Thank you. You'll find my reply in that branch of the thread. I was going to ignore the posting of an anonymous person, but since you asked me for my opinion on a non-anonymous basis, I have replied.
I'm kind of reluctant to reply to "Anonymous" because I don't know why someone would be afraid to voice an opinion like that in the free world. But someone else asked me to do so.
It's true that I support Blizzard's position on bnetd. That doesn't mean that I'm "an outspoken proponent of the DMCA" (because the bnetd case is one very specific case), nor that I believe "that video game makers should be able to control the experience and where and how the game is used, through technical means backed by the force of law". Those are out-of-context statements and unreasonable interpretations of what I said in the bnetd context.
It's a matter of fact that I'v ebeen living off intellectual-property rights, mostly copyright (and to some extent trademarks, but never patents), for 20 years. I started at age 15 as an author of articles for computer magazines, and a year later became a computer book author, and I wrote computer programs. I interrupted a game development project to fight against software patents, and after my book on the software patent story is out the door, I'll resume that project.
The only way to succeed politically against software patents is to have a pro-author's rights position. That's the basis on which I was able to win some politicians over who weren't on our side before (especially on the right wing). An anti-IP fundamentalism is counterproductive. The net effect of taking a radical anti-IP position is that politicians don't even meet with you, parliamentary committees don't invite you to their hearings, and you can rant but you can't influence legislation. Look at the process concerning the Patent Reform Act in the US: Those who take too much of an anti-IP position aren't listened to. Politicians view this as a matter of economic policy for the most part, not a question of idealism.
As for the bnetd case, I'm absolutely pro-interoperability when it comes to exchanging documents between different computer systems. Where I think one has to be careful about an interoperability privilege is any client-server setting. There are situations in which I believe it's legitimate for an author to reserve certain rights. Also, I can't see that it's reasonable to claim that interoperability is important between the client and the server component of a computer game, especially not when the primary effect of such interference is that a copyright-protection scheme is broken (and thereby a business model that is much more in the interest of consumers than those subscription models where you pay every month, or copy protection by dint of errors on a medium that are checked for). Also, I know that the Blizzard guys are gamers themselves. I worked with them as a consultant and representative from 1995 to 1998. You can find my name in the credits of WarCraft II and StarCraft (provided that you haven't installed Brood War, a project in which I was no longer involved).
That's my position. If you find someone on the ballot who's not only anti-swpat but also anti-copyright, go and vote for him, but you won't find any because people with that attitude don't make much political headway. Please also read the endorsements that I received from RMS, Tim O'Reilly, Alan Cox, Rasmus Lerdorf and Monty Widenius. RMS and Tim O'Reilly discussed some of those copyright-related issues with me by email, and there are differences between their positions and mine that we're well aware of, but the endorsements relate to the fact that I'm running on a NoSoftwarePatents.com ticket, and that's the message that this is about. It's not about YesToCopyright or whatever else. I'm not going to be elected president and then have power to do lots of things. I was just nominated as a figurehead of the NoSoftwarePatents movement, so I hope I can count on your support.
It's great that you gave this some serious thought, because that's what our core group of anti-swpat activists did as well. Obviously, other candidates also stand for important causes. It's just that their stories are much more attractive to the general press than something as esoteric as software patents, and that's why we need this kind of publicity more than they do.
As for Hirsi Ali's party, the VVD pushed for software patents like hardly any other political party in Europe. The whole directive project was started by Frits Bolkestein. On 1 July 2004, all of the Dutch parliament except for the VVD group supported a resolution that the Dutch government should retract its support to the EU Council's pro-patent proposal. And Toine Manders was a driving pro-patent force in the ALDE (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Europe) group in the Europan Parliament. It was only toward the end of the process that he was burned out and (probably because Philips also wanted this) introduced a motion for rejection of the entire bill. On the day before the vote, I met him in an elevator in the European Parliament and we actually had a friendly discussion because we all wanted to go for rejection of the proposal, but let's face it: He's an intellectual property lawyer by profession, and he didn't call for rejection because he was against software patents. He just realized that his camp couldn't get its way, and then they decided to abort the process, which was perfectly fine with me.
Your observations are correct. U2 called on its fans to vote for Bono (on the official U2 homepage), and some U2 fan sites made a similar call, but in terms of Internet publicity, we beat the rest of the field by a wide margin. A very solid majority of all participants in that poll has been sent to that poll by our PR and online campaigning activities. Slashdot is of course the biggest of its kind, but the site previously went down due to some of our mailings to registered opponents of software patents as well as articles on heise.de, TheInquirer.net, TheRegister.co.uk etc.
It's not just about whether we win, it's also how we win. We want to involve large parts of the community in this, and we hope to send a really strong message to Brussels (the de-facto capital of the EU). They should see our numerical strength and campaigning power once again. Unfortunately, the software patent issue hasn't been resolved for good in Europe, and it will resurface on the political agenda sooner or later. By winning this poll, we increase our chances of winning future battles. Publicity is an important way to influence politics.
It's true that the Polish government was extremely helpful. However, the Polish candidate for Statesman of the Year wasn't helpful at all. He's the president, but all of the help came from the executive government, which is headed by the prime minister (at the time that was Marek Belka), and mostly from deputy minister Wlodzimierz Marcinski. We discussed the voting recommendations with our Polish activists who are quite familiar with how the decisions were taken within the Polish government.
The vaunted Economist must be careful about its reputation. Last year, they had a long story on patents in which they expressly said: "The patent systems of the world aren't working." Now they come up with this pseudo-objective praise of software patents. That's schizophrenia, not pluralism.
The competence of the author(s) with respect to the software industry must be seriously called into question, as the article says that companies selling open-source company are pro-patent, and then a Novell person is quoted. Novell only derives about 4% of its revenues from open source (the SuSE acquisition is a near-total failure). In contrast, Red Hat, MySQL AB, Mandriva, JBoss and other (real) open-source companies have publicly spoken out against software patents. It wouldn't have taken much research effort, even if only performed by a person with an extremely limited understanding of the software industry, to track down those statements. They're all over the Web, and in case of Red Hat and MySQL AB, they're on the corporate websites (plus those two companies co-sponsored my NoSoftwarePatents.com campaign, which is also easy to find out).
