> Possibly because Wikipedia used obtrusive ads to raise money this time.
There's a difference. Wikipedia has to get money from somewhere. The question is, should it be dependent on its readers for funding, or dependent on companies that buy ad space?
Whoever it chooses, Wikipedia has to please its funders. I'm glad they continue to choose to please their readers.
What effects would there be on the content and policies if Wikipedia had to please the buyers of ad space? How much poo flinging and how many conspiracy theories would spring up about the content and policies? Frankly, dependency on buyers of ad space would ruin Wikipedia.
I can't understand the mentality of the story summary.
The news is: the annual fund raiser was a success. It raised more money than ever before, in a shorter time than the previous fund raisers.
How does raising oodles of money without ads make someone wonder if ads will soon be required?
The news story answers this question: No, there is clearly no need for ads.
Ads could even ruin Wikipedia's funding model. Would so many people donate if there were ads and if Wikipedia had a conflict of interest (don't offend the advertisers)?
More important than yet-another-silly-patent, this year there will be opportunities to fix this mess somewhat. In the USA, the Supreme Court is to hear the i4i v. Microsoft case, and in Canada, the Federal Court of Appeal will decide if Amazon's 1-click patent is valid patentable subject matter.
This is the result of a few years of work by Alexandre Oliva (FSFLA), who worked on the Linux-libre project and travelled to give presentations about the amount of non-free software in the default Linux kernel.
(it's also generally thanks to the gNewSense guys, Paul O'Malley & Brian Brazil in Ireland, who worked on the general issue of non-free software in distros, but the specific work on the kernel was championed by Alexandre.)
For one thing, it would exclude Wikipedia from certain sources of funding.
For another, it would introduce conflicts of interest that would seriously tarnish Wikipedia's credibility (a topic it already has to fight for).
Third, it would demotivate certain contributors who want to work on a free encyclopaedia but have no interest in developing a product placement platform.
Yeh, I paused when writing that post, but hey, I'm looking for help, and what's the point in *not* asking?
If no one has anything helpful to say, it will just get modded offtopic, and then my comment won't bother anyone, and that's what the mod system is for.
It'd be easy to lose the battle against software patents - just do nothing. Sometimes I comment to be informative, sometimes I comment just to shamelessly ask for help.
Below are links to background info, but keep in mind that trolls create a tax, but they're not the big problem. They're generally not the patent holders that break standards or exclude free software projects. They're just after money, so they are parasites to the rich. The MPEG-LA patents, for example, are much more harmful (they blocked HTML5 from including a standard video format) and are held by "real" software companies.
Back in the days of printed stuff, there were thousands of outlets. If one barred a certain publication, it was no big deal. The public could buy it in the other shop down the road.
With e-publishing, there's massive consolidation that changes this situation. Amazon or Apple blocking a publication is *not* analogous to a shop choosing not to stock a publication.
My own fear about all these court cases is that when the dust settles we'll have half a dozen companies who've paid dearly for nothing (other than the right to distribute their software) and this companies won't take too kindly to new developers.
We'll be left with a cartel. If you want to write software for phones, you better pay the expensive cross-licences or get into the protection of someone who has.
He says that pressure from Google convinced FSF to not "close the ASP loophole", but that's not how it was.
FSF wanted to close the ASP loophole (by putting the Affero clause into GPLv3), but many software developers and many companies were against this.
This left FSF with the choice of producing their ideal licence, and few people using it, or producing a licence that was an improvement compared to GPLv2, and more people using it.
The licence exists to give freedom to users and to protect distributors from patent attacks. It can't do these things if no one uses it! So FSF reluctantly left the Affero clause out of GPLv3.
Same goes for the patent clause. FSF could have put a waaay broader patent grant into GPLv3, but then the patent holders simply wouldn't distribute any GPLv3'd software.
Instead, FSF started with GPLv2 and looked at every section where they could get more freedom and more protections for the distributors and the users, while ensuring that it would be used by software projects and that companies would distribute GPLv3 software. That's what it means to be pragmatic.
