The info about the 60 people at 3rd signaling is a week old. Latest news is that François Hollande, a Socialist (main opposition party) primary candidate leading the polls, has announced in a film industry lobby meeting that he will keep the HADOPI including the repressive part, just "adapting" it. That's contrary to his party programme and we will see how that fares in the primary and later.
The law that was voted today (link is to report where the law itself is in the second half) no longer has the strong interoperability provisions that in particular protected free software-based implementation of interoperability. It would be much more relevant to comment on the infamous Vivendi Universal amendment that is included in the voted text. The corresponding provisions create criminal sanctions (3 years of jail and 300000 euros = 375000 US$) for software writers, distributers and importers for software that is "manifestly destinated" to the unauthorised sharing of copyrighted works. The exclusion of general collaborative work or file exchange software from these sanctions has been deleted in the final text. They also make possible for right holders to ask for judicial injonctions to software publishers and service providers to implement DRMs in software that is "manifestly used" even for at non-commercial scale for sharing works without authorisation. I don't know if Apple will keep screaming about the law, but there is much more to cry about for software freedom, intellectual freedoms and free culture.
Lower the threshold of exigence for what can be linked with GPL-ed code, drop the pressure to develop -whatever it costs in terms of pains- free (as in freedom) drivers and you will see what the nice proprietary world looks like when it has no threat of free competition.
Agreed, but is not extending patents to cover informational entities exactly the type of "throwing out refined wisdom" that you are afraid of ? It was introduced over a short period, and by throwing out the output of a considerable debate that had concluded that one should not do it. For instance, people seem to forget that between 1950 and 1970, the idea of patenting software and information processing was rejected after an in-depth debate, and by people who knew what they were doing. Refer to a remarkable paper by Christian Beauprez for full coverage. Should we now accept to live forever with this absurdity because some interest groups took advantage of a momentaneous situation to install it ?
IMHO, this editorial piece is a strategic smoke screen to put the emphasis on "patent reform" in front of the growing movements that challenge the scope of patentable subject matter. In the recent Geneva Conference on the Future of WIPO, the USPTO, WIPO and US Trade representative all supported "tuning generic patentability criteria", while critics supported excluding software, information processing, gene sequences and vegetal varieties from patentability. Guess which has more chance to bring the system back to reason ? Guess which is supported by the big patent portfolio holders ?
It tells a lot about India's and other developing world countries needs, and sensible approaches to technology-based development. See also the statement by the Delegate from Brazil
You are right about patents in manufacturing or physical process industries, at least when players are of similar size. For software and information patents at large (including patents on molecules and vegetal varieties), cross licensing also occurs between large companies. However anti-competitive usage, rent-seeking through monopoly pricing in particular in pharmaceutics, royalty rackets by specialised portfolio companies (with no products), and standards hijacking are frequent. Patents are also used to lure investors into believing that ideas are an asset. Last but not least, software and information-based patents are extremely useful for tax "minimisation" purposes, including through complex networks of cross-licensing.
Just as Mr. Rosen had trouble understanding what makes free software work when he proposed a contractualised version of the GPL, he seems to have trouble to move out of lawyer / contract / royalty thinking regarding patents. He reasons as if patents were tools for making money through royalties and not tools to block your competitors. However, one point is true: it is difficult to attack free / open source projects with patents because of the strength of community response. That's why the attacks are likely to focus on users (scare them), isolated developers (already done), and companies doing a mix of free and proprietary software.
By allowing Microsoft to charge royalties on implementing interoperability interfaces when they are covered by patents ot other titles, it makes it impossible for a free software project to implement interoperability. The Commission once again shows that it cares only for competition... among multinationals. For the Europeans: this is one more reason to reject software patents. "Encore un effort..." Curiously the French version of the press release says "reasonable and non-discriminatory" while the English only says only "reasonable". I guess that's meant to please the French and Microsoft at the same time:-)
This time, contrarily to others, this is truly a victory for those who fight against patentability of software. Amendements 69,70,71,72, 55 first part and 57 have been voted. They exclude completely information processing methods from patentability, state a standard of accepting as technical only the use of foreces of nature to control physical effects beyong the representation of information, reject software claims, forbid to take in account non-technical features to decide on whether there is an innovative technical contribution, etc.
This is a historical turning point: for the first time a coalition has rejected the extension of restrictions to free and open knwoledge. The news release are all wrong because they can't imagine that the coalition was so wide, and misinterpret the no vote of the Green on the full report. On key amendments 1/3 of PPE, 2/3 of PSE and 1/2 of Liberals voted with the Green, the united left, and small parties to adopt this text.
