Multiple readers submitted this newsbit: Linux related websites all over the net are down “due to software patents. Spotted so far are: the Gnome website, the KDE website, and Knoppix homepage. All pages point a visitor to http://swpat.ffii.org. Update: This topic seems to need clarification. These sites are down in protest of a proposed patent law in the EU that many people believe is too broad and will hurt rather than protect the rights of software developers. Read the “swpat.ffii.org” site for more details.
Websites Down Due to Patents
About The Author
Adam Scheinberg
Technology Executive • Web Developer • Father • Foodie • Music Snob • OS enthusiast
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“Patents grant a monopoly to the holder, preventing free market competition.”
No they don’t. Patents provide incentive for spending money on R&D. And THAT creates competition since companies are tryin to produce something better than the other guy, instead of just waiting for the other guy to make the first move and then copying what they did.
Did you know that the majority of academic research is funded by corporations in exchange for patent rights? What happens if they can’t get patents on it anymore? Goodbye research money.
“The free market will allow inventors to recoup the costs of research and development, no government grant of monopoly required.”
No, it won’t. Because no one will spend money on R&D if they can’t capitalize on their investment. Without patents, they can’t. Because the other guy can simply wait until they develop something, and then copy it.
“In fact, the emperical evidence is that patents retard innovation, not promote it.”
So one person claims, so another person can dispute and also show emperical evidence for.
I cannot beleive the bickering i read here about this. The sites can do as they like with there site. There is not hijacking/illegal flooding going on here. It is a protest pure and simple that is being supported by various open source organizations. They may do as they like. If you hate the Open Source movement so much, what business do you have going to their home page anyways? What a lame bunch of crybabys. <p>
Open Source is under attack by an OUT OF HAND judicial systm. Pure and simple, they want to defend their existence. YOu are not dealing with a business here, so dont act like thats what they are. Nor will they behave as such. They will behave as an Open Source organiziton, so whats the problem. The real trolling/zealotry i have read here are from those who oppose the idea that these sites can do as they please with their web space.
“They will behave as an Open Source organiziton, so whats the problem. The real trolling/zealotry i have read here are from those who oppose the idea that these sites can do as they please with their web space.”
They can do whatever the hell they want with their web site. They can also kiss their corporate and business users goodbye for displaying such childish behavior.
And once again, remember what I said before. I’ve been in this game since before Slackware. Even before SLS. So don’t try to tell me what open source is or should be. It used to be that open source was a way for technically curious people to share ideas and colaborate on projects and learn. Now it is a political movement that has gone off the deep end of anti-establishment extremism. That’s why I don’t play the game anymore. Because I am sick of the extremism.
How ironic, considering “Divx networks” basically ripped off opendivx (this led to the development of xvid) and they still have the nerve to come say and they want to make money out of mpeg4 without paying any licence.
I didn’t know anything about that. Now I know a little about it. It is a good point about the credibility of the source of that quote.
Oh yeah! that’s a “hindrance to everyone who seeks to compete fairly” allright.
To me “compete fairly” means free market no monopolies, so from my point of view that statement is a truism. I simply believe free markets work. I don’t think there is any need for laws that artificially increase scarcity. I think if goods aren’t scarce, that is a good thing, not something we should prevent.
“I don’t think there is any need for laws that artificially increase scarcity. I think if goods aren’t scarce, that is a good thing, not something we should prevent.”
Free markets work for things like pen and pencils and notepads. They don’t work for highly technical areas where it costs millions of dolars to develop something new and inovative.
And we have laws against monopolies as well, so it doesn’t matter.
And free market doesn’t seem to have prevented Microsoft from becoming a monopoly now does it? In fact, it helped Microsoft become a monopoly, because they simply copied everything everyone else did.
http://users.pandora.be/rschroev/kleenex.sytes.net/demo/
http://users.pandora.be/rschroev/www.loulousport.com/bxl/
(the images are mirrored from http://kleenex.sytes.net/demo/ and http://www.loulousport.com/bxl/)
Yeah. That’s a good attitude. “I don’t need them anyway”.
>>>>>>>
We don’t need people that incredibly shallow.
Well, when the last busienss customer leaves OSS for commercial software, they can still be saying that.
>>>>>>>>
IIRC, business users are flocking to OSS, and the OSS people really haven’t changed their ideology.
It’s HOW they protested. They did it in a childish and abnoxious manner.
>>>>>>>>>
How so? These protests are in the same vein as the “Truth” commercials. Yes, its obnoxious, but that’s the point. Its supposed to grab your attention!
You haven’t dealt with corporate buerocracy very much have you?
>>>>>>>>>>
While there are a whole lot of PHBs out there, they’re not in charge of the biggest companies. This can quite easily be seen by the fact that, according to the latest statistics, almost all the IT officers in Fortunte 500 companies are ignoring the SCO debacle. Smaller companies follow the lead of larger companies. If OSS makes significant inroads into large companies, the smaller companies will follow suit in time.
