Richard Stallman explains why the European parliament should vote to keep software patents invalid: “Microsoft will be one of thousands of foreign software patent holders that will bring their patents over to Europe to sue the software developers and computer users there. Of the 50,000-odd putatively invalid software patents issued by the European Patent Office, around 80% do not belong to Europeans.”
I for one am tired of hearing fearmongering from this guy about patents and microsoft.
Anybody who’s been a part of small business knows that patents are sometimes, and often times, the only weapons you have.(depending on the market) I’d bet Stallman knows this. One thing is certain, RS is not dumb. I wonder if this is a goal. I’m always suspicious of fearmongerers. I’m very suspicious of fearmonger RS.
All businesses, small and large have a right to share or not share their creations any way they please.
Killing patents will do more harm than good. We(as linux, BSD, and etc) users *CAN* beat microsoft without strong arming them as stallman wants to do, as microsoft would do to us.
Stallman might as well be Ballmer, he’s using the same tactic.
Ah, but you see, IF you(as a small company) come up with a patent that Microsoft perhaps infringes, if you then slap a lawsuit on them, they have a portfolio of 2000-4000 patents and one or more are likely to be twisted enough so that they can claim that your infinges them. In the end the lawers make the money and everyone else looses.
The big companies with thousands of patents just have them to whack smaller companies over the head and use them as protection against other huge portfolios of patents.
Killing patents will do more harm than good.
I disagree.
What if the concept of Word processor, OS, spreadsheet, and GUI had been patented? Microsoft certainly would not have the dominance that they have. It’s ridiculous that the company can come along after the fact and claim ownership of many of the concepts they try to claim, such as saving a document as XML.
I believe copyright law should be enough. If we accept that there can be multiple GUIs from different authors; the only immoral behavior that should be punishable is in plagiarizing the details of someone’s implementation: copying code. Doing a similar task in another way of your own devising has been accepted as fair practice in IT forever now.
Consider that AMD is allowed to create processors compatible with Intel’s, Microsoft was allowed to bring out a spreadsheet after VisiCalc, and a GUI front end for an OS after Macintosh.
Evil MS with monopolies, with their “stripped down” Windows….you’d never guess that MS released a major update to Windows Small Business Server 2003 a few weeks ago and it has not gotten any coverage on this site. Fancy the headline has to be about the evil MS, instead of IBM, the open source darling, with the worlds largest cache of patents.
The coverage here has a pattern.
You haven’t been paying attention.
Software patents aren’t necessary for businesses that want to “share or not share their creations”. They can either 1) not release their code, or 2) use the currently existing copyright law.
Has there been an effort to define a “conceptual level” at which patents could be permissible? For example it seems ridiculous to me that you can patent something like a shopping cart on a website or, as per one of today’s Slashdot stories, user viewing histories. At the same time it seems reasonable to be able to patent say, a revolutionary new file system.
Has an attempt been made to draft a proposal of where the cut-off is? Are patents really an either-or scenario (perhaps they are)? Is it even possible to draft a universally applicable guideline of what can and cannot be patented? It seems like software in particular could use some specific delineation but I’m not sure how to go about that.
Also, have the Europeans discussed or defined the length of times patents would be valid for?
All it is going to take is pending bankruptcy for companies that have these piddling patents to try to enforce them in order to yield monetary damages for operating capital. It’s going to get ugly.
In a way, if the rest of the world develops draconian patent policies, it may lead to reform. As it is now, the USA has a lot to gain – as Stallman points out – through more strident patent enforcement, but it will be curious to see what will happen when other countries start patenting, say, low-level OS and software concepts and start hamstringing American companies and “hurting innovation.”
The language could be better — use of 0. 1. 2. 3. instead of 1. 2. 3. 4. for his list stands out, as does his meandering ab bit too much before he gets to the point in parts.
Except for the style issues, he’s spot on.
