic point you made. It would take a very long time to address every idiotic statement you might make.
As to why software should not be patentable: it makes no economic sense, it damages innovation, software is sufficiently protected by copyright, any sufficiently limited software patent regime is indistinguishable from copyright, it is economically inviable to employ sufficiently skilled and numerous patent examiners, the EPC Art 52 says that mathematics is unpatentable, literary works are unpatentable, and software "as such" is unpatentable, it has a chilling effect on education, and numerous other reasons.
The reason directly relating to its mathematical basis is that mathematics is considered to be discovered and not invented (covers "new" algorithm "invention"), and the mere use of a discovery (writing a new program) are not held to be inventive either. Of course you can disagree with this, but this is the reason why people want to make clear that software is a purely mathematical field. If you believe that maths should be patentable, I would love to know what you think shouldn't be.
The TRIPS agreements, ruled on by the WTO, regard inadequate patent protection as an unfair restraint of trade.
I'm not saying the WTO has never done anything good. I'm surprised it hasn't ruled against region coding of DVDs, in fact.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
So the burden of proof is on those who say that lack of US-style software patents is inadequate patent protection. A topic for an interesting legal discussion.
"Long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead." (John Maynard Keynes)