This strategy, ah, hardly reflects the tone of the original article.:)
Did you expect the press to immediately understand what MS is really trying to do here?
Here is my analysis: What Microsoft proposes is a change that will make the software patents problem worse rather than better, by encouraging hackers to play a new kind of software patents lottery, by filing software patents, and then trying to sell licenses for those patents to Microsoft. Microsoft will then buy licenses to those patents which could be relevant to Microsoft's future products. This initiative is targeting specifically businesses for whom the relatively small patent filing fees are significant, i.e. businesses who could never even dream of filing a patent infringement lawsuit against MS. That means that the chances of MS to essentially dictate the price and other terms and conditions of those patent licenses wouldn't be too bad. I'm sure that the license contract would prevent the patent holder from also licensing the patent to third parties under terms which are compatible with the idea of Free Software. Besides this nasty side effect, the benefit of this scheme to MS is that MS would be able to buy patent licenses relatively cheaply *before* releasing products which infringe those patents. (Buying patent licenses is problematic for MS only after MS has already released a program which infringes the patent, because in that situation the patent holder has a strong negotiating position).
If this strategy works out, it'll give MS a huge edge over every other software company, essentially granting a permanent monopoly to MS. MS is willing to share part of the monopoly rent with some small software businesses by buying patent licenses from them.
They may have been talking about it since 1991, but I can't believe this is a major corporate concern given what they did in Denmark.
The strategy memo which I cited suggests to react to the concern by filing as many software patents as possible, and entering patent cross-licensing agreements with major IT companies. MS has since then done exactly what Bill Gates said they should do, and they have expended significant resources on this. They are definately genuinely concerned. Of course they'll never support a solution that doesn't support and protect their monopoly position.
I see as positive that Microsoft now admits that "It's only a system that works for the largest companies."
We can quote them on that. That might be helpful.
It's also good if this initiative results in more public discussion of the issue.
What is important to avoid however is to allow any Microsoft-sponsored law on the topic to get adopted. No such law will do anything to solve the problem. It will however reduce the probability of software patentability getting overturned by the US Supreme Court.
This is all a PR smoke-screen to distract attention from Europe.
Yes, that may well be among the motivations for bringing this intiative at this time. In addition, their best rational egoistic self-interest it to get really bad patent laws adopted in Europe and Japan and *then* lobby in the US for a somewhat better patent law.
A-items are a rubber stamping of translations, of previously agreed directives. So far, Poland have been blocking the A-item from getting onto any agendas, but they seem to have finally been nobbled.
Based on actually meeting the people who were involved, and having been personally in the room while the relevant commission of Sejm (Polish Parliament) discussed the matter, I can assure you that all this talk about them having "finally been nobbled" is total nonsense. Here is the real story: When back in December that infamous directive proposal showed up as an "A-Item" on the agenda for the Agriculture and Fisheries Council, MEP Jerzy Buzek (a former Prime Minister of Poland) started working on a plan for a counterattack. This plan was based on the idea of a restart request from JURI, which in the meantime has happened. However, for procedural reasons, a delay was needed because JURI cannot make the restart request after a Council decision has been announced to the EU Parliament. For this reason, a plan was conceived to get as much delay as was needed, in a way which other countries cannot reasonably object to. What Poland did (Minister Marcinski carried this out in response to Mr Buzek's request) was that they asked to be given a chance to submit a text, to be added to the "paper trail" of the directive proposal on its way through EU insitutions, which explains from Poland's perspective what is wrong with this directive proposal. This text about Poland's concerns has in the meantime been submitted (I think it's pretty good), but producing it took long enough to get the necessary delay. That is the grain of truth behind the reports that you've been reading about Poland not planning to ask for another delay. Delays are always limited in duration, in this case the delay was until a certain paper document would be submitted which in the meantime has happened.
Based on the atmosphere which I witnessed both in Sejm and in the responsible ministry this week, I am sure that Poland will have the necessary creativity to find a way to ask for another delay, if that turns out to be necessary.
In the meantime, there is no doubt that Poland will support good moves from other countries.
Or look at Poland: first voted for it, then decided to be against it, and now in a status of "oh, in case we're the only ones against we'd also vote for it".
What's your source for the claim that Poland ever voted for it? I recall reading a claim somewhere on the FFII website that their position was incorrectly recorded after they had not even been asked for a clear statement on their position about that "political agreement" because at that time it was thought that the agreement has enough supporters that Poland's position doesn't matter.