“as microsoft would do to us”
uh microsoft would beat us over the head WITH patents, RMS wants that to be impossible….not quite the same thing…
The US needs to seriously reform it’s patent system. Software is very dynamic, and standards change rather quickly. Thus, patents on these things (like Word’s new XML format) should expire relatively quickly (perhaps a year). That way, Microsoft could get a “head start” on the market with their new format, but it won’t be impossible to make Free software based on their technology forever (in software lifecycle terms). This solution would be a good “compromise” to both parties.
I think Microsoft (and others) are twisting the purpose of patents into a means of unfair competition. Just my two cents, although I am a student, so I’m distant from “real world issues” and stuck in the land of idealism (LOL).
-Eric
We do not oppose consptual protection of software.
The conditions are cheap, fast, narrow
We oppose the use of the wrong legal instrument, patent law.
– very expensive, that’s why patent attorneys like it
– wrong object gets “protection”
– slow: grating lasts 3 years minimum
The whole patent protection was put forward by patent attorneys and an institutional shift. It’s not that software development identified a protection gap first.
See Copyright4Innovation
http://c4i.ffii.org
I’ve been using Linux and assorted other FOSS software in some capicity or another since the late nineties, and, by all accounts, I am what could be fairly charaterized as enthusiatic supporter of FOSS “alternatives” with a decidedly optimistic view of the future possibilities for free and open computing platforms. That said, it is my opinion that altogether too many of my fellow Linux/FOSS advocates routinely fail to distinguish true analysis from advocacy–a fault shared in equal measure by both true believers of all stripes and sales and marketing folk–to their own detriment and possibly to the general detriment of Linux/FOSS as well.
This article offers an excellent presentation of the realities surrounding vendor lock in and the high cost it potentially imposes upon anyone attempting to switch to a new technology or platform. Linux/FOSS advocates should read this carefully and thoughtfully, not because they’re unaware of the costs imposed by vendor lock in strategies (freedom from vendor lock in strategies is, after all, one of the traditional core “talking points” of FOSS advocacy) but because all too often they wish to have both ways: lock in exists when pointing out the downsides of traditional closed source proprietary software but doesn’t exist when it comes time tally up the costs of switching to an alternative.
MS’s recent “Get Out the Facts” campaign does, in fact, rely upon many dubious studies, riddled with the type of sampling errors and false inferences which would earn a failing grade in most intoductory statistics courses, but there is more than a kernel of truth to be found within the FUD. MS has been very successful in creating lock in, which means that in certain market segments it has indeed become prohibitively expensive or even practically impossible to switch to an alternate platform. That’s not FUD, that’s the truth. And an Enron inspired accounting method, where the costs of escaping lock in are placed solely in the cost column for proprietary solutions, isn’t going to convince many whose job it is to manage IT infrastructure.
editors please feel free to remove
hey eric, usually if you REPORT ABUSE on your own post they will see it and realize you want it removed…. FYI&FWIW
Clean and simple as a chess game.
Props to RMS.
Join the FSF!
Tom H and Keath….
Running on the basis of “If” is not the best way to get your point across. Especially a “what if”(past blah blah).
Tom, I agree with you on some level about MS twisting it’s patents in order to fit an agenda, but it still reverts back. If you take away the weapon that is patents you hurt the little guy just as much if not more than MS.
MS is already established. They’ve already got the market. Anything that helps launch the little guy into prominence needs to be protected.
That’s all I’m saying. I’m all for patent reform, if I remember correctly Redhat is pushing for patent reform here in the US.(what success they’ve met, I’m unsure of) “Patent reform” is good. “Patent abolishment” is bad.
I wanted to give yours a little more of a reply…(see above post)
2 things. 1)
———-It’s ridiculous that the company can come along after the fact and claim ownership of many of the concepts they try to claim, such as saving a document as XML.———–
You’re speaking towards the need for patent reform, of which I support. I agree with your statement. This is ridiculous.
2)
———-Consider that AMD is allowed to create processors compatible with Intel’s, Microsoft was allowed to bring out a spreadsheet after VisiCalc, and a GUI front end for an OS after Macintosh.——–
AFAIK(I haven’t researched this in a LONG time) AMD still pays small royalties to Intel for x86.
