Then, the Secretary of State answered, starting with the error in the letter. It was an obvious error, so she could only say "No, it is not correct, I have to apologise". Later on she blamed it on an "error in the word processor". For us, this in itself was a victory we never expected to achieve.
She also had to admit that it was "highly unusual, but possible" to revoke the Dutch vote in the formal vote that had to follow once the translations in all European languages are finished. The Lopez report had shown its value already.
It was agreed that the Secretary of State would figure out when the formal vote would take place. In case it would be to soon for the Parliament to debate about the matter, the Dutch vote would be changed into "abstain". However, that would be the last resort. It would be preferred that the Secretary of State should try to postpone the meeting.
Civil servants
Our report (in Dutch) about the debate, has been slightly changed after the civil servants of the Minister gave us a telephone call that they were not amused to see their name mentioned in the report complete with an external link to a photograph of them. We kindly apologized and removed their names, happy that at least they were beginning to take us that seriously that they started to read our publications.
As promised, the next day the Secretary of State wrote in a letter that the formal vote would not take place before September, giving us and other concerned European civilians plenty of time to get the attention of our governments and make them understand that the Council of Ministers has made a serious mistake.
The Secretary of State also promised to write a detailed letter about especially the view of The Netherlands and the Council with respect to the amendments of the European Parliament.
Microsoft
Did you notice that I mentioned that a representative of Microsoft attended the debate?
Somehow, that didn't even surprise me. It was already clear they had an interest in the Irish Presidency, given the fact that they openly sponsor the Presidency. What was remarkable is that they were the only large company that actually sent a representative to attend the debate in the Dutch Parliament. No Philips, no Siemens, just Microsoft. Apparently they are beginning to become a little concerned about their plans to cash in on their intellectual property portfolio. According to Brian Kahin[2], they also advised Europe on patent policy and last but not least, they are by many considered the driving force behind the BSA, who seems to have co-authored the directive of the Commission.
A bit of history
Hans Achterhuis, Ph.D., Professor in Systematic Philosophy at the University of Twente, writes in his book "Het rijk van de schaarste" ("empire of scarcity") about how scarcity could develop in our society. Thomas Hobbes was the first to understand that scarcity is the "Natural condition" of mankind: "therefore if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies."
Contrary to the system that has been developed to fight scarcity, capitalism, there is the system of the commons, that can only work if there is no scarcity. As long as anyone that wishes to make use of the common possessions can do so as he pleases, there is no rivalry and therefore no scarcity. In this light it is interesting to consider the system of common grounds that flourished for ages in Europe. Apparently, land was not scarce at that time, which is easy to imagine. If you don't have a horse or a tractor to work with, you're not waiting for 10 hectares of labor.
So, the system of commons worked until land became scarce, due to the "enclosure of the commons" by the English landlords that started in the late 15th century. Fed by the upcoming capitalism, the landlords took over the common grounds to turn them into exclusive private possession where they could herd their sheep to produce wool for their factories. The farmers and peasants where transformed into possessionless, dependent workers for these giant factories, all to the benefit of the lucky few. Achterhuis explains:
"At first, the English Kings resisted this appropriation of the commons [by the landlords]. All kinds of acts where passed to stop it. In 1489, Henry VII, prohibited the destruction of all "houses of husbandry" to which at least 20 acres of land belonged, while in 1533 an act was passed that limited the number of sheep on (former) common grounds to 2000. The fact that these acts where constantly renewed, shows that they were ignored. The need the capitalistic system had for possessionless, dependent workers could not be stopped with this kind of legislation."
How little has been changed in 500 years, since the time my forefather built the farmhouse (1472) where I was born. Replace "landlords" by "multinationals", "houses of husbandry" by "SMEs", "English Kings" by "European Parliament" and "workers" by "programmers". Then it becomes clear how serious this issue really is. A small group of wealthy powerseekers are well on their way to appropriating the last common left: The general free knowledge collected trough centuries of science, handicraft and industry.
The European Patent Office already issued thousands of trivial softwarepatents to mostly non-European multinationals, each of which is like one pole in the enclosure being built up around the common pool of ideas the European Software industry depends on for their businesses. Since the European knowledge workers and owners of small businesses don't want to end up in the modern version of the factories our forefathers ended up in, it is time for those that are supposed to defend our interests to draw the line and make clear that in Europe there is no place for Software Patents.
Note: This is not meant as a statement against capitalism. To the contrary, I think capitalism is a fine system to regulate the market for all tangible goods that cost money to produce and can thus be considered scarce. I just think that the system of commons, as traditionally used by scientists to share ideas, should not be disregarded so easily just because multinationals want to make money off just a few ideas compared to the giant pool of ideas great scientist like Newton, Galilei and Einstein left us. Since software is nothing more then an idea that can be directly executed on a computer, the system of commons can be successfully applied to both software and ideas equally well, as the rising of Open Source software proves now and the flourishing science has proven long before. I'm all for using the right tool for the right job, which is why at my work we try to combine the Open Source and proprietary models in one product. We open up that part of the software that enables others to learn from our system, which is a complete working system. They can also develop their own ideas and plug them into the existing product, without having to worry about basic things like for example file I/O. On the other hand, we make use of proprietary plugins to make money, which is adequately protected by good old copyright. We rely on our innovative power to keep ahead of the competition, so that by the time they have figured out how our proprietary plugins work we already have something new to compete with and that's how it should be in our view.
- "Dutch and Patents, Page 1/4"
- "Dutch and Patents, Page 2/4"
- "Dutch and Patents, Page 3/4"
- "Dutch and Patents, Page 4/4"