On the contrary. If OSS wants me to use their software as opposed to Microsoft’s software, they are going to have to play on MY TERMS and on the terms of the corporations they are trying to convince to use open source.
>>>>>>>
That’s a laugh. “OSS” doesn’t want *you* to do anything. They (largely) have no business quotas to meet, no market penetration reports to listen to, none of that bullshit. OSS is out there to create good software and an environment conducive to the creation of good software. Software patents are a direct attack on the latter. If you want to deny yourself any benifets OSS software may bring you, just because you don’t like their politics, then feel free to. You’ll probably be alone, though, as smarter people figure out that they can gain significant advantages by embracing OSS software.
If they want to make me try to play on their terms, I won’t play, and neither will the corporations and businesses.
>>>>>>>>>
Heh. You might not want to play on their terms, but large companies and government entities all over the world are doing so.
OSS software is not a product. You don’t get to bend it to your personal will. OSS is a *movement*. It comes with some great software, but also comes with a community and an ideology. Ideologies differ by community, but an ideal common to all of them is openness. It is critical to all OSS communities that an open and free environment for software creation exist. If you’re not willing to play on terms that preserve that environment, you’re just a freeloader, and the OSS community gains absolutely nothing by you using their software.
“Patents grant a monopoly to the holder, preventing free market competition.”
“No they don’t. Patents provide incentive for spending money on R&D.”
That the means of providing that incentive is by granting monopoly priveleges is not generally disputed. Even economists who argue for patents and copyrights (the majority of them) recognize them as grants of monopoly. They simply believe that free markets are not capable of adequately promoting invention.
“the other guy can simply wait until they develop something, and then copy it.”
Boldrin and Levine (see the paper referenced in my other comment) make the point that there is considerable economic value in being first.
“So one person claims, so another person can dispute and also show emperical evidence for.”
I would like to see such evidence, but I don’t know of any. It is true that statistics are easily manipulated, and that it is hard to measure whether or not something “increases invention”. Anyway, below is an informative critique of the EU patent directive by some economists: http://www.researchineurope.org/policy/critique.htm
What the world would be like if someone had patented wheels.
Seriously, the vigour with which some people on this forum seem to justify these patents is surprising, shall I say. BT patented the hyperlink, and tried to enforce its patent and make money of it. Even though IBM is on OSS side against SCO, they do hold a patent for “Clickable menus” or something to that effect. Such software patents are absurd. I can imagine someone trying to patent “A vehicle that does not need a horse to pull it” Everyone, I hope, on this forum would be rolling on the floor laughing at the stupidity, because it seems so obvious that it is patently absurd, pun intended.
The thing is that the patent system is not working. How many of those inventions are owned by individuals anyway. Say, next to none. How many OSS projects can afford to face off against a corporation like Microsoft in patent litigation, sould it come to that. Pretty much few companies can do that anyway. How many big companies have been found in patent violation anyway. Say, most of them, including Intel, Microsoft, IBM, and several, make that many others. They got away with paying amounts that were drops in the ocean compared to what they are worth. That is yet another face of the patent system that is barely discussed. Big corporations like things like this because they can get away with it because they have the money.
If I had my way, I would ban software with shady patents in my country. Maybe even ban the use of products with questionable patents altogether.
Of course, it does not help that patent offices do not have competent enough people to deal with these patents applications anyway.
The unfairest thing IMO is that this leaves poor little projects to square off against really big money, and some of these lawsuits can be pretty frivolous too.
“We don’t need people that incredibly shallow.”
I see. So much for Linux on the desktop then.
“IIRC, business users are flocking to OSS, and the OSS people really haven’t changed their ideology.”
I don’t see it. And neither do the commerical software vendors apparently since I can count on one hand the number of major business apps that have been ported to Linux. Linux users take one or two companies and try to make a huge over-generalization that simply isn’t true.
“Smaller companies follow the lead of larger companies. If OSS makes significant inroads into large companies, the smaller companies will follow suit in time.”
IF is the keyword. So far, it hasn’t made significant inroads into large companies. For the most part, it is still restricted to trivial tasks such as email servers and Web servers. And even in email servers, it hasn’t made serious inroads because it lacks Lotus Notes server or Exchange Server.
“You’ll probably be alone, though, as smarter people figure out that they can gain significant advantages by embracing OSS software.”
Well, so far your “mass flocking to open source” hasn’t materialized. So I don’t think its a question of intelligence.
“Heh. You might not want to play on their terms, but large companies and government entities all over the world are doing so.”
Once again, I don’t see it. I see a FEW large companies deploying Linux on web servers and some email servers. I see some governments in poorer countries deploying Linux. That’s all I see at this point.
“OSS software is not a product. You don’t get to bend it to your personal will. OSS is a *movement*.”