VisiCalc, haven’t done any research on that.
And GUI front end? Mac? *cough* Xerox come to mind?
——You haven’t been paying attention.——-
I’ll concede a little bit to that. I haven’t read *EVERYTHING* Stallman has wrote. Don’t claim to. It just seems to me that every time I see his name he’s fearmongering about patents and pushing for abolishments, and using the ballmer-force tactic to do it.(or so it seems)
He seems to think that other people’s property is not really that…… I don’t know what his malfunction is. But at this point, I’m not a fan of his at all.(as is obvious)
Perhaps you can point to one(or multiple would be prefered) where he mentions both the little and big guy with pros and cons. All I’ve seen up until now is fearmongering and it makes my head explode.
Oh, and if Ballmer all of a sudden was fired or somethign and became a mouthpiece for OSS/linux whatever I’d reject him too as I already know what he’s about. That’s *NOT* what our movement needs. Forceful people like these are helpful.
———uh microsoft would beat us over the head WITH patents, RMS wants that to be impossible….not quite the same thing…——–
You’re putting the emphasis on “with patents”.
My emphasis was on “beat us over the head”(in my original post the operative word was “force”)
Yes, force is the same thing that MS uses, and is also the same as what Stallman is doing.
I stand by my statement. He needs to shut the piehole.
RMS might have a point but he is still a total nut job..
Eric, you’re dead on. 1 year may be too long, it may be not enough. I’m not sure about that but you certainly hit the nail on the head with how dynamic software is.(as we all know)
Man, Stallman should stop spreading FUD!!! He never likes anything just because it has a patent on it.
People have the right to make money from their inventions and patents are a way of insuring of that.
However, I do admit that patent laws need to be revamped to move into the new millenium and be stricter about what is patented. Or do I need to remind everyone of the “One-Click-Shopping” fiasco?
force to perform a act is one thing, force that is used to protect from someone elses act is another…. both force! but not the same at all. I have no problem in someone using force to defend themselves, i HAVE a problem with using force to attack something…
Second stallman writes papers, stallman preaches free, how is that the same as threatenting OEMs and under table money exchanges, and lawsuits, and buying up competition and so forth….
Stallman has no acting force, only offers something that you are free to take or leave…
I don’t understand why so many believe that copyright provides sufficent protection.
Say I invented a physical “thing”. I spent 2 years revising and perfecting “thing”, researching demand, marketing it etc. How would copyright better protect my investment and future profits than a patent? What if someone made it out of wood instead of plastic? What if someone made it out of Birch instead of Oak?
In the logical world of applications & data, if I make product X in programming language Y, how does copyright protect me from a competitor producing a product that does the same (i.e. stealing my idea, whether for profit or not), but using a different programming language / procedural constructs in the same programming language.
Would copyright provide me with protection in the below simple case :
PERFORM A100-SUB VARYING X BY 1 UNTIL X = 10
vs
X = 1
:A100-SUB
DO SOMETHING
X = X + 1
IF X = 10 GOTO A110-NEXTSECTION
Implementing it WITH a different language is irrelevant, it’s actually the entire tool-chain that would matter, because the language only describes a plan. Patents protect designs, not ideas. As in, ‘a new process for purifying gasoline’, that’s not an idea, that’s an implementation.
Just like you can’t patent math, it’s not an implementation, it’s a plan. Yet someone can patent an algorithm, which is also a plan, simply not using mathematical expression.
Ideas are abstract concepts. Copyright is useful for protecting against plagiarism, such as music, prose and code.
You could patent a binary, since that’s an implementation, but source code is akin to plans, plans can only be copyrighted, though I could be mistaken, seeing as recipes can’t be.
Say no to Bananas EU Patent
well let me see i am just another vague acronym i made something cool, then i don’t have money to buy a patent, so people like MS pick up my project they have money, they got intelectually proprety …
Let me see what the hack this do to evaluate software ?