Concerning the "oh, in case we're the only ones against we'd also vote for it" point, that is clearly a misrepresentation of the situation. They didn't say anything about "voting for it". They just said that they don't want to be alone in requesting again that it should be taken of the agenda.
These corporations will never give up. Sooner or later, the side with no profit motive gets tired and grows week, and the other side wins.
That's one possible outcome. Another possible outcome is that the people whose personal freedom and economic future are threatened by software patents (if your job depends directly or indirectly on more than just a handful European high tech companies having a future, you're in the latter category) will realize what's going on, and organize a sufficiently strong anti-swpat movement before it's too late.
Please think about whether you want to be on the side of the activitists (people who do something about the problem, and inspire others to be active also) or on the side of the passivists (people who don't do anything of significance, and influence others to be passive also).
--nb.
If Spain goes forward and takes action of similar significance to what Poland did on Dec 21, I'll be all in favor of also creating a "Thank Spain" letter, perhaps similar to my Thank Poland letter. I'll not do it myself, as I've spent enough time on politics for a while, but I'll be happy to share experiences (and Perl scripts, if desired) with whoever sets up a "Thank Spain letter" site.
In any case, regardless of what happens next, the great significance of what Marcinski (Polands minister of science and IT) did will remain.
It seems that the right time has come to deliver the Thank Poland letter with all the signatures which have been confirmed so far; right now the most likely date appears to be Thursday this week (January 27). I plan to fly to Warsaw for this, and we'll try to get some significant media coverage. If you think you might be able to help with this, please drop me an email at nb@norbert.ch
Would someone be willing to translate the Thank Poland letter into Polish for me?
I have a friend who's from Poland, but he's been away from writing anything in Polish for six years, so I think it's probably better if someone else does the translation and I ask my friend only to double-check the translation for accuracy.
The guy who is responsible for the site is not even from the EU... according to his email address he is Swiss.
In case someone attaches importance to the question of whether I'm Swiss or a EU citizen: I'm German by nationality, and I moved to Switzerland some years ago because of some aspects of the political situation in Germany which I consider to be unacceptable. In my opinion the situation here in Switzerland is much better, and I'd even say that Switzerland deserves to be called a "real democracy". Switzerland is currently the only country in the world about which I'd say that.
And if you do, you might want to send them christmas greetings as well;)
If you want to send Christmas greetings, you'll probably need to send a telegram or something. The messages collected at the ThankPoland.info site won't reach the Polish Ministry of Science and Information Technology until January.
Haven't you learned that independently developed but intercompatible software is legal, ala UNIX System Labs vs. Berkely Software Design, Incorporated.
That case was about copyright law. The situation with patent law is much less clear.
Since Microsoft has standardized C# through the ECMA, any patents are limited to products which break C# standards, something which, to my knowledge, Mono and dotGNU do not do.
I am not sure that the defenses which we have against patent-based attacks which are based on patents owned or controlled by MS will also work against patents which are not controlled by MS. I feel that these questions need to be thought trough carefully by a team of good patent lawyers. If you know one one who may be willing to do some pro-bono work to the benefit of DotGNU, please let me know.
I sometimes daydream about how big you could grow a company (in revenues) without ever having more than ten people. What would happen if you outsourced everything except product development? If you tried this experiment, I think you'd be surprised at how far you could get.
The big question here is how you can possibly build customer loyalty if you outsource the business unit which is in charge of customer relationships. This doesn't sound like a wise idea to me.
I hardly think that he was tactically wrong: his tactics were obviously tremendously successful, and that is after all the point of a tactical decision. The results, though, are that people consider RMS and the GPL to be synonymous with free software. I've talked to lots of software developers who used the GPL who never considered that there might be an alternative.
I meant the long-term effects, so I probably used the wrong word, i.e. I should have written "strategically wrong" instead of "tactically wrong".
In hindsight, Stallman's strategy had short-term success through integrating many people (most of whom were not in full agreement with his ideological position) into a "free software movement" which was strongly influenced by Stallman's ideas (especially the GPL).
However, today the FSF is largely ignored. Everyone talks about "open source" and it has been repeated countless times in the press that "Linux" is "an operating system developed by Linus Torvalds" with no mention of Stallman, the FSF or the GNU project.
In other words, OSI has successfully executed essentially the same kind of "coup" against the FSF as you accuse Stallman of executing against the previously-existing software-sharing communities you described.