I'm also wondering why a publication that calls itself "The Economist" can't give serious consideration to economic studies (such as Bessen/Hunt) that take a much more critical perspective on the implications of today's patent regime. It seems that the Economist was under strong PR influence from Microsoft in this case because there are some typical MSFT points in it, such as this claim that software patents are needed in order to be adequately protected when publicizing information (which MSFT says in reference to governmental demands to disclose source code).
The Economist article is fundamentally flawed, but this has to be attributed to the fact that the pro-patent forces like Microsoft make an incessant effort, day in day out, to pitch journalists with their story of patents and how they serve innovation. From time to time, they find an impressionable or credulous author who serves their purposes (or a journalist whose goodwill is easy to get by just inviting him somewhere for a week or whatever). In contrast, those companies and organizations which are critical of software patents have been relatively inactive since the European Parliament's decision on 6 July. As long as we were making an aggressive and professional PR effort ourselves, we also got better results. Nothing comes from nothing, it's as simple as that.
At least there is one activity going on these days: We're very likely to win the Internet poll for the "EV50 Europeans of the Year", the EU's premier political award. By pushing our candidates through (I'm also running in two categories myself) and preventing pro-patent politicians from winning anything, we can get another publicity opportunity for our cause and demonstrate to politicians that our movement is still to be reckoned with. The "EV" in "EV50" means "European Voice", an EU-focused publication that belongs to the Economist publishing group, and one of the three main sponsors is Microsoft:-)
They have specifically endorsed our voting recommendations. Please read those voting recommendations and give serious consideration to supporting our cause that way.
About a year ago, someone talked to me about some ideas he had for campaigning against software patents in the UK. He saw my NoSoftwarePatents.com campaign and wanted to do something like that specifically for the UK, not primarily on the Web but in political/lobbying terms. At the time, I was so pessimistic that I honestly told him I viewed the UK as a strategically lost position for us: They had those key pro-swpat MEPs (Harbour on the right wing, McCarthy on the left wing), a radically pro-swpat government, a national patent office that used tax money to promote the idea of software patents, and case law that upheld some really bad software patents (almost as bad as that of the in-house courts of the European Patent Office).
In the meantime, there has been remarkable progress on most of those fronts. The two individuals who deserve most of the credit on the campaigning and lobbying side are Rufus Pollock and Gavin Hill of the FFII UK. Gavin is the "someone" who contacted me last year. In fact, that contact resulted from a slashdot discussion. And in parallel to the political stuff, we've now seen some really good rulings by Judge Prescott of the High Court of England and Wales who has already invalidated a few software patents.
We're doing this online campaign and we've already had a very good start. This is about the most important political award series in the EU, and if our camp once again demonstrates its Internet campaigning power (we're trying hard!), then this will make politicians, press and the public more aware of the software patent issue.
Do you really actually KNOW people at the E.U or do you just write letters to them?
I know a number of EU people and over the last 12 months actually spent more time in Brussels (the de-facto capital of the EU) than Munich (a town that's just about 10 miles from where I live). There are also some who I've written letters to without actually getting a meeting.
It's not like everyone there is stupid. The EU Commission, which is like the executive government of the EU (but also the "project manager" for lawmaking), consists of many different directorates-general (DGs). Some DGs do a better job than others.
Microsoft Corporation shall, within 90 days of the date of notification of this Decision, offer a full-functioning version of the Windows Client PC Operating System which does not incorporate Windows Media Player; Microsoft Corporation retains the right to offer a bundle of the Windows Client PC Operating System and Windows Media Player;
The latter part with "retains the right to offer a bundle..." makes the whole thing completely pointless. I guess they had to still allow Microsoft to offer that kind of bundle because the overall case was weak. It's really not a major problem to any of us if Windows comes with a Media Player. Patents on multimedia formats are a much bigger problem, and that's what the very same EU Commission supports (they lied to the entire European public in their attempts to get software patents legalized here).
No problem. My last name contains a so-called "Umlaut", and while the official transcription to English is that the "u" with the two little dots is written as "ue", it happens all the time that people just omit the dots. Let's not be nit-picking:-)
However, I really think the EU made itself ridiculous by ordering Microsoft to ship an alternative version of Windows without the Media Player. Microsoft created that "Windows Reduced Media Edition" (a name that doesn't quite suggest you should buy it) and sold it at the same price (!) as Windows with the Media Player. Obviously they didn't do anything to generate demand for that particular version. So what's the point in all of that? It just became a matter of principle for some bEUrocrats.
Moreover, the EU Commission lacks a consistent strategy for the software market. On the one hand, they start those anti-trust proceedings and believe they make the market more competitive (which the "Windows Reduced Media Edition" obviously didn't). On the other hand, the EU Commission was a driving force behind that EU software patent directive. And now the EU Commission even wants to retry and legalize software patents in Europe as a side effect of a so-called "community patent regulation": ZDNet UK: EC slipping software patents "through backdoor" TheInquirer.net: EU attempts to intro software patents by the back door
That makes no sense to me. A bundling of Windows with the Media Player isn't even 1% as bad as patents on multimedia data formats. The bundling may affect market share over time and it may make consumers less likely to choose another software for playing digital media, but patents constitute monopolies from day one and potentially eliminate all choice.
I'm also wary of Microsoft and its near-monopolies, but as a computer user I don't want to pay separately for essential functionality that should really come with the operating system. The world needs secure computers, not regulatory interference to artificially sustain business opportunities for companies like Symantec.
It's the same with the Media Player, which the Commission wants to be un-bundled from Windows: Today's computers are multimedia devices, and it's just logical to me that software like that would be pre-installed on a computer when I buy it. As long as those multimedia data formats aren't patented, people would still have the choice to download alternative solutions like MPlayer.
Getting back to Symantec: That company is a crying baby. They can't seriously insist that Microsoft deliver less secure software just so that Symantec can make some more money! If the EU Commission were to support Symantec's special interest in this case, then it might as well start putting out Stalin-like five-year plans for the European IT markets.