Nothing it simple kill’s open source and individual inventions …
Software patent is not like pharmay patent …
Prime Minister of Norwege got the point …
EU long time shoot in their own feet.
Killing patents will do more harm than good.
I think patents are important to level the playing field between giant corporations and the “little-guy” when they work. Unfortunately, the patent system in the US is foobar-ed. A patent should be specific, not the vague nonsense we see today.
Look at some of the software patents that have been given out lately (this weeks patent grant to Amazon springs readily to mind).
Patents should be very short lived (5 years max) and should not be granted for blatently obvious things; and certainly not for processes and procedures.
What if during the founding of our country, Wal-Mart had patented the concept of the checkout line. All other stores would have to have “checkout stacks” instead (where the first on in line is the last one out).
If Home depot had patented the business practice of storing items of shelves, then the rest of the retail world would have to resort to storing their wares in heaps or hanging everything from the ceiling using bailing wire.
Stupid right? Well, companies are getting patents for equally obvious things today.
Patents need to be fixed or killed.
Fancy the headline has to be about the evil MS, instead of IBM, the open source darling, with the worlds largest cache of patents.
IBM has pledged not to use hundreds of its patents against FOSS developers. Microsoft has done no such thing.
Tom, I agree with you on some level about MS twisting it’s patents in order to fit an agenda, but it still reverts back. If you take away the weapon that is patents you hurt the little guy just as much if not more than MS.
That doesn’t make sense. Let’s say I have a slingshot and you have an AK-47. Someone comes and takes away both of our weapons. Clearly, you have lost more than me, since my weapon was inadequate compared to yours. Similarly, a small business that has a few patents doesn’t stand a chance against a multinational corporation that holds thousands.
Now, tell me…you’re CPUGuy, aren’t you?
Say I invented a physical “thing”. I spent 2 years revising and perfecting “thing”, researching demand, marketing it etc. How would copyright better protect my investment and future profits than a patent? What if someone made it out of wood instead of plastic? What if someone made it out of Birch instead of Oak?
Copyright cannot be used for such “things”, so of course it is not adequate. That, however, is not a valid argument in favor of software patents, since software is not a material “thing” such as the one you allude to.
In the logical world of applications & data, if I make product X in programming language Y, how does copyright protect me from a competitor producing a product that does the same (i.e. stealing my idea, whether for profit or not), but using a different programming language / procedural constructs in the same programming language.
Ok, that presupposes that the person doing the copying has access to your source code. Unless they write a closed-source variant (which means you’d be hard-pressed to notice the copyright violation in the first place), you should be able to prove that the software source was copied illegally. “Masking” copied copyrighted material is still illegal if you can prove beyond reasonable doubt that it took place. I can’t re-write one of Stephen King’s novels and just change the name of the main character, as well as the order of certain sentences…
Note also that you need a reasonably large sample in order for a copyright to be valid. You can’t copyright a single sentence or line of code, for example.
He doesn’t like anything that doesn’t belong to him. That’s the whole goal of the GPL
Nonsense. You don’t have to assign your copyright to the FSF when you release software under the GPL (though some developers do). In most cases, the author of the GPLed code remains the copyright holder (i.e. owner) of the code.
I agree. U.S.(among other) patent system needs reform.
To kill it completely is fanatical BS.(RS)
RMS isn’t calling for the abolition of the patent system. He’s calling for the abolition of software patents. I think he’s right on the money, too. Copyright is ample protection for software.
Say I invented a physical “thing”. I spent 2 years revising and perfecting “thing”, researching demand, marketing it etc. How would copyright better protect my investment and future profits than a patent? What if someone made it out of wood instead of plastic? What if someone made it out of Birch instead of Oak?
Copyright cannot be used for such “things”, so of course it is not adequate. That, however, is not a valid argument in favor of software patents, since software is not a material “thing” such as the one you allude to.