Tell that to Red Hat. To them, OSS is a product. It is a revenue stream. And guess what? Corporations don’t want “movements”.
“It comes with some great software”
It also comes with a lot of crap that is no where near up to commercial standards.
“Ideologies differ by community, but an ideal common to all of them is openness.”
And the ideology changed a great deal when Linux stopped being a colaborative learning project and became a symbol of anti-establishmentarianism.
“If you’re not willing to play on terms that preserve that environment, you’re just a freeloader.”
On the contrary. The average OSS zealot is a freeloader. They don’t want to have to pay for anything. They don’t want to have to pay for software, they don’t want to have to pay licensing fees for someone elses work, they don’t want to have to pay for music, they don’t want to have to pay for DVDs, they don’t want to have to pay for anything. That, my friend, is freeloading.
“The unfairest thing IMO is that this leaves poor little projects to square off against really big money, and some of these lawsuits can be pretty frivolous too.”
Does it? Do you remember way back in the early 1990s… There was a little company called Stac electronics who made a program called Stacker that could double hard disk space by compressing files. Microsoft then created a product called Doublespace. Unforunately for Microsoft, but fortunately for Stac Electronics, Microsoft infringed on a patent when they did this. Stac Electronics sued Microsoft, won the lawsuit, and walked away with a big fat check for licensing fees from Microsoft to include disk compression technology in DOS 6.22, Windows 95, etc.
So the patent system often protects the little guy instead of harming them.
Does it? Do you remember way back in the early 1990s…
When computer industry wasn’t so monopolized, there were still easy ways to innovate and software patents weren’t so numerous and little companies could still emerge from humble origins and find a niche market?
We remember, that’s why the current situation is criticized. Software patents no longer protect pioneers, they just protect large enterprises with the economic power to patent any abstract idea their engineers have, even before implementing anything useful.
“Software patents no longer protect pioneers, they just protect large enterprises with the economic power to patent any abstract idea their engineers have, even before implementing anything useful.”
I disagree. I guy with a degree in computer science or mathematics, a C compiler, and some free time, can still inovate, especially if he has the incentive that if his idea works, he can patent it and make a lot of money off of it.
If it passes my company dosen’t ship to europe period.
Those fools can write their own software and *license* their technology sector out of existence for all I care.
I guy with a degree in computer science or mathematics, a C compiler, and some free time, can still inovate, especially if he has the incentive that if his idea works, he can patent it and make a lot of money off of it.
Are you sure? Perhaps he won’t be so glad to discover his idea was patented years ago by an enterprise with thousands of developers (some of them smarter than him) and he must pay for something he discovered on his own, even if said enterprise never used that idea.
Or perhaps his idea wasn’t patented, but uses many patented parts (like, let’s say… a progress bar). So when he tries to enforce his patent, the company that patented the progress bar countersues and makes him shut up with their horde of expensive lawyers.
So there you have your smart guy discovering that the only innovation is in the enterprises, and not because of lack of it in the outside. More like lack of economic power in the outside.
“Software patents no longer protect pioneers, they just protect large enterprises with the economic power to patent any abstract idea their engineers have, even before implementing anything useful.”
BTW, that’s not true. Do some research on patents and you see quite clearly that abstract ideas CANNOT be patented.
And basically, this isn’t about oss rights anyway. It’s about OSS freeloaders who don’t want to have to pay other people for their work. It’s about oss freeloaders who want everything free. The same oss freeloaders who complain about software patents are the same people who are the most vocal critics that RIAA is actually trying to protect the copyrights of their artists!
Ultimately, that’s what this is about.
Patents grant a monopoly to the holder, preventing free market competition.
Maybe I can explain my view better this way:
Suppose you develop an new algorithm, now suppose that you release the pseudocode for it under GPL. Now suppose that microsoft starts using your algorithm and making money out of it. What happens? microsoft can either buy your licence, in this case the gpl (it may not actually cost anything but it’s still a licence) or they get sued by you or the FSF right? It’s basically a buy my licence or get screwed situation just like patents. Does this make make GNU a monopoly that prevents people from using gpl’ed code on their closed source projects?
“Are you sure? Perhaps he won’t be so glad to discover his idea was patented years ago by an enterprise with thousands of developers (some of them smarter than him) and he must pay for something he discovered on his own, even if said enterprise never used that idea.”
#1: If he had done his research first, he wouldn’t have had that problem. Besides, it’s a complete waste of time to reinvent the wheel, so I would hope someone would make sure that someone else hasn’t already created what they are trying to create.
#2: If he came up with a different method of accomplishing the same thing, he hasn’t infringed on anyone’s patent. Example: A corporation cannot patent “algorithms that sort extremely fast”. They can only patent a specific algorithm that sorts extremely fast. As any programmer knows, there are multiple ways to sort, some faster than others. if the guy comes up with a way to sort that is as fast as some patented way to sort, but he isn’t using the same algorithm, he hasn’t infringed on any patents.