There must be a limit to (near-)monopoly abuse. If MSFT were to decide that everyone who wants to buy Windows has to buy Office, then I'd also be against it. But I can't see the reason why MSFT shouldn't provide some security software. In fact, my own experience is that Windows' built-in security tools cause a lot less trouble to my system than Symantec's Norton anti-virus and firewall tools (which also leave a lot to be desired in terms of usability).
In the build-up to the European Parliament's second-reading vote, a Google lobbyist also became active in Brussels (the de-facto capital of the EU). Patricia Moll previously worked for Microsoft as Government Affairs Manager. If you search for her name on Google in connection with Microsoft's name, you can still find various articles and other references.
Since Google had not been involved in the earlier stages of the debate on that European software patent directive, they didn't want to publicly state their position on that controversial issue. However, Patricia was in close contact with the FFII, a non-governmental organization that opposes software patents, as well as some companies that were at least somewhat critical of software patents.
It seems that Google mostly lobbied for a far-reaching interoperability privilege. That's important to them so they can, for instance, perform certain operations on PDF files as part of their search services. Some people said that Google was also critical of the idea to legalize software patents in Europe, and that may have been the case, but none of the MEPs who I asked was able to confirm that Google took a critical position on software patents (I didn't ask that question to many politicians, so the fact that no one confirmed it may not mean much).
It's always appealing to the media if such daring predictions are made, but that doesn't necessarily make them realistic.
Here in the EU, Microsoft sponsored about every pro-swpat lobbying entity: ACT, CompTIA, "Campaign for Creativity", EICTA, BSA, and additionally, various national organizations throughout the EU. They also had their own lobbyists running around in the European Parliament. I ran into them more than once. But they mostly tried to hide behind so-called industry associations.
Microsoft will try to modify patent law in the US and elsewhere to the effect that smaller players (trolls as well as truly productive companies) can't use patents too effectively against big ones, by limiting the amount of indemnities (at a level that gets 99% of the businesses in the industry bankrupt but is small change for MSFT), doing away with injunctive relief (which really hurts even the largest players because it disrupts revenue production and can lead to incalculable liabilities vis-a-vis customers) etc. If you look at what the BSA tries to achieve with respect to that U.S. patent reform bill, then you'll get the idea.
Funnily enough, Microsoft is one of the three main sponsors of the "EV50 Europeans of the Year" awards this year. However, the jury is perfectly independent, and they nominated me, as a representative of the anti-swpat movement in Europe:-) I'm running in the EU Campaigner of the Year catgory as well as for the overall European of the Year award. If I win that award, then the Microsoft-sponsored prize money will go to the FFII, an anti-swpat NGO. For more information (including on how to cast your vote against software patents, even if you're not based in Europe), please look at these two earlier slashdot postings: Links to the ballot and general information (scroll down to the final part of that posting, that's where the information on the EV50 awards is) Specific list of voting recommendations (since it's mandatory to make one choice in each of the ten categories, and most of the names there will be unknown to most people)
The first edition of the Migration Guide took a strong pro-OSS position. The basic message, supported by endless columns of numbers, was that a full OSS migration would yield the greatest cost-savings to public administrations, but a partial OSS migration would yet be far better than none at all. Subsequently, that government department came under major lobbying pressure from the usual suspects.
German politics is in a period of major uncertainty now after elections in September had an outcome that gives neither of the two camps (Conservatives plus Liberals or Social Democrats plus Greens) a majority. The good news from an OSS perspective is that at least one of the two parties in the current coalition government (Social Democrats and/or Greens) will be part of the next government, and those parties are quite committed to open source even though the Social Democrats supported software patents in the EU Council (and some of them were relatively swpat-friendly in the European Parliament). There are a few German conservative politicians who also have a favorable perspective on OSS, but most of them don't care and some are downright negative about it. The liberals are ideologically pro-OSS, but of all German parties they're most susceptible to the influence of big-industry lobbying.
While the involvement of that judge in a particular lawsuit may be a coincidence (more or less), it's also a fact that Bush recently chose a former Microsoft lobbyist, C. Boyden Gray, to become the next permanent representative (that's basically an ambassador) of the US to the EU. Boyden Gray helped Microsoft turn the US anti-trust case around.
There are also rumors of Microsoft having influenced Matt Romney, the Republican governor of Massachusetts who then personally intervened with the plans of the state administration to push for an open-source migration (and watered the plan down to an open-standards concept). Romney is considered to be close to Bush, and is rumored to have ambitions to succeed Bush in a few years. Microsoft's "Political Action Committees" were major donors in the presidential elections last year and among the largest donors to the three or four most hopeful candidates in the Democratic primaries.
Thanks for your vote! You're right that we have to publish a complete set of voting recommendations. That will happen next week.
Let me publish some recommendations here now:
Commissioner: Dalia Grybauskaite, Budget. All others have ties to pro-patent forces, especially McCreevy was remote-controlled by Microsoft.
MEP: You're right, Rocard is the way to go.
Statesman: Zapatero is best because his government was the only one to cast a No vote against the EU Council's proposal for software patents (others abstained, which is technically the same in the Council as a No, but a weaker message). Other candidates like Juncker, Blair and Schroeder were pro-patent.
Diplomat: Marc Otte (Middle East rep) seems a safe choice.
Campaigner: That's my category, and actually it will probably be harder for me to win there than the overall European of the Year award (since I have the most prominent competitors in my category, and since eveyone is forced to choose one person per category, many will just pick those who they know).
Business Leader: No particular risk, I recommend the British Airways guy.
Journalist: No preference. If you have no better idea, vote for El País guy.
Achiever: Ellen MacArthur or Ian Tomlison.
Non-EU Citizen: Marinich is imprisoned and Yushchenko's health was damaged (and his face disfigured) by the secret service. Those two deserve most of our compassion and support.
Overall European of the Year: That's the grand prize. Every candidate including me is running there as well. If I were to win it, I'd get to make an acceptance speech with an anti-software patent message in front of various of Europe's most powerful politicians:-)
Don't let us gloat over the damage to Microsoft. The Eolas patent is a threat to large parts of the Internet as we know it.