I think that by showing from the beginning respect and recognition to software sharing communities which don't want to adopt his ideological viewpoint, Stallman could have avoided the "open source" vs "free software" split (and then "Linux" vs "GNU/Linux" would never have become an issue either - the press would have reported that "Linux is a free software operating system", everyone would be referring to the FSF website for information about "free software", and Stallman would be happy:)
Thank you so much for your detailed response. While I do agree with Stallman on what I consider to be his main point, namely that the emphasis on the "freedom" aspect is important because there is indeed a matter of fundamental human freedom at stake, I'm getting the impression that is was both morally and tactically wrong at the time of the launch of the "free software movement" (by that I mean specifically the movement inspired by Stallman's ideology/philosophy, not the many people who merely used the term "free software" as a convenient term to describe what they were doing anyway) not to publicly credit and recognize those who were already doing similar things on a different philosophical (perhaps intentionally nonideological (?)) basis.
I don't think that he committed this wrong intentionally, i.e. unless/until someone shows me some evidence to the contrary I'll continue to believe that Stallman simply communicated his personal convictions and worked on creating the free software operating system which he felt is needed, without any intentions or plans for a "coup".
Could you please specify whether you're trying to put words into my mouth or not, I'd hate to describe the environment of the 70's and early '80s only to have you come back with a nice slam because you really mean "before Stallman" and not "before Stallman co-opted the open-source community".
I'm genuinely interested to learn more about the community or communities in which software was freely shared in the form of source code (with some kind of, perhaps unspoken, understanding that the recipient would be free to create and distribute derivative works) which existed in the 70's and early '80s, before Stallman created the "free software" philosophy or ideology.
I must admit that when I read your claim that "Stallman co-opted the open-source community" I was at first inclined to dismiss your words as those of a troll (because I've been associating the term "open source" with the objections of the OSI folks against the FSF's strong emphasis on philosophy/ideology, and if "open source community" is understood in the context of the events since the launch of OSI in 1998, the claim makes no sense) but then I recognized your email address as that of Peter da Silva (of PAML fame together with Stephanie) -- hence I do know to take your perspective and concerns seriously (even if I think it unlikely that I'll ever agree with your harsh criticism of Stallman).
It seems to me that an individual with ordinary skill in the art of developing software, coming up with a patented solution to a problem, poses as much a problem for the owner of a patent as it does for the individual developer.
You would be right if there was justice in the legal process related to patent enforcement and invalidation.
However there is little justuce there.
The first problem is that most individual developers don't have enough money to fight their side of the legal battle, while the patents are typically held by corporations for whom such lawsuits are affordable.
The second problem is that the individual developer has too little to gain from proving that a patent which should never have been granted is invalid. Right now a developer guilty of wilful infringement of a valid patent (or an invalid patent for which the developer does not manage to prove that it is invalid) the developer is liable to pay "triple damages" to the patent holder, but are corporations which are guilty of wilfully harming the public interest with invalid patents and patent-related FUD also liable for "triple damages" for the harm they do against the public interest?
to me it seems rather unlikely any company would attempt this, unless they have nothing to lose (eg SCO).
Unfortunately, there will never be a shortage of companies with with nothing to lose. It's a natural reality of capitalism that some companies fail to remain competitive.
Ravicher discovered that open-source-friendly companies (including IBM and HP) hold about 100 of those patents. Again, the likelihood that such a company would bring suit against someone using or distributing Linux is small, especially since those companies often distribute Linux themselves. (Legally, a company probably could, but it goes against the spirit of open source.)
The assertion "legally, a company probably could" in the above statement is
false. Even though it's primarily a copyright license, the GPL contains an
implied patent license.
Slashdot Mirror
Did you expect the press to immediately understand what MS is really trying to do here?
Here is my analysis: What Microsoft proposes is a change that will make the software patents problem worse rather than better, by encouraging hackers to play a new kind of software patents lottery, by filing software patents, and then trying to sell licenses for those patents to Microsoft. Microsoft will then buy licenses to those patents which could be relevant to Microsoft's future products. This initiative is targeting specifically businesses for whom the relatively small patent filing fees are significant, i.e. businesses who could never even dream of filing a patent infringement lawsuit against MS. That means that the chances of MS to essentially dictate the price and other terms and conditions of those patent licenses wouldn't be too bad. I'm sure that the license contract would prevent the patent holder from also licensing the patent to third parties under terms which are compatible with the idea of Free Software. Besides this nasty side effect, the benefit of this scheme to MS is that MS would be able to buy patent licenses relatively cheaply *before* releasing products which infringe those patents. (Buying patent licenses is problematic for MS only after MS has already released a program which infringes the patent, because in that situation the patent holder has a strong negotiating position).
If this strategy works out, it'll give MS a huge edge over every other software company, essentially granting a permanent monopoly to MS. MS is willing to share part of the monopoly rent with some small software businesses by buying patent licenses from them.