BTW, that’s not true. Do some research on patents and you see quite clearly that abstract ideas CANNOT be patented.
No. Do some research in real, already patented ideas and be surprised. Read:
http://swpat.ffii.org/patents/samples/index.en.html
An interesting one:
Pay per Use:
In 1993, the European Patent Office (EPO) granted Canon K.K. of Japan owns a patent on charging a fee per a unit of decoded information. The main claim covers all systems where a local application decodes information received from remote information distributor and calculates a fee based on the amount of information decoded. If an information vendor wants to realise a full “Pay Per Use” system where the fee arises only when the user actually reads the information (rather than when it is transmitted), he might want to beg Canon for a license. Perhaps Canon will be generous, since it is clear that the patent claim describes a class of programs for computers (computer-implemented calculation rules), and the supposedly novel and inventive problem solution (invention) consists in nothing but the program [ as such ]. All features of this claim belong to the field of data processing by means of generic computer equipment.
And basically, this isn’t about oss rights anyway. It’s about OSS freeloaders who don’t want to have to pay other people for their work. It’s about oss freeloaders who want everything free. The same oss freeloaders who complain about software patents are the same people who are the most vocal critics that RIAA is actually trying to protect the copyrights of their artists!
You are totally off-topic. Infringement of patents doesn’t mean necessarily you used someone else’s ideas knowingly. That’s the problem.
If you have some bias towards OSS supporters, that’s your problem. But getting the RIAA in this conversation makes no sense at all.
#1: If he had done his research first, he wouldn’t have had that problem. Besides, it’s a complete waste of time to reinvent the wheel, so I would hope someone would make sure that someone else hasn’t already created what they are trying to create.
Hard to know if the company filed a patent and never told anyone until they spotted someone they could enforce it on.
#2: If he came up with a different method of accomplishing the same thing, he hasn’t infringed on anyone’s patent. Example: A corporation cannot patent “algorithms that sort extremely fast”. They can only patent a specific algorithm that sorts extremely fast. As any programmer knows, there are multiple ways to sort, some faster than others. if the guy comes up with a way to sort that is as fast as some patented way to sort, but he isn’t using the same algorithm, he hasn’t infringed on any patents.
That’d be very nice, if it always happened like that in the real world. Read:
dynamically extensible web server:
This seems to cover any webserver that processes HTML forms and invokes a program via a common gateway interface, such that this program returns a webpage.
Info here:
http://swpat.ffii.org/patents/samples/ep747840/index.en.html
You still think they are fair?
“No. Do some research in real, already patented ideas and be surprised. Read:”
I didn’t say the system hasn’t been abused. It has been. But not all patents that have been issued are valid patents. You can always claim the patent you are accused of violating is invalid and argue that in court.
“You are totally off-topic. Infringement of patents doesn’t mean necessarily you used someone else’s ideas knowingly. That’s the problem.”
Igornance is not an excuse for breaking the law. Poor research. End of story. If they didn’t know, they should have known. “But judge, I didn’t know someone else already had a patent on this.” Yeah right.
“If you have some bias towards OSS supporters, that’s your problem. But getting the RIAA in this conversation makes no sense at all.”
It does make sense. Because the situation is similar. It’s about people who don’t want to have to pay for other people’s work. It’s about freeloaders who want to be able to steal other people’s work and not have to pay any consequences for it.
Are you going to honestly tell me that GNUtella was not invented for the purpose of fostering the illegal swapping of copyrighted music and videos? Give me a break. You can claim that’s not its purpose on a technicality, and you can get a judge to agree with you. But give me a brek. It’s purpose was obvious.
The biggest problem is that there are actually “too many” patents being granted. How do you think a little guy wanting to start a software company is going to be able to sift through the whole pile of patents, some of which are several inches thick to try and see if he might be infringing. Or does he just go into business and wait and see if he gets sued for violation.
Seriously, one reason many software companies are patenting is that in the event that they are sued, they can pull out their patent portfolios and look for instances where you might be infringing them so that they can countersue. It is difficult, if not impossible, to actually not infringe on some ridiculous patent. How hard is it going to be for a small company to get funding when it is hit by a lawsuit by Microsoft, for example.
Lets face it, patents are horribly not working in the software arena.
“Hard to know if the company filed a patent and never told anyone until they spotted someone they could enforce it on.”
It’s called doing a search of the patent database. Patents are publically available information.
“This seems to cover any webserver that processes HTML forms and invokes a program via a common gateway interface, such that this program returns a webpage.”
So someone patented CGI. So what? Come up with another method of invoking an external program and don’t call it CGI. End of story. Besides, who actually uses CGI anymore?
BTW, want an example of how patents foster inovation. Here ya go.