The misinformation about this outcome is truly sad, but truth will emerge: the adopted amendements are those that the Commissioner Bolkestein yesterday described as "unacceptable".
The amendments include such things as introduction of software claims (amendment 18 from by Mr. Galgani, PPE-DE) and a definition of technical contribution which is exactly the same than the one proposed by the pro-patent European Council intellectual property committee.
It is known since Thursday 26 June that the vote will not occur on 30 June. Despite pressure from the pro-patent UK labour rapporteur Arlene McCarthy, the conference of group presidents in the Parliament has decided that the vote in plenary will occur only in September. A little more time to convince Members of the European Parliament of all parties of the the common sense decision: rejecting patents for software ideas and information processing methods.
This was described in detail by Marcia Ascher
on
Incas Used Binary?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
and her husband Robert... in 1997. She published articles about it much earlier.
Mathematics of the Incas Code of the Quipu by Marcia Ascher and Robert Ascher Dover Publications ISBN 0486295540
Unique, thought-provoking study discusses quipu, an accounting system employing knotted, colored cords, used by Incas to transmit information. Cultural context, mathematics involved, quipu-maker in Inca society-even how to make a quipu. Fascinating for anthropologists, ethnologists, students, general readers. Over 125 photos and illustrations.
The message is in Catalan, but contains the full text of the petition in English with list of signatories. The petition explicitly warns against claims that only patents with "technical contribution" will be granted, when the practice of the patent office has opened the door to anything being considered technical.
> You seem to have no idea what you're talking > about. Search the internet for "RSA" and find out > how it works. The security of RSA depends on the > difficulty of factorization. I precisely stated that if the Riemann hypothesis is proven, then the difficulty of factorisation is CONFIRMED.
Since several proofs of lower bounds on complexity of factoring of numbers with large factors are based on the generalised Riemann hypothesis being true, proving it would CONFIRM the validity of modern cryptography (at least within the realm of classic computing).
The above statement does not imply that I think such a proof exists.
Microsoft has some really awful business ethics, but I don't remember a case when they have misused the American patent system First, people who believe it is right to patent software ideas would argue that this would not be misuse but a normal use. Second, one might want to reflect on the answer that Craig Mundie gave at the last O'Reilly Open Source Convention to a question on whether Microsoft would enforce its patents (in that case against free / open source software): "Get your money!". Their defensive usage only policy is not cast in concrete.
A just published on-line paper from Philippe Aigrain proposes an analysis framework that leads to the opposite view. He argues that GPL should be the preferred choice for publicly-funded software, especially when it plays or can play a role in the common infrastructure of the information society. See:
Background: Recent American books (Rifkin in the Age of Access, yourself) seem to leave little hope of avoiding a tragedy of enclosures. In Europe, the common good of information and software commons benefits from a wider and more politicised support. This is not due to a difference in industry: European corporations are as keen on building enclosures. But there is a stronger resistance in public opinion. Can it suffice, and help with the US situation?
What should be and what law should force
on
Freedom or Power?
·
· Score: 1
The case made by RMS and Bradley Kuhn would be more convincing if they distinguish between:
- what is the desirable state of things
- what can be obtained by law to achieve it
Let's assume one agrees (I do) that the desirable state of rights of users of software is the freedoms as defined for free software. How to go there from where we presently stand? There is a minimum requirement: to make sure that law and practice does not restrict the freedom to license under the "make free, keep free and give and give alike" approach of the GPL. Reactions after attacks on the GPL have shown that this has strong support, well beyond the free software arena. But now, should one restrict the possibility of others to license under non-free licenses? The answer is in my opinion two-fold:
- Law should forbid taking away from users some very basic freedoms. It should also abstain from making proprietary licensing and its various protections usable to make it impossible in practice to develop and disseminate an overall infrastructure of free software.
- If - AND ONLY IF- this is obtained, why forbid those who want to jail themselves in the prisons of proprietary licenses to do so? Let competition between services to freedom and ownership of power occur, and count on democratical debate and user choices to sort out which is best.
There is of course a caveat: if the very basic freedoms of users of software that should be protected by law are identical to the free software freedoms my reasoning is flawed.
The stat is impressive. But it may equally important to know how much total time is spent accessing all sites EXCEPT the 100 most visited ones. This number can still grow very much while in parallel there is concentration on the most visited. The Web is a superposition of media, with some "centralised" components and many decentralised ones.
Balaitous
Slashdot Mirror
The info about the 60 people at 3rd signaling is a week old. Latest news is that François Hollande, a Socialist (main opposition party) primary candidate leading the polls, has announced in a film industry lobby meeting that he will keep the HADOPI including the repressive part, just "adapting" it. That's contrary to his party programme and we will see how that fares in the primary and later.