OK,I’ll jump in (not like I understand this whole patent story although I am against). What original poster said quite makes sense since you can have software made .. in C or in Java or Python,you name it,correct? Thus,if you ask me the whole analogy sounds alright to me. Please explain if I’m wrong and why.No flame intended.
What is a patent good for? To give the inventor a 20 year head-start for development cost recovery IN EXCHANGE for opening his technology to the public.
It is a trade between society and an individual. Both gain something.
Now let us see what happens if we apply patents to software:
Typical software consists of thousands of algorithms, each one could have been patented when it was first discovered, lots of them actually ARE patented. Almost all of these algorithms are obvious solutions of problems you encounter when writing the software. Some of these patents even describe a PROBLEM, not a solution. Like saving all objects of a word processor in a single XML file. Other patents are patents on DEFINITIONS.
So where is the symmetry of the trade? Society gets to know that some problems exist, in exchange the inventor gets a 20 year monopoly on a problem or on a definition. This is a very bad deal for society, it is too costly.
The second problem is avoiding patent infringement. If you want to build a new water pump, you would search patents for “pump” and “water” and you could get maybe 100 patents you could potentially infringe. You can be quite sure that none of the patents you are NOT looking at applies to your work of developing the new pump.
If you want to program a new word processor you would probably have to implement algorithms for sorting, exchanging, saving, compressing, searching and maybe 500 more. If you want to be sure you do not infringe on any software patent, you would have to search for patents for each of these algorithms. But that would not be a total of maybe 100 patents you would have to look at, it would be 2 to 3 orders of magnitude higher which would be 10000 to 100000 patents. In effect you would have to look at EVERY software patent in existance if you infringe it for EVERY application you write.
You can see it is totally unavoidable to infringe on software patents if you write a program, because not even a company as wealthy as Microsoft can afford 100 lawyers for each programmer they employ. The smaller the company the more vulnerable they are.
Software and patents simply do not fit. The IP in software is protected by copyright and trade secrets well enough, patents are not needed.
All current software patents are issued by the USPTO (with there being a MUCH smaller number of _provisional_ software patents in Europe assigned to europeans).
If Europe were to accept software patents, they would instantly have to deal with the incredibly low standards applied by the USPTO in its process *and* deal with the issue that many US software patents incorporate technology for which there was long-standing prior art in Europe.
Combine that with the fact that their current copyright law already provides the protections they seek and for much longer durations, I believe that the only reason you’d permit software patents in Europe would be to fatten the patent law industry.
Go Uncle Sam ! Say that Europe have many terrorists (IRA, ETA, etc) and put US Army on Europe again to guarantee american imperialism. USA should force everybody to use M$ Winblows…
———That doesn’t make sense. Let’s say I have a slingshot and you have an AK-47. Someone comes and takes away both of our weapons.———-
It makes perfect sense, but it’s apparent you didn’t read all of my posts.
I made it clear that in alot of cases, the small businessman will only have one weapon….. his patent.
Yes, taking away patents will take away *that* weapon away from both parties, but MS still has other weapons(mainly it’s money and marketshare)…..
While you’ve left the little guy defenseless.(smooth move IDIOT) I have a gut feeling RMS knows this and wants it that way. Whenever somebody does that much fearmongering, 9 times out of 10 their goal is the worst.
Oh, and I’m not CPUguy, whoever that is. But I doubt my answer changes anything. You’ve already got your mind made up.
Easier to bash me than what I’m saying?
——–RMS isn’t calling for the abolition of the patent system. He’s calling for the abolition of software patents.———-
I know. And like I said, it’s fanatical BS.
———Copyright is ample protection for software.——–
No, it’s not. But if you can’t see it on your own anything I may/will say isn’t gonna change your mind.
——–What is a patent good for? To give the inventor a 20 year head-start for development cost recovery IN EXCHANGE for opening his technology to the public. ———-
EXACTLY. Which is why I’m for reform in the patent office.(obviously on the topic of software)
It should be changed so that it’s only a few years.(or one) As I’ve been trying to get across to people, when you’re small that edge is the only thing you’ve got going for yourself.