Why do we have the PNG graphics format? Simple, because Unisys threatend to sue everyone who was using GIF without paying a licensing fee. The PNG image format is a result of the GIF patent. And guess what? PNG is superior to GIF in virtually every way. But if it hadn’t been for the GIF patent, we wouldn’t have PNG today.
So what do we see here? We see that patents provide the motivation for someone to come up with a better way of doing things.
I didn’t say the system hasn’t been abused. It has been. But not all patents that have been issued are valid patents.
They are, since they are approved. They can be enforced. And a system that can be abused must have something wrong in its foundations.
You can always claim the patent you are accused of violating is invalid and argue that in court.
Yeah, and we all know good lawyers (the best ones) are pretty cheap and can take any enterprise lawyer, any time. Oh, wait…
“But judge, I didn’t know someone else already had a patent on this.” Yeah right.
“But judge, that patent covers ANY way to solve a particular problem, wasn’t ever used by its owner, was too abstract to be identified as my algorithm (that’s totally original) and my lawyer’s salary is already 3 months off”
It does make sense. Because the situation is similar.
Copyright != Patents. It’s not about copying.
It’s about freeloaders who want to be able to steal other people’s work and not have to pay any consequences for it.
Such a generalization sounds pretty off.
Are you going to honestly tell me that GNUtella was not invented for the purpose of fostering the illegal swapping of copyrighted music and videos? Give me a break. You can claim that’s not its purpose on a technicality, and you can get a judge to agree with you. But give me a brek. It’s purpose was obvious.
“Are you gonna tell me knives weren’t made to kill people? etc etc etc”.
Stick to software patents. This conversation is not about copyright, RIAA, Napster, freeloaders or the color of your cat. You’ve been pretty off-topic in your last two comments.
“Lets face it, patents are horribly not working in the software arena.”
Once again, I didn’t say there aren’t problems. But fix the problems. Revamp the system. Don’t simply make it so that people can’t protect their work anymore.
Completely abolishing software patents has only one purpose. And that is to allow freeloaders to steal ideas without having to pay for them. It’s to allow the OSS developers to keep on cloning commercial software and not have to actually spend any money on developing new and better ways of doing things.
Like I said, PNG is an example of where the OSS community was FORCED to come up with something better because they were threatened with a lawsuit if they continued to simply clone something that was patented.
And you know what else the GIF patent did? It actually got Microsoft to support an OSS project. Microsoft was one of the most adament supporters of PNG. In fact, the Internet Explorer browser was one of the first to support PNG images.
So what do we see here? We see that patents provide the motivation for someone to come up with a better way of doing things.
So what do we see here? We see unnecessary duplication of effort and an image format that is still inferior in some ways to GIF, like when using 8 bit color transparent files, but can’t be made better in that aspect without violating a patent.
Frankly, I am a bit incredulous about your comments. So misinformed it’s seems a troll …
#1 OSS don’t want you. OSS programmers just want to create nice programs and environments, they don’t care about you. Personnally, if nobody uses my software, it doesn’t matters as long as this software works well for me.
#2 you really overestimate software patents, merely by confusing them with “real” patents. I’m not very fond of the entire Patent system, but at least, with the “material” patents, you only patents one of the potential solutions, and you generally need a real, workable, prototype. It’s not the case with software patents : with them, you patents IDEAS, not implementations. That’s an incredibly dangerous trend. Famous example : “amazon one-click”.
#3 you claim enterprises fund university research only for patents. Well, it’s mostly true in US; the trend is lower in Europe. And personnally I’m not so fond of this trend too, as it leads to a lack of funding in fundamental research (hint : enterprises wants immediate results. While normal from the enterprise point of view, it’s not the best method for general advance of sciences and techniques, which IS the aim of the University (or should be…)).
Furthermore, software patents are illegal right now in Europe (even if the EPO has illegally granted around 30000 software patents), so they don’t play a leading role *actually* in funding European CS research.
#4 your point of companies who just “copy” the innovation is generally meaningless. First, because the innovator has a de facto advantage (as economic studies highlited it). Secondly because “copying” the innovation would only be true for straightforward ideas, not complicated ideas. If the idea is so simple that people could start copying it quickly, was it worth a patent in the first case ? If the idea is complex, well, copycat companies will have a hardest time, and secondly, the innovator will have a leading advantage over them (if only because they *understood* the idea 😉
#5 you seems to think inventors NEEDS patents to have a R&D incentive. It’s plain wrong — at least in Computer Science. Simply because, contrary to others “material” fields, your investment could be incredibly low compared to thoses fields (some guys and some computers vs a real lab and after that an entire factory to build your products). And people don’t need patents to invent things : they’ll do it anyway.