See https://mpl.mozilla.org/participate/comment/
The law that was voted today (link is to report where the law itself is in the second half) no longer has the strong interoperability provisions that in particular protected free software-based implementation of interoperability. It would be much more relevant to comment on the infamous Vivendi Universal amendment that is included in the voted text. The corresponding provisions create criminal sanctions (3 years of jail and 300000 euros = 375000 US$) for software writers, distributers and importers for software that is "manifestly destinated" to the unauthorised sharing of copyrighted works. The exclusion of general collaborative work or file exchange software from these sanctions has been deleted in the final text. They also make possible for right holders to ask for judicial injonctions to software publishers and service providers to implement DRMs in software that is "manifestly used" even for at non-commercial scale for sharing works without authorisation. I don't know if Apple will keep screaming about the law, but there is much more to cry about for software freedom, intellectual freedoms and free culture.
Lower the threshold of exigence for what can be linked with GPL-ed code, drop the pressure to develop -whatever it costs in terms of pains- free (as in freedom) drivers and you will see what the nice proprietary world looks like when it has no threat of free competition.
Agreed, but is not extending patents to cover informational entities exactly the type of "throwing out refined wisdom" that you are afraid of ? It was introduced over a short period, and by throwing out the output of a considerable debate that had concluded that one should not do it. For instance, people seem to forget that between 1950 and 1970, the idea of patenting software and information processing was rejected after an in-depth debate, and by people who knew what they were doing. Refer to a remarkable paper by Christian Beauprez for full coverage.
Should we now accept to live forever with this absurdity because some interest groups took advantage of a momentaneous situation to install it ?
IMHO, this editorial piece is a strategic smoke screen to put the emphasis on "patent reform" in front of the growing movements that challenge the scope of patentable subject matter. In the recent Geneva Conference on the Future of WIPO, the USPTO, WIPO and US Trade representative all supported "tuning generic patentability criteria", while critics supported excluding software, information processing, gene sequences and vegetal varieties from patentability. Guess which has more chance to bring the system back to reason ? Guess which is supported by the big patent portfolio holders ?
It's here
It tells a lot about India's and other developing world countries needs, and sensible approaches to technology-based development.
See also the statement by the Delegate from Brazil
You are right about patents in manufacturing or physical process industries, at least when players are of similar size. For software and information patents at large (including patents on molecules and vegetal varieties), cross licensing also occurs between large companies. However anti-competitive usage, rent-seeking through monopoly pricing in particular in pharmaceutics, royalty rackets by specialised portfolio companies (with no products), and standards hijacking are frequent. Patents are also used to lure investors into believing that ideas are an asset. Last but not least, software and information-based patents are extremely useful for tax "minimisation" purposes, including through complex networks of cross-licensing.
Just as Mr. Rosen had trouble understanding what makes free software work when he proposed a contractualised version of the GPL, he seems to have trouble to move out of lawyer / contract / royalty thinking regarding patents. He reasons as if patents were tools for making money through royalties and not tools to block your competitors. However, one point is true: it is difficult to attack free / open source projects with patents because of the strength of community response. That's why the attacks are likely to focus on users (scare them), isolated developers (already done), and companies doing a mix of free and proprietary software.
By allowing Microsoft to charge royalties on implementing interoperability interfaces when they are covered by patents ot other titles, it makes it impossible for a free software project to implement interoperability. The Commission once again shows that it cares only for competition ... among multinationals. ..." :-)
For the Europeans: this is one more reason to reject software patents. "Encore un effort
Curiously the French version of the press release says "reasonable and non-discriminatory" while the English only says only "reasonable". I guess that's meant to please the French and Microsoft at the same time
This time, contrarily to others, this is truly a victory for those who fight against patentability of software. Amendements 69,70,71,72, 55 first part and 57 have been voted. They exclude completely information processing methods from patentability, state a standard of accepting as technical only the use of foreces of nature to control physical effects beyong the representation of information, reject software claims, forbid to take in account non-technical features to decide on whether there is an innovative technical contribution, etc.
This is a historical turning point: for the first time a coalition has rejected the extension of restrictions to free and open knwoledge. The news release are all wrong because they can't imagine that the coalition was so wide, and misinterpret the no vote of the Green on the full report. On key amendments 1/3 of PPE, 2/3 of PSE and 1/2 of Liberals voted with the Green, the united left, and small parties to adopt this text.
The misinformation about this outcome is truly sad, but truth will emerge: the adopted amendements are those that the Commissioner Bolkestein yesterday described as "unacceptable".