Eolas' success will encourage investments in industrialized deep-pocket patent trolls by venture capitalists, corporations, and high net-worth individuals. Look at this Goldman Sachs venture here, for an example: www.ipvalue.com
The Eolas case will be used as a key argument of the IT industry to support that Patent Reform Bill in US Congress, a piece of legislation that would limit the damage an Eolas can cause to a Microsoft while giving the large players ever more advantages and disadvantaging the defensive power of open-source projects and smaller companies.
Good news:
Microsoft backed virtually any pro-patent lobbying entity in Europe (ACT, CompTIA, Campaign for Creativity, EICTA, BSA, and numerous local ones). A dozen Eolas-like cases down the road, they may reconsider their stance.
As a representative of the anti-software patent movement in Europe, I've been nominated by a jury for the Europeans of the Year award, which is sponsored by Microsoft. It's a public Internet poll in which I might even win, either in the EU Campaigner of the Year or the overall European of the Year category, and I've already vowed to give the prize money to the FFII, which fights against software patents. If you feel like supporting this Microsoft money to anti-patent group effort, please vote for me there in both categories (Campaigner and the long overall list at the end). Don't have to be European for that. Thanks. End of campaign message:-)
The RIAA's interest in this is understandable. Digital technologies allow for an unlimited number of copies to be produced without a loss of quality. It's more than obvious to me that this requires a different legislative framework in order to protect the interests of the music industry.
There are really two extremist movements out there: Those who say that the digital era requires a maximum extent of intellectual property rights, even to the extent where those IPRs are against the interests of creative people; and those who oppose IPRs to the maximum extent because they believe that everything in the digital world should be free (or based on some flat fee for content).
My own position is that technological change can affect IP policy either way, sometimes in favor of broader rights, sometimes in favor of more limited rights, always dependent upon the specific case. Patents on computer program logic are undesirable because the patent system doesn't work well in that field. However, strengthening the interests of copyright holders is IMO a necessity in this new era. I believe that such organizations as the FSF and EFF should show much more respect for the interests of those rights holders.
The criterion should be: What is in the interest of those who make independent creations without totally unreasonably restricting the rights of consumers? Software patents limit the ability of people to make independent creations of their own, which is why I'm against them. However, all composers and performers of music potentially benefit from a legislative framework that is favorable to copyright holders, including such cases as this one in which the ability of people to produce copies without any loss of quality would be restricted.
Thanks, this is useful information. I will need some unmanaged stuff in my project but it will be OK for me to just have that in a separate DLL, which may then be written in C++ or C#. As for type conversions, there are various keywords like CStr (convert to string) or CInt (convert to integer) that are a shorter alternative to CType(Variable, Type) for at least the most commonly used types.
This rebuild thing is indeed a good point. My project is pretty big, and that's why I know all too well but you're talking about. I make extensive use of DLL's to minimize the amount that gets recompiled, but obviously it would be nice to be able to reuse object code at the build level.
Can someone explain the advantages of C# over VB?
on
Anders Hejlsberg on C# 3.0
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· Score: 1, Interesting
This is a real question, not a rhetorical one, no matter how provocative it may seem.
What really are the benefits that a developer gets by using C# instead of VB.NET? Either way, it's a vendor and platform lock-in, so there isn't really a portability gain. In terms of performance, the tests that I've read about haven't really shown a major advantage in favor of C#. As for functionality, C# was ahead of VB.NET in.NET 1.x, but in.NET 2.0, VB.NET has closed the gap by also allowing unsigned integers, custom operators etc.
I personally tried both, and I'm much more productive with VB.NET because I get clear keywords such as LOOP and END IF instead of braces. Theoretically, I could add comments to a brace that indicate what type of structure ends at the respective point, but that's a waste of time, and if I modify an algorithm, then the function of those closing braces may change. Also, the VB.NET editor's auto-completion feature is more advanced.
I'd really be interested in knowing other advantages that C# has, which is why I'm asking. So far it seems to me that some may be more familiar with a Java/C-style syntax (in which case I'm wondering why they don't go right for C++ or Java). Another reason may be that some people have this view that "real men don't program in BASIC".
I run various Microsoft programs (Windows, Office, VS.NET, but IE only when it can't be avoided), and still my biggest hope for better security with those Microsoft programs is on increased competition from open source.
Security holes are quality issues. If Microsoft took only 10% or 20% of its annual profits, which are well above 10 billion dollars, and spent that money on additional security test centers and code review groups, then they could greatly reduce the number of critical flaws. Think of how many security experts and code reviewers they could hire for an extra 1, 2 or 3 billion dollars a year.
Their.NET architecture with its managed-code approach would at least avoid those buffer overflows that allow for the execution of hostile code, but MSFT isn't too fast at porting its existing code base to.NET.
The only way that MSFT will make the necessary investments is if they feel ever more competitive pressure. I personally don't intend to switch from the MSFT platform to anything else, but every Linux migration decision by some public administration or corporate IT department has the potential to indirectly make Windows and those other MSFT products more secure. It's too bad that the governor of Massachusetts, according to information from a pretty good source, prevented the state government from its plans to go for a Munich-style open-source migration. Those types of breakthroughs for Linux on the desktop are key, or otherwise those reports of critical security bugs in MSFT's programs will continue to be issued as frequently as these days. A near-monopolist can always get away even with serious security flaws.
If MSFT doesn't get some more competitive pressure on the desktop, then their strategic focus will mostly be on how to compete with Internet powerhouses like Google and Yahoo, and console manufacturers like Sony.
I don't think this Australian decision has anything to do with the validity of the Linux mark in other places. The information in the article suggests that Linus Torvalds has been poorly represented and/or IP Australia didn't fully understand that Linux is not a "generic" term, or it could be a combination of both.
This passage here looks like the lawyer failed to do his job properly: It is not clear from the declaration in what way Mr Jeremy Malcolm is authorised and qualified to make this declaration on behalf of Mr Linus Torvalds. It should be a routine task to provide documentation that satisfactorily answers that question before it's even asked. Probably a document with Linus' signature (and some official confirmation of its authenticity, such as by a notary public along with a so-called apostille) would have done the job.