(Selling out your users is completely different and shouldn't be called "pragmatic")
That is to say, commercialising a project can be done without spoiling the software.
In the 80s, distributing tapes was one model. Teaching classes is another model (which RMS also did for GCC). In the 90s, service companies sprung up.
Commerce isn't inherently bad. But it's also not inherently necessary.
Advertising funds such a tiny amount of free software development, we shouldn't worry about losing it. There are other business models. Ones which rely on doing something useful which people choose to pay for.
Is all IP-related stuff really in the cables tagged "KIPR"? Or is that just a generality? Can cables have multiple tags or is the tag only for the "main" topic of the cable? (I mean, if a cable talks mostly about some other topic but mentions patents, will it have only the other topic's tag or will it also have the KIPR tag?)
I'm not doubting anyone that these cases took place:-) Thing is, I'm building a wiki of information which should be useful for campaigns against software patents. I'm trying to raise the standard of discussion, so I avoid adding information that doesn't come with proof.
I probably won't get time to read that book.
As for being on one side or the other, I'm on neither. My role is that I'm trying to *document* what happened (insofar as it's relevant to patents and software development). I'm not calling for anyone to win or lose. I'm just pointing out what influence this case might have for software patents (which is of course *if* IBM loses, since if IBM wins, this case can't have any influence on software patents).
What you describe is the current situation, but the European Commission has been working on a Community Patent since 2000 which will be published officially only in English and would be valid across the whole EU (of if they don't get agreement on that, it will be opt-in, and 25 out of 27 countries have indicated they'd opt-in). Human translations to French and German would be made (of all or part of the patent), and machine translations for the other 26 languages.
So, there will be a law in Spain, Italy, Poland, etc. saying "It is illegal to do anything described in the EPO's patents". And the EPO will only officially publish the patents in English.
Hmm, that mention of royalties is usually a bad sign, but it would be interesting to see what might happen if IBM's only competitor was a free software project.
Hate to be a broken record, but have you a link (maybe a Wikipedia page) for that case?
(The reason I keep asking for links is that I'm building a wiki at en.swpat.org which is an information resource for campaigns against software patents. I'm trying to raise the general quality of lobbying, so I try to avoid adding unsourced stories.)
Did the US case in the 80s touch the patents issue at all?
If it was over software, it probably didn't since no one was really using software patents back then, but if there were any patent issues, I'd still be interested in getting a reference so I can look into how the competition authority handled it.
(To restate the broader question: when the competition authority finds anti-competitive behaviour that's being propped up by contract or market forces, and takes the necessary action to end this anti-competitive behaviour, does this prevent the losing party from using their patents to continue to exclude competitors?)
Slashdot Mirror
And my new year's resolution is to make important resolutions in 2012.
> Possibly because Wikipedia used obtrusive ads to raise money this time.
There's a difference. Wikipedia has to get money from somewhere. The question is, should it be dependent on its readers for funding, or dependent on companies that buy ad space?
Whoever it chooses, Wikipedia has to please its funders. I'm glad they continue to choose to please their readers.
What effects would there be on the content and policies if Wikipedia had to please the buyers of ad space? How much poo flinging and how many conspiracy theories would spring up about the content and policies? Frankly, dependency on buyers of ad space would ruin Wikipedia.
I can't understand the mentality of the story summary.
The news is: the annual fund raiser was a success. It raised more money than ever before, in a shorter time than the previous fund raisers.
How does raising oodles of money without ads make someone wonder if ads will soon be required?
The news story answers this question: No, there is clearly no need for ads.
Ads could even ruin Wikipedia's funding model. Would so many people donate if there were ads and if Wikipedia had a conflict of interest (don't offend the advertisers)?