The strategy memo which I cited suggests to react to the concern by filing as many software patents as possible, and entering patent cross-licensing agreements with major IT companies. MS has since then done exactly what Bill Gates said they should do, and they have expended significant resources on this. They are definately genuinely concerned. Of course they'll never support a solution that doesn't support and protect their monopoly position.
We can quote them on that. That might be helpful.
It's also good if this initiative results in more public discussion of the issue.
What is important to avoid however is to allow any Microsoft-sponsored law on the topic to get adopted. No such law will do anything to solve the problem. It will however reduce the probability of software patentability getting overturned by the US Supreme Court.
They've been seriously concerned since 1991. Frankly, I think it's highly remarkable that only now they start serious lobbying
This is all a PR smoke-screen to distract attention from Europe.
Yes, that may well be among the motivations for bringing this intiative at this time. In addition, their best rational egoistic self-interest it to get really bad patent laws adopted in Europe and Japan and *then* lobby in the US for a somewhat better patent law.
Based on actually meeting the people who were involved, and having been personally in the room while the relevant commission of Sejm (Polish Parliament) discussed the matter, I can assure you that all this talk about them having "finally been nobbled" is total nonsense. Here is the real story: When back in December that infamous directive proposal showed up as an "A-Item" on the agenda for the Agriculture and Fisheries Council, MEP Jerzy Buzek (a former Prime Minister of Poland) started working on a plan for a counterattack. This plan was based on the idea of a restart request from JURI, which in the meantime has happened. However, for procedural reasons, a delay was needed because JURI cannot make the restart request after a Council decision has been announced to the EU Parliament. For this reason, a plan was conceived to get as much delay as was needed, in a way which other countries cannot reasonably object to. What Poland did (Minister Marcinski carried this out in response to Mr Buzek's request) was that they asked to be given a chance to submit a text, to be added to the "paper trail" of the directive proposal on its way through EU insitutions, which explains from Poland's perspective what is wrong with this directive proposal. This text about Poland's concerns has in the meantime been submitted (I think it's pretty good), but producing it took long enough to get the necessary delay. That is the grain of truth behind the reports that you've been reading about Poland not planning to ask for another delay. Delays are always limited in duration, in this case the delay was until a certain paper document would be submitted which in the meantime has happened.
Based on the atmosphere which I witnessed both in Sejm and in the responsible ministry this week, I am sure that Poland will have the necessary creativity to find a way to ask for another delay, if that turns out to be necessary.
In the meantime, there is no doubt that Poland will support good moves from other countries.
What's your source for the claim that Poland ever voted for it? I recall reading a claim somewhere on the FFII website that their position was incorrectly recorded after they had not even been asked for a clear statement on their position about that "political agreement" because at that time it was thought that the agreement has enough supporters that Poland's position doesn't matter.
Concerning the "oh, in case we're the only ones against we'd also vote for it" point, that is clearly a misrepresentation of the situation. They didn't say anything about "voting for it". They just said that they don't want to be alone in requesting again that it should be taken of the agenda.
That's one possible outcome. Another possible outcome is that the people whose personal freedom and economic future are threatened by software patents (if your job depends directly or indirectly on more than just a handful European high tech companies having a future, you're in the latter category) will realize what's going on, and organize a sufficiently strong anti-swpat movement before it's too late.
Please think about whether you want to be on the side of the activitists (people who do something about the problem, and inspire others to be active also) or on the side of the passivists (people who don't do anything of significance, and influence others to be passive also). --nb.
In any case, regardless of what happens next, the great significance of what Marcinski (Polands minister of science and IT) did will remain.
It seems that the right time has come to deliver the Thank Poland letter with all the signatures which have been confirmed so far; right now the most likely date appears to be Thursday this week (January 27). I plan to fly to Warsaw for this, and we'll try to get some significant media coverage. If you think you might be able to help with this, please drop me an email at nb@norbert.ch
I've added the "y" -- thx!
typos fixed, thx
(If you'd like to see your name, rather than just the slashdot nick, in the Credits section of the page, you'll need to tell me your name :-)
I have a friend who's from Poland, but he's been away from writing anything in Polish for six years, so I think it's probably better if someone else does the translation and I ask my friend only to double-check the translation for accuracy.
-- Norbert Bollow (contact information here)
In case someone attaches importance to the question of whether I'm Swiss or a EU citizen: I'm German by nationality, and I moved to Switzerland some years ago because of some aspects of the political situation in Germany which I consider to be unacceptable. In my opinion the situation here in Switzerland is much better, and I'd even say that Switzerland deserves to be called a "real democracy". Switzerland is currently the only country in the world about which I'd say that.