I've opened the PDF file of the IP Australia letter, and the examiner says that the decision could be reconsidered on the basis of better evidence. That means some more effort will have to be put into this than printing out a Wikipedia article and a few pages of Google search results. A key question will be "the date when use of the trade mark commenced".
I don't agree that it's a fundamental mistake to assume that money is the prime motivator for creative endeavors. Money has the advantage of being the most convertible form of reward. The triumph of the free market economy, in which the pursuit of profits is seen as a key motivation, is undeniable. In my view, there's empirical evidence that money is the prime motivator.
However, it's also true that any policy, be it in intellectual property or any other field, is bound to fail if it's based on the exclusive assumption of everyone being a homo oeconomicus. There are people out there who'd rather win the Nobel Prize than make 10 or even 100 million dollars, provided that they already have a level of security and a standard of living that they're comfortable with. And some are even fine to be "poor but proud".
Lawmakers simply have to understand the diversity of motivations. This is a pluralistic world in which people can seek their individual happiness in different ways.
In life sciences, there is usually a lot of money involved (for laboratories etc.) to do research. Many inventions in that field simply couldn't be made by someone at home who has no substantial funds. Consequently, the IPR system in the field has to be particularly investor-friendly. Since university researchers usually aren't investors, it's doubtful that they should reap the rewards for what the public has paid for.
In computer software, there can be no reasonable doubt that a lot of innovation happens every day without the motivation on someone's part to publish software or take out patents. Open source is the best example. Key open source projects were started by people who had to make no capital investment beyond the computer they already had. The entire code base of open source has been developed by a diverse group of people, and in that group you probably find any mix of commercial and non-commercial motivations, literally everything from 0% to 100% of a profit motive.
The difference between life science patents and patents on programming logic is fundamental:
A patent on a medical agent is, generally speaking, like a recipe that anyone in that industry can use to produce something useful. That's why such a patent advances knowledge in the field, and potentially has some value after its expiration.
Patents on programming logic are, again generally speaking, just some extended descriptions of the task at hand, of the problem that is to be solved. They outline a rather general approach to solving the problem, but if you read such a patent document, you're not really closer to a functional solution than if you don't. Most of the work is still ahead of you: the actual implementation.
Also, if someone wants to question the patent system in biotech, then what's the alternative? Patents have, despite a few cases of misuse, been proven to be the suitable intellectual property rights regime in that field. In contrast, today's leading software companies like Microsoft, Oracle and SAP needed no patents at all during the first 10+ years of their existence. SAP only had a total of four patents a few years ago. It would be too simplistic to say that copyright law alone protects software because it's actually a combination of copyright, trade secrets, complexity, trade marks, and the possibility of converting a technological lead into sustainable economic value (by selling products, acquiring customers, building the brand identity of an innovator). That form of protection is much more dynamic than patents because it requires someone to actually market a product, as opposed to just sitting on a patent and waiting for others to unwillingly and unknowingly "infringe" upon it.
The other issue is who should own the outcome of the research work that is performed with tax money. I don't think it's reasonable to let the public pay twice for the same work, upfront by employing many such scientists for decades in each case (the fewest of which ever come up with something that can be commercialized on a large scale) and subsequently through patent royalties.
Slashdot Mirror
Thank you. You'll find my reply in that branch of the thread. I was going to ignore the posting of an anonymous person, but since you asked me for my opinion on a non-anonymous basis, I have replied.
It's true that I support Blizzard's position on bnetd. That doesn't mean that I'm "an outspoken proponent of the DMCA" (because the bnetd case is one very specific case), nor that I believe "that video game makers should be able to control the experience and where and how the game is used, through technical means backed by the force of law". Those are out-of-context statements and unreasonable interpretations of what I said in the bnetd context.
It's a matter of fact that I'v ebeen living off intellectual-property rights, mostly copyright (and to some extent trademarks, but never patents), for 20 years. I started at age 15 as an author of articles for computer magazines, and a year later became a computer book author, and I wrote computer programs. I interrupted a game development project to fight against software patents, and after my book on the software patent story is out the door, I'll resume that project.
The only way to succeed politically against software patents is to have a pro-author's rights position. That's the basis on which I was able to win some politicians over who weren't on our side before (especially on the right wing). An anti-IP fundamentalism is counterproductive. The net effect of taking a radical anti-IP position is that politicians don't even meet with you, parliamentary committees don't invite you to their hearings, and you can rant but you can't influence legislation. Look at the process concerning the Patent Reform Act in the US: Those who take too much of an anti-IP position aren't listened to. Politicians view this as a matter of economic policy for the most part, not a question of idealism.
As for the bnetd case, I'm absolutely pro-interoperability when it comes to exchanging documents between different computer systems. Where I think one has to be careful about an interoperability privilege is any client-server setting. There are situations in which I believe it's legitimate for an author to reserve certain rights. Also, I can't see that it's reasonable to claim that interoperability is important between the client and the server component of a computer game, especially not when the primary effect of such interference is that a copyright-protection scheme is broken (and thereby a business model that is much more in the interest of consumers than those subscription models where you pay every month, or copy protection by dint of errors on a medium that are checked for). Also, I know that the Blizzard guys are gamers themselves. I worked with them as a consultant and representative from 1995 to 1998. You can find my name in the credits of WarCraft II and StarCraft (provided that you haven't installed Brood War, a project in which I was no longer involved).
That's my position. If you find someone on the ballot who's not only anti-swpat but also anti-copyright, go and vote for him, but you won't find any because people with that attitude don't make much political headway. Please also read the endorsements that I received from RMS, Tim O'Reilly, Alan Cox, Rasmus Lerdorf and Monty Widenius. RMS and Tim O'Reilly discussed some of those copyright-related issues with me by email, and there are differences between their positions and mine that we're well aware of, but the endorsements relate to the fact that I'm running on a NoSoftwarePatents.com ticket, and that's the message that this is about. It's not about YesToCopyright or whatever else. I'm not going to be elected president and then have power to do lots of things. I was just nominated as a figurehead of the NoSoftwarePatents movement, so I hope I can count on your support.