More important than yet-another-silly-patent, this year there will be opportunities to fix this mess somewhat. In the USA, the Supreme Court is to hear the i4i v. Microsoft case, and in Canada, the Federal Court of Appeal will decide if Amazon's 1-click patent is valid patentable subject matter.
Background info:
This is the result of a few years of work by Alexandre Oliva (FSFLA), who worked on the Linux-libre project and travelled to give presentations about the amount of non-free software in the default Linux kernel.
http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
http://www.fsfla.org/svnwiki/selibre/linux-libre/
(it's also generally thanks to the gNewSense guys, Paul O'Malley & Brian Brazil in Ireland, who worked on the general issue of non-free software in distros, but the specific work on the kernel was championed by Alexandre.)
Another snippet from the summary:
> failed to meet the company's goal until
Until. So, they *did* meet their goals. What are you complaining about??
(This is just the stupidity from the summary. There's nothing there to suggest it would be worth clicking through to the actual articles.)
From TFA's summary:
> Wales attempted the same request for donations last year
Dude, it's an end of year fundraiser! (And it worked very well, they raised plenty of money.)
It's about as surprising as trains being cancelled in Autumn because of "leaves on the tracks".
For one thing, it would exclude Wikipedia from certain sources of funding.
For another, it would introduce conflicts of interest that would seriously tarnish Wikipedia's credibility (a topic it already has to fight for).
Third, it would demotivate certain contributors who want to work on a free encyclopaedia but have no interest in developing a product placement platform.
It's not "caving" when you do the right thing. They may even have done this *despite* strong pressure from agencies of the US government.
Or they might have done it because they think it's legally unavoidable. But that's still not a bad thing.
Education, despite looking like a big institution, is affected just as hard as small companies and individuals.
Yeh, I paused when writing that post, but hey, I'm looking for help, and what's the point in *not* asking?
If no one has anything helpful to say, it will just get modded offtopic, and then my comment won't bother anyone, and that's what the mod system is for.
It'd be easy to lose the battle against software patents - just do nothing. Sometimes I comment to be informative, sometimes I comment just to shamelessly ask for help.
The Federal Court of Appeal (just below the Supreme Court) will be deciding if Amazon's 1-click patent is valid patentable subject matter.
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Canadian_patent_courts_and_appeals
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Workspace_for_Canada_1-click_appeal
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Canada
It would be very useful if someone could pass on any hints about groups in Canada who might/should be interested in working on this.
Below are links to background info, but keep in mind that trolls create a tax, but they're not the big problem. They're generally not the patent holders that break standards or exclude free software projects. They're just after money, so they are parasites to the rich. The MPEG-LA patents, for example, are much more harmful (they blocked HTML5 from including a standard video format) and are held by "real" software companies.
swpat.org is a publicly editable wiki, help welcome.
Back in the days of printed stuff, there were thousands of outlets. If one barred a certain publication, it was no big deal. The public could buy it in the other shop down the road.
With e-publishing, there's massive consolidation that changes this situation. Amazon or Apple blocking a publication is *not* analogous to a shop choosing not to stock a publication.
My own fear about all these court cases is that when the dust settles we'll have half a dozen companies who've paid dearly for nothing (other than the right to distribute their software) and this companies won't take too kindly to new developers.
We'll be left with a cartel. If you want to write software for phones, you better pay the expensive cross-licences or get into the protection of someone who has.
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Cost_barrier_to_market_entry
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Phone_patent_litigation
How many programs do you have installed? 100? How many need to sell information about you in order to exist?
Other than your browser, the answer's zero. In my opinion, including the browser, it's still zero.
I think Matt's portrayal of FSF is disingenuous.
He says that pressure from Google convinced FSF to not "close the ASP loophole", but that's not how it was.
FSF wanted to close the ASP loophole (by putting the Affero clause into GPLv3), but many software developers and many companies were against this.
This left FSF with the choice of producing their ideal licence, and few people using it, or producing a licence that was an improvement compared to GPLv2, and more people using it.