The amendments include such things as introduction of software claims (amendment 18 from by Mr. Galgani, PPE-DE) and a definition of technical contribution which is exactly the same than the one proposed by the pro-patent European Council intellectual property committee.
For an analysis see:
Analysis of JURI amendments by FFI
It is known since Thursday 26 June that the vote will not occur on 30 June. Despite pressure from the pro-patent UK labour rapporteur Arlene McCarthy, the conference of group presidents in the Parliament has decided that the vote in plenary will occur only in September.
A little more time to convince Members of the European Parliament of all parties of the the common sense decision: rejecting patents for software ideas and information processing methods.
and her husband Robert... in 1997. She published articles about it much earlier.
Mathematics of the Incas
Code of the Quipu
by Marcia Ascher and Robert Ascher
Dover Publications
ISBN 0486295540
Unique, thought-provoking study discusses quipu, an accounting system employing knotted, colored cords, used by Incas to transmit information. Cultural context, mathematics involved, quipu-maker in Inca society-even how to make a quipu. Fascinating for anthropologists, ethnologists, students, general readers. Over 125 photos and illustrations.
See this petition signed by the leading European computer scientists, including Robin Milner (Turing Award) and Géraud Sénizergues (Godel Award):
The message is in Catalan, but contains the full text of the petition in English with list of signatories. The petition explicitly warns against claims that only patents with "technical contribution" will be granted, when the practice of the patent office has opened the door to anything being considered technical.
See the license information on its Web site.
> You seem to have no idea what you're talking
> about. Search the internet for "RSA" and find out
> how it works. The security of RSA depends on the
> difficulty of factorization.
I precisely stated that if the Riemann hypothesis is proven, then the difficulty of factorisation is CONFIRMED.
Since several proofs of lower bounds on complexity of factoring of numbers with large factors are based on the generalised Riemann hypothesis being true, proving it would CONFIRM the validity of modern cryptography (at least within the realm of classic computing).
The above statement does not imply that I think such a proof exists.
on ways to present results by classifying them into categories derived from ontologies: US 5,924,090
Microsoft has some really awful business ethics, but I don't remember a case when they have misused the American patent system
First, people who believe it is right to patent software ideas would argue that this would not be misuse but a normal use.
Second, one might want to reflect on the answer that Craig Mundie gave at the last O'Reilly Open Source Convention to a question on whether Microsoft would enforce its patents (in that case against free / open source software): "Get your money!". Their defensive usage only policy is not cast in concrete.
Try http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PT O2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2Fsearch-bool.ht ml&r=0&f=S&l=50&TERM1=Microsoft&FIELD1=ASNM&co1=AN D&TERM2=browser&FIELD2=&d=pall
So what they don't get by technology, they might try to force by litigation, particularly if software patents would be officialised in Europe.
See:
A Framework to Understand the Impact of GPL-Copylefting vs. Non-copylefting Licenses
Background: Recent American books (Rifkin in the Age of Access, yourself) seem to leave little hope of avoiding a tragedy of enclosures. In Europe, the common good of information and software commons benefits from a wider and more politicised support. This is not due to a difference in industry: European corporations are as keen on building enclosures. But there is a stronger resistance in public opinion. Can it suffice, and help with the US situation?
The case made by RMS and Bradley Kuhn would be more convincing if they distinguish between:
- what is the desirable state of things
- what can be obtained by law to achieve it
Let's assume one agrees (I do) that the desirable state of rights of users of software is the freedoms as defined for free software. How to go there from where we presently stand? There is a minimum requirement: to make sure that law and practice does not restrict the freedom to license under the "make free, keep free and give and give alike" approach of the GPL. Reactions after attacks on the GPL have shown that this has strong support, well beyond the free software arena. But now, should one restrict the possibility of others to license under non-free licenses? The answer is in my opinion two-fold:
- Law should forbid taking away from users some very basic freedoms. It should also abstain from making proprietary licensing and its various protections usable to make it impossible in practice to develop and disseminate an overall infrastructure of free software.
- If - AND ONLY IF- this is obtained, why forbid those who want to jail themselves in the prisons of proprietary licenses to do so? Let competition between services to freedom and ownership of power occur, and count on democratical debate and user choices to sort out which is best.
There is of course a caveat: if the very basic freedoms of users of software that should be protected by law are identical to the free software freedoms my reasoning is flawed.
The stat is impressive. But it may equally important to know how much total time is spent accessing all sites EXCEPT the 100 most visited ones. This number can still grow very much while in parallel there is concentration on the most visited. The Web is a superposition of media, with some "centralised" components and many decentralised ones. Balaitous