As for Hirsi Ali's party, the VVD pushed for software patents like hardly any other political party in Europe. The whole directive project was started by Frits Bolkestein. On 1 July 2004, all of the Dutch parliament except for the VVD group supported a resolution that the Dutch government should retract its support to the EU Council's pro-patent proposal. And Toine Manders was a driving pro-patent force in the ALDE (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Europe) group in the Europan Parliament. It was only toward the end of the process that he was burned out and (probably because Philips also wanted this) introduced a motion for rejection of the entire bill. On the day before the vote, I met him in an elevator in the European Parliament and we actually had a friendly discussion because we all wanted to go for rejection of the proposal, but let's face it: He's an intellectual property lawyer by profession, and he didn't call for rejection because he was against software patents. He just realized that his camp couldn't get its way, and then they decided to abort the process, which was perfectly fine with me.
It's not just about whether we win, it's also how we win. We want to involve large parts of the community in this, and we hope to send a really strong message to Brussels (the de-facto capital of the EU). They should see our numerical strength and campaigning power once again. Unfortunately, the software patent issue hasn't been resolved for good in Europe, and it will resurface on the political agenda sooner or later. By winning this poll, we increase our chances of winning future battles. Publicity is an important way to influence politics.
It's true that the Polish government was extremely helpful. However, the Polish candidate for Statesman of the Year wasn't helpful at all. He's the president, but all of the help came from the executive government, which is headed by the prime minister (at the time that was Marek Belka), and mostly from deputy minister Wlodzimierz Marcinski. We discussed the voting recommendations with our Polish activists who are quite familiar with how the decisions were taken within the Polish government.
The competence of the author(s) with respect to the software industry must be seriously called into question, as the article says that companies selling open-source company are pro-patent, and then a Novell person is quoted. Novell only derives about 4% of its revenues from open source (the SuSE acquisition is a near-total failure). In contrast, Red Hat, MySQL AB, Mandriva, JBoss and other (real) open-source companies have publicly spoken out against software patents. It wouldn't have taken much research effort, even if only performed by a person with an extremely limited understanding of the software industry, to track down those statements. They're all over the Web, and in case of Red Hat and MySQL AB, they're on the corporate websites (plus those two companies co-sponsored my NoSoftwarePatents.com campaign, which is also easy to find out).
I'm also wondering why a publication that calls itself "The Economist" can't give serious consideration to economic studies (such as Bessen/Hunt) that take a much more critical perspective on the implications of today's patent regime. It seems that the Economist was under strong PR influence from Microsoft in this case because there are some typical MSFT points in it, such as this claim that software patents are needed in order to be adequately protected when publicizing information (which MSFT says in reference to governmental demands to disclose source code).
The Economist article is fundamentally flawed, but this has to be attributed to the fact that the pro-patent forces like Microsoft make an incessant effort, day in day out, to pitch journalists with their story of patents and how they serve innovation. From time to time, they find an impressionable or credulous author who serves their purposes (or a journalist whose goodwill is easy to get by just inviting him somewhere for a week or whatever). In contrast, those companies and organizations which are critical of software patents have been relatively inactive since the European Parliament's decision on 6 July. As long as we were making an aggressive and professional PR effort ourselves, we also got better results. Nothing comes from nothing, it's as simple as that.
At least there is one activity going on these days: We're very likely to win the Internet poll for the "EV50 Europeans of the Year", the EU's premier political award. By pushing our candidates through (I'm also running in two categories myself) and preventing pro-patent politicians from winning anything, we can get another publicity opportunity for our cause and demonstrate to politicians that our movement is still to be reckoned with. The "EV" in "EV50" means "European Voice", an EU-focused publication that belongs to the Economist publishing group, and one of the three main sponsors is Microsoft :-)
Richard Stallman, Tim O'Reilly, Alan Cox (Linux kernel maintainer), Rasmus Lerdorf (PHP) and Monty Widenius (MySQL) have made a public statement in which they call on the FOSS community worldwide to participate in that Internet poll:
ag-IP-news: Luminaries Call on Worldwide Community to Vote Against Software Patents
They have specifically endorsed our voting recommendations. Please read those voting recommendations and give serious consideration to supporting our cause that way.
In the meantime, there has been remarkable progress on most of those fronts. The two individuals who deserve most of the credit on the campaigning and lobbying side are Rufus Pollock and Gavin Hill of the FFII UK. Gavin is the "someone" who contacted me last year. In fact, that contact resulted from a slashdot discussion. And in parallel to the political stuff, we've now seen some really good rulings by Judge Prescott of the High Court of England and Wales who has already invalidated a few software patents.
Someone said in this thread that people should make suggestions for how to make political decision-makers more aware. Here's a suggestion:
Vote Against Software Patents / Vote For Your Right To Program
We're doing this online campaign and we've already had a very good start. This is about the most important political award series in the EU, and if our camp once again demonstrates its Internet campaigning power (we're trying hard!), then this will make politicians, press and the public more aware of the software patent issue.
I know a number of EU people and over the last 12 months actually spent more time in Brussels (the de-facto capital of the EU) than Munich (a town that's just about 10 miles from where I live). There are also some who I've written letters to without actually getting a meeting.
It's not like everyone there is stupid. The EU Commission, which is like the executive government of the EU (but also the "project manager" for lawmaking), consists of many different directorates-general (DGs). Some DGs do a better job than others.
The EC's anti-trust decision against MSFT is a fairly stupid one. The actual decision starts on page 298, and the Media Player thing is in Article 6:
Microsoft Corporation shall, within 90 days of the date of notification of this Decision, offer a full-functioning version of the Windows Client PC Operating System which does not incorporate Windows Media Player; Microsoft Corporation retains the right to offer a bundle of the Windows Client PC Operating System and Windows Media Player;
The latter part with "retains the right to offer a bundle..." makes the whole thing completely pointless. I guess they had to still allow Microsoft to offer that kind of bundle because the overall case was weak. It's really not a major problem to any of us if Windows comes with a Media Player. Patents on multimedia formats are a much bigger problem, and that's what the very same EU Commission supports (they lied to the entire European public in their attempts to get software patents legalized here).