The licence exists to give freedom to users and to protect distributors from patent attacks. It can't do these things if no one uses it! So FSF reluctantly left the Affero clause out of GPLv3.
Same goes for the patent clause. FSF could have put a waaay broader patent grant into GPLv3, but then the patent holders simply wouldn't distribute any GPLv3'd software.
Instead, FSF started with GPLv2 and looked at every section where they could get more freedom and more protections for the distributors and the users, while ensuring that it would be used by software projects and that companies would distribute GPLv3 software. That's what it means to be pragmatic.
(Selling out your users is completely different and shouldn't be called "pragmatic")
That is to say, commercialising a project can be done without spoiling the software.
In the 80s, distributing tapes was one model. Teaching classes is another model (which RMS also did for GCC). In the 90s, service companies sprung up.
Commerce isn't inherently bad. But it's also not inherently necessary.
Advertising funds such a tiny amount of free software development, we shouldn't worry about losing it. There are other business models. Ones which rely on doing something useful which people choose to pay for.
Richard Stallman was selling tapes of Emacs and GCC back in the 80s and made sure the GPL allowed selling.
Here's his essay about how to do it but at the same time ensure it doesn't end up funding proprietary software:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html
Here's where I'll be reviewing the cables for swpat stuff:
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Cablegate_info_on_software_patents
Is all IP-related stuff really in the cables tagged "KIPR"? Or is that just a generality? Can cables have multiple tags or is the tag only for the "main" topic of the cable? (I mean, if a cable talks mostly about some other topic but mentions patents, will it have only the other topic's tag or will it also have the KIPR tag?)
I'm not doubting anyone that these cases took place :-) Thing is, I'm building a wiki of information which should be useful for campaigns against software patents. I'm trying to raise the standard of discussion, so I avoid adding information that doesn't come with proof.
I probably won't get time to read that book.
As for being on one side or the other, I'm on neither. My role is that I'm trying to *document* what happened (insofar as it's relevant to patents and software development). I'm not calling for anyone to win or lose. I'm just pointing out what influence this case might have for software patents (which is of course *if* IBM loses, since if IBM wins, this case can't have any influence on software patents).
Y'd think!
What you describe is the current situation, but the European Commission has been working on a Community Patent since 2000 which will be published officially only in English and would be valid across the whole EU (of if they don't get agreement on that, it will be opt-in, and 25 out of 27 countries have indicated they'd opt-in). Human translations to French and German would be made (of all or part of the patent), and machine translations for the other 26 languages.
So, there will be a law in Spain, Italy, Poland, etc. saying "It is illegal to do anything described in the EPO's patents". And the EPO will only officially publish the patents in English.
Hard to believe, but that's where we're at now.
Hmm, that mention of royalties is usually a bad sign, but it would be interesting to see what might happen if IBM's only competitor was a free software project.
Hate to be a broken record, but have you a link (maybe a Wikipedia page) for that case?
(The reason I keep asking for links is that I'm building a wiki at en.swpat.org which is an information resource for campaigns against software patents. I'm trying to raise the general quality of lobbying, so I try to avoid adding unsourced stories.)
Ok, thanks.
Did the US case in the 80s touch the patents issue at all?
If it was over software, it probably didn't since no one was really using software patents back then, but if there were any patent issues, I'd still be interested in getting a reference so I can look into how the competition authority handled it.
(To restate the broader question: when the competition authority finds anti-competitive behaviour that's being propped up by contract or market forces, and takes the necessary action to end this anti-competitive behaviour, does this prevent the losing party from using their patents to continue to exclude competitors?)
> You know this has been decided before in favor of IBM.
Oh? Got a link?
My understanding was, as is mentioned in the story summary:
"You might remember TurboHercules: In March, it filed an antitrust complaint with the EU over IBM's tying of its mainframe OSes with its hardware."
I.e. no decision has been taken.
If you can give a link to show it's been decided, I'll be happy to admit I wasn't up to date on the case.