If you want to send Christmas greetings, you'll probably need to send a telegram or something. The messages collected at the ThankPoland.info site won't reach the Polish Ministry of Science and Information Technology until January.
You can sign a letter to thank the Polish government.
That case was about copyright law. The situation with patent law is much less clear.
Since Microsoft has standardized C# through the ECMA, any patents are limited to products which break C# standards, something which, to my knowledge, Mono and dotGNU do not do.
I am not sure that the defenses which we have against patent-based attacks which are based on patents owned or controlled by MS will also work against patents which are not controlled by MS. I feel that these questions need to be thought trough carefully by a team of good patent lawyers. If you know one one who may be willing to do some pro-bono work to the benefit of DotGNU, please let me know.
The big question here is how you can possibly build customer loyalty if you outsource the business unit which is in charge of customer relationships. This doesn't sound like a wise idea to me.
I meant the long-term effects, so I probably used the wrong word, i.e. I should have written "strategically wrong" instead of "tactically wrong".
In hindsight, Stallman's strategy had short-term success through integrating many people (most of whom were not in full agreement with his ideological position) into a "free software movement" which was strongly influenced by Stallman's ideas (especially the GPL).
However, today the FSF is largely ignored. Everyone talks about "open source" and it has been repeated countless times in the press that "Linux" is "an operating system developed by Linus Torvalds" with no mention of Stallman, the FSF or the GNU project.
In other words, OSI has successfully executed essentially the same kind of "coup" against the FSF as you accuse Stallman of executing against the previously-existing software-sharing communities you described.
I think that by showing from the beginning respect and recognition to software sharing communities which don't want to adopt his ideological viewpoint, Stallman could have avoided the "open source" vs "free software" split (and then "Linux" vs "GNU/Linux" would never have become an issue either - the press would have reported that "Linux is a free software operating system", everyone would be referring to the FSF website for information about "free software", and Stallman would be happy :)
I don't think that he committed this wrong intentionally, i.e. unless/until someone shows me some evidence to the contrary I'll continue to believe that Stallman simply communicated his personal convictions and worked on creating the free software operating system which he felt is needed, without any intentions or plans for a "coup".
I'm genuinely interested to learn more about the community or communities in which software was freely shared in the form of source code (with some kind of, perhaps unspoken, understanding that the recipient would be free to create and distribute derivative works) which existed in the 70's and early '80s, before Stallman created the "free software" philosophy or ideology.
I must admit that when I read your claim that "Stallman co-opted the open-source community" I was at first inclined to dismiss your words as those of a troll (because I've been associating the term "open source" with the objections of the OSI folks against the FSF's strong emphasis on philosophy/ideology, and if "open source community" is understood in the context of the events since the launch of OSI in 1998, the claim makes no sense) but then I recognized your email address as that of Peter da Silva (of PAML fame together with Stephanie) -- hence I do know to take your perspective and concerns seriously (even if I think it unlikely that I'll ever agree with your harsh criticism of Stallman).
Could you please describe what "the open source community" was like "long before Stallman"?
It seems to me that an individual with ordinary skill in the art of developing software, coming up with a patented solution to a problem, poses as much a problem for the owner of a patent as it does for the individual developer.
You would be right if there was justice in the legal process related to patent enforcement and invalidation.
However there is little justuce there.
The first problem is that most individual developers don't have enough money to fight their side of the legal battle, while the patents are typically held by corporations for whom such lawsuits are affordable.
The second problem is that the individual developer has too little to gain from proving that a patent which should never have been granted is invalid. Right now a developer guilty of wilful infringement of a valid patent (or an invalid patent for which the developer does not manage to prove that it is invalid) the developer is liable to pay "triple damages" to the patent holder, but are corporations which are guilty of wilfully harming the public interest with invalid patents and patent-related FUD also liable for "triple damages" for the harm they do against the public interest?
Unfortunately, there will never be a shortage of companies with with nothing to lose. It's a natural reality of capitalism that some companies fail to remain competitive.
Ravicher discovered that open-source-friendly companies (including IBM and HP) hold about 100 of those patents. Again, the likelihood that such a company would bring suit against someone using or distributing Linux is small, especially since those companies often distribute Linux themselves. (Legally, a company probably could, but it goes against the spirit of open source.)
The assertion "legally, a company probably could" in the above statement is false. Even though it's primarily a copyright license, the GPL contains an implied patent license.