No problem. My last name contains a so-called "Umlaut", and while the official transcription to English is that the "u" with the two little dots is written as "ue", it happens all the time that people just omit the dots. Let's not be nit-picking :-)
However, I really think the EU made itself ridiculous by ordering Microsoft to ship an alternative version of Windows without the Media Player. Microsoft created that "Windows Reduced Media Edition" (a name that doesn't quite suggest you should buy it) and sold it at the same price (!) as Windows with the Media Player. Obviously they didn't do anything to generate demand for that particular version. So what's the point in all of that? It just became a matter of principle for some bEUrocrats.
Moreover, the EU Commission lacks a consistent strategy for the software market. On the one hand, they start those anti-trust proceedings and believe they make the market more competitive (which the "Windows Reduced Media Edition" obviously didn't). On the other hand, the EU Commission was a driving force behind that EU software patent directive. And now the EU Commission even wants to retry and legalize software patents in Europe as a side effect of a so-called "community patent regulation":
ZDNet UK: EC slipping software patents "through backdoor"
TheInquirer.net: EU attempts to intro software patents by the back door
That makes no sense to me. A bundling of Windows with the Media Player isn't even 1% as bad as patents on multimedia data formats. The bundling may affect market share over time and it may make consumers less likely to choose another software for playing digital media, but patents constitute monopolies from day one and potentially eliminate all choice.
The European Patent Office has granted numerous anti-virus and firewall patents, which the EU Commission wanted and still wants to legalize in Europe:
ZDNet UK: EC slipping software patents "through backdoor"
TheInquirer.net: EU attempts to intro software patents by the back door
That would be much more anti-competitive than any bundling decision that Microsoft could ever take.
It's the same with the Media Player, which the Commission wants to be un-bundled from Windows: Today's computers are multimedia devices, and it's just logical to me that software like that would be pre-installed on a computer when I buy it. As long as those multimedia data formats aren't patented, people would still have the choice to download alternative solutions like MPlayer.
Getting back to Symantec: That company is a crying baby. They can't seriously insist that Microsoft deliver less secure software just so that Symantec can make some more money! If the EU Commission were to support Symantec's special interest in this case, then it might as well start putting out Stalin-like five-year plans for the European IT markets.
There must be a limit to (near-)monopoly abuse. If MSFT were to decide that everyone who wants to buy Windows has to buy Office, then I'd also be against it. But I can't see the reason why MSFT shouldn't provide some security software. In fact, my own experience is that Windows' built-in security tools cause a lot less trouble to my system than Symantec's Norton anti-virus and firewall tools (which also leave a lot to be desired in terms of usability).
Since Google had not been involved in the earlier stages of the debate on that European software patent directive, they didn't want to publicly state their position on that controversial issue. However, Patricia was in close contact with the FFII, a non-governmental organization that opposes software patents, as well as some companies that were at least somewhat critical of software patents.
It seems that Google mostly lobbied for a far-reaching interoperability privilege. That's important to them so they can, for instance, perform certain operations on PDF files as part of their search services. Some people said that Google was also critical of the idea to legalize software patents in Europe, and that may have been the case, but none of the MEPs who I asked was able to confirm that Google took a critical position on software patents (I didn't ask that question to many politicians, so the fact that no one confirmed it may not mean much).
Here in the EU, Microsoft sponsored about every pro-swpat lobbying entity: ACT, CompTIA, "Campaign for Creativity", EICTA, BSA, and additionally, various national organizations throughout the EU. They also had their own lobbyists running around in the European Parliament. I ran into them more than once. But they mostly tried to hide behind so-called industry associations.
Microsoft will try to modify patent law in the US and elsewhere to the effect that smaller players (trolls as well as truly productive companies) can't use patents too effectively against big ones, by limiting the amount of indemnities (at a level that gets 99% of the businesses in the industry bankrupt but is small change for MSFT), doing away with injunctive relief (which really hurts even the largest players because it disrupts revenue production and can lead to incalculable liabilities vis-a-vis customers) etc. If you look at what the BSA tries to achieve with respect to that U.S. patent reform bill, then you'll get the idea.
Funnily enough, Microsoft is one of the three main sponsors of the "EV50 Europeans of the Year" awards this year. However, the jury is perfectly independent, and they nominated me, as a representative of the anti-swpat movement in Europe :-) I'm running in the EU Campaigner of the Year catgory as well as for the overall European of the Year award. If I win that award, then the Microsoft-sponsored prize money will go to the FFII, an anti-swpat NGO. For more information (including on how to cast your vote against software patents, even if you're not based in Europe), please look at these two earlier slashdot postings:
Links to the ballot and general information (scroll down to the final part of that posting, that's where the information on the EV50 awards is)
Specific list of voting recommendations (since it's mandatory to make one choice in each of the ten categories, and most of the names there will be unknown to most people)
German politics is in a period of major uncertainty now after elections in September had an outcome that gives neither of the two camps (Conservatives plus Liberals or Social Democrats plus Greens) a majority. The good news from an OSS perspective is that at least one of the two parties in the current coalition government (Social Democrats and/or Greens) will be part of the next government, and those parties are quite committed to open source even though the Social Democrats supported software patents in the EU Council (and some of them were relatively swpat-friendly in the European Parliament). There are a few German conservative politicians who also have a favorable perspective on OSS, but most of them don't care and some are downright negative about it. The liberals are ideologically pro-OSS, but of all German parties they're most susceptible to the influence of big-industry lobbying.
There are also rumors of Microsoft having influenced Matt Romney, the Republican governor of Massachusetts who then personally intervened with the plans of the state administration to push for an open-source migration (and watered the plan down to an open-standards concept). Romney is considered to be close to Bush, and is rumored to have ambitions to succeed Bush in a few years. Microsoft's "Political Action Committees" were major donors in the presidential elections last year and among the largest donors to the three or four most hopeful candidates in the Democratic primaries.
Let me publish some recommendations here now:
Good news:
There are really two extremist movements out there: Those who say that the digital era requires a maximum extent of intellectual property rights, even to the extent where those IPRs are against the interests of creative people; and those who oppose IPRs to the maximum extent because they believe that everything in the digital world should be free (or based on some flat fee for content).