#6 the very idea of patents is to DESCRIBE the invention to the public, so that after the first period where the inventor has a monopoly, anybody could use the invention. Just for fun, try to read a software patents. They are ridiculously unreadable. NOBODY reads them in the Software Industry (and I don’t even speak of OSS developers here).
#7 contrary to others science fields, a list of software inventions aren’t available at one place. Moreover, programming is incremental : you build software over MANY ideas and add your owns. The result of that is it’s structurally really hard to have the same patent application process than others sciences fields, with a single examinator. Current software patents are garbage, badly written, and which don’t care about previous art.
#8 when people tell you that a “progress bar” patent was applicated, you first dismissed it as untrue. Then (as sadly this patent is awarded by the EPO) you say that it doesn’t matters because it will be dismissed in court. YES, EXACT !
That’s the entire problem. Because of course, many patents will be dismissed in court. But first, WHY were they granted in the first place ? and secondly, it doesn’t matters if the patent is wrong or not. If tomorrow a lawyer send me a letter threatening one of my software, will I go in court, or will I remove my software, EVEN KNEWING THAT THEIR PATENT IS WRONG ? it will depends on my available money, and seeing the price of a court litigation, furthermore a litigation on technical grounds where you could end up with an unenlightened juge… well, I don’t know, perhaps I will go in court, perhaps not. I think many people will simply stop their programming : OSS programmers do it for fun, not in the hope of screwing microsoft or have cease and desist letters in the mail box …
So if you don’t understand WHY software patents are looked as bad by most of OSS programmers, perhaps do you have now a better point of view ? don’t you understand that the RISK of thoses patents could be so great that people will simply stop programming ?
imho, software patents in US weren’t too much abused .. before today. Perhaps because patents weren’t so much abused in general as they are today. But with the US justice system going crazy, and a worldwide similar legislation, wouldn’t you think that lawyers of gready firms will simply going on all they can, OSS programmers or not ? medium software firms will risk to suffer; small software firms will risk to close; and independent or OSS programmers won’t take the risk — it’s not worth it. When you think that there are “companies” with the only business model of suing everybody on some patents portfolios they had bought … it’s silly, really crazy. Furthermore, software ARE protected by copyright, and it works well here in europe (and it worked well to in US before patents). We don’t NEED them..
What you don’t really realize is that, for big companies, patents aren’t important : first because they have the money of buying them (around 10000 euros here for the application process, largelly out of the hand of OSS/independant, even small company — remember, with software, you deal with MANY ideas), secondly because they have a portfolio of patents ! so, you had that great idea and implemented it in a software and patented it. Then IBM create a similar program. You try to sue them. IBM lawyers laugh, and show you their own patents portfolio. Chances are that you’ll infringe one of them. But be calm, IBM will be very cool with you : you’ll do cross-licencing. IBM won’t sue you about THEIR patents, but neither do you. Talk about patents as a reward for small company… you are naive.
In fact, IBM representatives clearly states once that their patents portfolio wasn’t so important for the benefit of their licensees, but because they let IBM act as IF THERE WASN’T SUCH A LAME SOFTWARE PATENT SYSTEM.
Then, as OSS programmers, what could we do about the upcoming directive ? well, I sent money to the FFII, I signed the petition, letters to MEP, etc. Putting an informative page on my web site is a small act, but a symbolic one — http://www.roard.com . It’s not even closed, just a frontpage explaining my point of view on patents.
And now, you are moaning ?
“Are you gonna tell me knives weren’t made to kill people? etc etc etc”.
I can clearly show you that the primary use of knives is not for killing people.
Can you do that for Gnutella? I bet you can’t. Kaaza, Bearshare, Limewire, etc., all run over Gnutella. And what are those software programs used for? I don’t have to tell you. I’m sure you know.
“So what do we see here? We see unnecessary duplication of effort and an image format that is still inferior in some ways to GIF, like when using 8 bit color transparent files, but can’t be made better in that aspect without violating a patent.”
Yes, it can be made better. Don’t forget that the only thing Unisys has a patent on is the compression technology used to create GIFS–a compression technology which is inferior.
Completely abolishing software patents has only one purpose. And that is to allow freeloaders to steal ideas without having to pay for them. It’s to allow the OSS developers to keep on cloning commercial software and not have to actually spend any money on developing new and better ways of doing things.
It doesn’t have only one purpose. You’re trying hard not to think about it, but it gives many advantages to computer industry and favors competitivity of small enterprises (versus monopolies).
And you know what else the GIF patent did? It actually got Microsoft to support an OSS project. Microsoft was one of the most adament supporters of PNG. In fact, the Internet Explorer browser was one of the first to support PNG images.
Get your facts straight. Internet explorer on Windows has never fully supported PNG, specially transparent ones. Any OSS browser does a better job at it.
I can clearly show you that the primary use of knives is not for killing people.
Can you do that for Gnutella? I bet you can’t.