My own position is that technological change can affect IP policy either way, sometimes in favor of broader rights, sometimes in favor of more limited rights, always dependent upon the specific case. Patents on computer program logic are undesirable because the patent system doesn't work well in that field. However, strengthening the interests of copyright holders is IMO a necessity in this new era. I believe that such organizations as the FSF and EFF should show much more respect for the interests of those rights holders.
The criterion should be: What is in the interest of those who make independent creations without totally unreasonably restricting the rights of consumers? Software patents limit the ability of people to make independent creations of their own, which is why I'm against them. However, all composers and performers of music potentially benefit from a legislative framework that is favorable to copyright holders, including such cases as this one in which the ability of people to produce copies without any loss of quality would be restricted.
Thanks, this is useful information. I will need some unmanaged stuff in my project but it will be OK for me to just have that in a separate DLL, which may then be written in C++ or C#. As for type conversions, there are various keywords like CStr (convert to string) or CInt (convert to integer) that are a shorter alternative to CType(Variable, Type) for at least the most commonly used types.
This rebuild thing is indeed a good point. My project is pretty big, and that's why I know all too well but you're talking about. I make extensive use of DLL's to minimize the amount that gets recompiled, but obviously it would be nice to be able to reuse object code at the build level.
What really are the benefits that a developer gets by using C# instead of VB.NET? Either way, it's a vendor and platform lock-in, so there isn't really a portability gain. In terms of performance, the tests that I've read about haven't really shown a major advantage in favor of C#. As for functionality, C# was ahead of VB.NET in .NET 1.x, but in .NET 2.0, VB.NET has closed the gap by also allowing unsigned integers, custom operators etc.
I personally tried both, and I'm much more productive with VB.NET because I get clear keywords such as LOOP and END IF instead of braces. Theoretically, I could add comments to a brace that indicate what type of structure ends at the respective point, but that's a waste of time, and if I modify an algorithm, then the function of those closing braces may change. Also, the VB.NET editor's auto-completion feature is more advanced.
I'd really be interested in knowing other advantages that C# has, which is why I'm asking. So far it seems to me that some may be more familiar with a Java/C-style syntax (in which case I'm wondering why they don't go right for C++ or Java). Another reason may be that some people have this view that "real men don't program in BASIC".
Security holes are quality issues. If Microsoft took only 10% or 20% of its annual profits, which are well above 10 billion dollars, and spent that money on additional security test centers and code review groups, then they could greatly reduce the number of critical flaws. Think of how many security experts and code reviewers they could hire for an extra 1, 2 or 3 billion dollars a year.
Their .NET architecture with its managed-code approach would at least avoid those buffer overflows that allow for the execution of hostile code, but MSFT isn't too fast at porting its existing code base to .NET.
The only way that MSFT will make the necessary investments is if they feel ever more competitive pressure. I personally don't intend to switch from the MSFT platform to anything else, but every Linux migration decision by some public administration or corporate IT department has the potential to indirectly make Windows and those other MSFT products more secure. It's too bad that the governor of Massachusetts, according to information from a pretty good source, prevented the state government from its plans to go for a Munich-style open-source migration. Those types of breakthroughs for Linux on the desktop are key, or otherwise those reports of critical security bugs in MSFT's programs will continue to be issued as frequently as these days. A near-monopolist can always get away even with serious security flaws.
If MSFT doesn't get some more competitive pressure on the desktop, then their strategic focus will mostly be on how to compete with Internet powerhouses like Google and Yahoo, and console manufacturers like Sony.
This passage here looks like the lawyer failed to do his job properly: It is not clear from the declaration in what way Mr Jeremy Malcolm is authorised and qualified to make this declaration on behalf of Mr Linus Torvalds. It should be a routine task to provide documentation that satisfactorily answers that question before it's even asked. Probably a document with Linus' signature (and some official confirmation of its authenticity, such as by a notary public along with a so-called apostille) would have done the job.
I've opened the PDF file of the IP Australia letter, and the examiner says that the decision could be reconsidered on the basis of better evidence. That means some more effort will have to be put into this than printing out a Wikipedia article and a few pages of Google search results. A key question will be "the date when use of the trade mark commenced".
However, it's also true that any policy, be it in intellectual property or any other field, is bound to fail if it's based on the exclusive assumption of everyone being a homo oeconomicus. There are people out there who'd rather win the Nobel Prize than make 10 or even 100 million dollars, provided that they already have a level of security and a standard of living that they're comfortable with. And some are even fine to be "poor but proud".
Lawmakers simply have to understand the diversity of motivations. This is a pluralistic world in which people can seek their individual happiness in different ways.
In life sciences, there is usually a lot of money involved (for laboratories etc.) to do research. Many inventions in that field simply couldn't be made by someone at home who has no substantial funds. Consequently, the IPR system in the field has to be particularly investor-friendly. Since university researchers usually aren't investors, it's doubtful that they should reap the rewards for what the public has paid for.
In computer software, there can be no reasonable doubt that a lot of innovation happens every day without the motivation on someone's part to publish software or take out patents. Open source is the best example. Key open source projects were started by people who had to make no capital investment beyond the computer they already had. The entire code base of open source has been developed by a diverse group of people, and in that group you probably find any mix of commercial and non-commercial motivations, literally everything from 0% to 100% of a profit motive.
Also, if someone wants to question the patent system in biotech, then what's the alternative? Patents have, despite a few cases of misuse, been proven to be the suitable intellectual property rights regime in that field. In contrast, today's leading software companies like Microsoft, Oracle and SAP needed no patents at all during the first 10+ years of their existence. SAP only had a total of four patents a few years ago. It would be too simplistic to say that copyright law alone protects software because it's actually a combination of copyright, trade secrets, complexity, trade marks, and the possibility of converting a technological lead into sustainable economic value (by selling products, acquiring customers, building the brand identity of an innovator). That form of protection is much more dynamic than patents because it requires someone to actually market a product, as opposed to just sitting on a patent and waiting for others to unwillingly and unknowingly "infringe" upon it.
The other issue is who should own the outcome of the research work that is performed with tax money. I don't think it's reasonable to let the public pay twice for the same work, upfront by employing many such scientists for decades in each case (the fewest of which ever come up with something that can be commercialized on a large scale) and subsequently through patent royalties.