Distribution of OSS software and public domain art (music, images, movies, etc). I don’t care if that’s a primary use, that’s a totally valid and legal use that justifies its existence.
Anyway, could you leave your bias against P2P systems? Like I told you before, it’s about software patents.
Yes, it can be made better.
Then why hasn’t it been the case? Perhaps you have there a compressed bitmap image file format for 8-bit transparent files with animation that works better than GIF? Even though no enterprise has EVER been able to do that?
“#1 OSS don’t want you.”
Really? Hmm… Considering the push by many OSS users to get Linux on the desktop and in business, I don’t that your general statement here is true.
“It’s not the case with software patents : with them, you patents IDEAS, not implementations. That’s an incredibly dangerous trend. Famous example : “amazon one-click”.”
You apparently haven’t read the rest of the treat. I already stated that Amazon’s one click ordering was an example of a bad patent. But that’s doesn’t mean the whole system should be thrown out. It means it needs to be fixed.
“#3 you claim enterprises fund university research only for patents. Well, it’s mostly true in US; the trend is lower in Europe. And personnally I’m not so fond of this trend too, as it leads to a lack of funding in fundamental research (hint : enterprises wants immediate results. While normal from the enterprise point of view, it’s not the best method for general advance of sciences and techniques, which IS the aim of the University (or should be…)).”
Where else do you propose the funding come from? The government? Which can’t afford it? Or should students have to pay for their own research? The funding has to come from somewhere.
“5 you seems to think inventors NEEDS patents to have a R&D incentive. It’s plain wrong — at least in Computer Science.”
It’s not wrong. Investors NEED to be able to capitalize on their investment to have an R&D incentive. And that’s true in computer science as well as in any other field.
“Just for fun, try to read a software patents. They are ridiculously unreadable. NOBODY reads them in the Software Industry (and I don’t even speak of OSS developers here).”
And that’s why they get sued. Because they don’t read the patents.
“#7 contrary to others science fields, a list of software inventions aren’t available at one place. Moreover, programming is incremental”
Software patents go through the same patent office as all other patents, so yes, the list is available in once place.
“But first, WHY were they granted in the first place?”
Because the system is broken, which I have stated numerous times. But it needs to be fixed. NOT thrown out.
“So if you don’t understand WHY software patents are looked as bad by most of OSS programmers,”
Software patents are bad for OSS programmers because they don’t allow them to steal other people’s work with immunity, which OSS programmers are so fond of doing. Software patents actually require that they pay other people for their work, something that OSS programmers don’t like to do because they are freeloaders.
“Furthermore, software ARE protected by copyright, and it works well here in europe (and it worked well to in US before patents). We don’t NEED them..”
So I switch all my WHILE statements to UNTIL statements, reverse my < and > signs, and then copy someone’s algorithm. Guess what? I just stole their work without violating their copyright.
Anyway, I’m done with this thread. It’s become circular and I am sick of repeating myself because people aren’t reading previous posts, or are simply ignoring what I said in previous posts.
I have better things to do with my time.
“Distribution of OSS software and public domain art (music, images, movies, etc). I don’t care if that’s a primary use, that’s a totally valid and legal use that justifies its existence. ”
Which can be done far more effectively through HTTP and FTP. So once again, give me a break. Clearly that was not the intended purpose of GNUtella.
“On the contrary. If OSS wants me to use their software as opposed to Microsoft’s software”
OSS doesn’t want you 🙂
C’mon already, top speed, Coral Snake or whoever you are. Everybody’s tired of you at OSNews. Everybody knows that you like MS and hate Linux. So be it, bye your 6th copy of WinXP to support CSS, we couldn’t care less.
“Because the system is broken, which I have stated numerous times. But it needs to be fixed. NOT thrown out.:
Perhaps they’d like to do that before throwing a lot of misery on the European software industry.
History has shown that the EU doesn’t give a shit about fixing the system. The Eurpean Patent Office has been illegaly giving out patents for years now.
Also, while there are a lot of bogus patents out there, even big companies are having trouble getting them invalidated. That should give you a clue as to how much this will hurt OSS and small software companies.
Patents are there to improve innovation, but Europe seems to be doing fine without. Even better, most of the European developers don’t want them. Shouldn’t the EU be listening to them ?
You apparently haven’t read the rest of the treat. I already stated that Amazon’s one click ordering was an example of a bad patent. But that’s doesn’t mean the whole system should be thrown out. It means it needs to be fixed.
I fundamentally disagree with you. My opininon is that software patents are, structurally, flawed and beyond repair. Because of the nature itself of programs (ideas) and because the way we programs : incrementally, using many existing ideas and adding new ones. Mathematics aren’t patentable, and nor should be programs. There is NO differences between programs algorithms and mathematics.
Furthermore, I really don’t think that even adding knowledgable people at the EPO will really correct the problem. Firstly because it would be an incredible job. Secondly because of the EPO nature itself and the way EPO
earns money (they have an incentive to grant patents, not
to refuse them).
Where else do you propose the funding come from? The government? Which can’t afford it? Or should students have to pay for their own research? The funding has to come from somewhere.
Of course, but actually there is European Research, without software patents.
It’s not wrong. Investors NEED to be able to capitalize on their investment to have an R&D incentive. And that’s true in computer science as well as in any other field.
The simple fact that, if they find a new thing, they will lead the field for a year or two isn’t enough ?
Furthermore, software patents couldn’t be used in europe for that goal, and guess what ? investors invests anyway.
And that’s why they get sued. Because they don’t read the patents.
First, for the moment, nobody is sued, and personnally, I’d like it continues the same here 🙂
Secondly, you really don’t read me, do you ? thoses patents are so badly written that you really have hard time to understand what the hell they are about. Don’t you think it’s strange that they are written that way, that even a software engineer as myself has trouble to read them ? they aren’t written in clear language as they should be, but in lawyer-language. AND DAMN ! THE BASIC IDEAS OF PATENTS IS TO BE USED AS A DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF AN INVENTION ! so imho, if they aren’t easily understandable, there is A BIG problem here.
Software patents go through the same patent office as all other patents, so yes, the list is available in once place.
No. First because software innovations from University aren’t all patented; secondly, because software innovations from companies aren’t all patented. Patents list aren’t the ultimate list of all innovations. At least, they didn’t take in account all the previous art. And in Europe, anyway, it can’t be the case. The EPO granted some patents in twisting the law thoses last years, but that’s all. You could hardly called that a full list of prior art. And I wish luck to the examinators, because they’ll need to read thoses infamous written and fuzzy patents. Good luck.
Because the system is broken, which I have stated numerous times. But it needs to be fixed. NOT thrown out.
The system ISN’T (or, shouldn’t) applicated currently in EU, and the vast majority of EU programmers and companies don’t want it. So it’s not a matter of thrown it.
And anyway, the problem of software patents is inherent to the very immaterial nature of software and the way we build programs. I seriously doubt that you could fix it.
Software patents are bad for OSS programmers because they don’t allow them to steal other people’s work with immunity, which OSS programmers are so fond of doing. Software patents actually require that they pay other people for their work, something that OSS programmers don’t like to do because they are freeloaders.
Could I remind you that thoses pesky OSS programmers actually provides you tons of softwares that you could get FOR FREE and that you could even get the corresponding source code ? but yes, of course, go on, false accusations is easier. Moron.
So I switch all my WHILE statements to UNTIL statements, reverse my < and > signs, and then copy someone’s algorithm. Guess what? I just stole their work without violating their copyright.
Shouldn’t algorithms be NON-PATENTABLE anyway ? And sorry, but copyright laws works well enough. See Microsoft, recently busted in court because they had stolen the code of a small french software company. It wasn’t Patents, it was just copyright law at work.
“Linux” is not protesting!,, KDE and GNOME etc are.. And those by the way run on FreeBSD too..
If you ever wanted to know the disconnect between Linux users and the rest of the planet, this issue typifies it. Most people in the world could care less about patent law. They could care less about software. It’s a tool. They could care less that somebody else has a patent on the tool they’re using and could possibly sue another company that infringes on that design. Why? Because they’re merely trying to get a job done — and the fact that you Linux dorks want to elevate this issue higher than world hunger, war, deforestation, and the destruction of the natural world illustrates how little you understand and appreciate the relative insignificance of your Quixotian quests…
I’ve been studying Design Patterns for a while now, and if I understand the EU proposal correctly, these would be eligable for patenting. But how exactly are you going to find out which Design Patterns were used in a particular piece of software ? Without the source code or the analyst documents, you can prove nothing. So do patent owners have the right to get a kind of search warrant to find out if their claims are true ?
You do realize that the masses are the greatest danger to our system of government? Democracy depends on an informed public. People should care about patent law, because it could have a huge effect on their tools, and thus the work they need to get done. If you are a fisherman for a living, you sure as hell should care about changes to fishing/wildlife laws!
Besides, nobody is elevating this above war, hunger, deforestation, etc. Just because bigger problems exist doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t work on problems directly relavent to you. Software patents pose a very big danger to Open Source Software. Its natural for them to want to influence how the laws turn out. Hell, if only the biggest problems matter, why should anybody do anything. A CEO of an ailing company shouldn’t concentrate on the problem of how to turn his company around, but should instead worry about how to fix world hunger!
PS> Hell, a lot of the problems you mentioned (world hunger, deforestation, destruction of the natural world) are caused by big companies that have too much power, and the laws that allow them to maximize their profit at the expense of everything else. Software patents are just another facet of a larger problem!
Check out all the hits for protest against software patents!
http://www.google.com/search?q=Protest+against+software+patents&hl=…