Discussion January 2006

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38 participants
15 discussions

Software patents: They're back!
by Georg C. F. Greve 29 Mar '06

29 Mar '06

FYI -- in case you didn't follow the news last week: It seems that software patents are back on the agenda. [ http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/software_patents_they_re_back ] Software patents: They're back! freedom bits greve Sunday 22 January 2006 "I'll be back" has generally made it into history either as a promise or threat by a mediocre actor and/or even more mediocre gouvernator. But while the Terminator needed 7 years for a first reappearance, and another 12 for its second, the "Terminator of European Economy" (Mr Charly McCreevy) only needed months to bring software patents back on the agenda, as we learned last week. While IBM senior vice president John Kelly compared software patents to nuclear weapons in his April 2005 statement to the New York Times "This is like disarmament. You're not going to give away all your missiles as a first step." the European Commission is happily pushing for the economic equivalent of Terminator's SkyNet. (In case you are new to the subject, you can read in this series of open letters how software patents affect various areas of economy and politics) Yesterday, German publisher Heise featured another article about the reappearance of software patents on the agenda, in which Günther Schmalz, head of SAP's software department, is quoted saying "It starts again." And just as the first Terminator went down after a long and desperate struggle involving all sorts of fireworks, Mr Schmalz is being reported saying that software patents were buried due to the better lobbying of the opposition, said the SAP manager. They met the members of the EU parliament far more often and hit the parliament's nerve with their demonstrations. but just like the second Terminator was more fearful and dangerous than the first the patent proponent expressed hope that his camp will be better prepared this time than during the last struggle. So they're coming back, and they are prepared. But so are we, and like Linda Hamilton did not stop coaching her son for the next meeting with another Terminator, we did not let down our guar. We were always aware they would be back. Günther Schmalz is also quoted in the following way: Schmalz justifies SAP's commitment for a EU-wide regulation with SAP seeing patents as the only way to ensure returns on its development investment. Copyright is no solution, he continues, as the actual writing of code only makes up about 20% of the development of software. "Those who drive innovation need patents", Schmalz stresses. "Those who don't imitate." This puzzled me for a second in the same way that the logic of proponents of "intelligent" design sometimes surprises me with its circular logic, or in the way a person on an airplane trying to open the door in mid-flight would puzzle me. I have tried to understand how it is possible that the head of SAP's software development could make such a nonsensical statement about software development. Here are my theories: * Mr Schmalz believes that software developers are essentially glorified typists, and that whenever no key is being pressed, no programming is done. This would imply a disturbingly limited understanding of what software developers actually do. * Mr Schmalz does not consider testing, bug-fixing and other tasks to be part of programming. If programmers have to work according to that maxime, it could explain the quality of some of SAP's software, I guess. * Mr Schmalz thinks that it is the act of typing that constitutes Copyright, which would be an amazingly naive view of Copyright law. It would also mean that the Copyright of a book would be with the typist if the literary author "merely" dictated it. * And finally my favorite: SAP is such a great employer that programmers only have to work 20% of their time and spend the rest reading the papers, getting massages, doing sports and watching TV. In any case this statement makes it seem like Mr Schulz does not know much about software development or law. A peculiar combination for a head of software development. But then: SAP hasn't really developed anything innovative in years. And no, I don't dare to predict the causality in this case. Bill Gates however seemed to know much more about software development when he said in an internal Microsoft memo that was published by Fred Warshofsky, The Patent Wars (1994): "If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete stand-still today. [...] A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose. That price might be high: Established companies have an interest in excluding future competitors." But maybe Mr Schmalz was misquoted and he actually said that: "Those who drive away innovation need patents." Misinformation has at all times been part of the pro-software patent campaign. Remember the term "computer-implemented invention"? People tried to say this directive was about allowing patents on washing machines, braking systems, battery chargers. How many washing machines did SAP sell last year? Or the year before? Why would a pure software company take an interest in this directive if it weren't about software? Truth is that this debate is only about software patents, about monopolies on logic blocks, ideas and applied mathematics. Those who would like to see these fundamental building blocks monopolised in their hands are back. We beat them once, and we can do it again. Because even though the second Terminator was so much quicker, stronger and more well-prepared, we all remember the end of the second movie. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

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Re: My concerns about GPLv3 process
by Bernhard Reiter 12 Mar '06

12 Mar '06

Hi Francesco, let me give you my personal view on the issue: On Sat, Dec 10, 2005 at 06:19:48PM +0100, Francesco Poli wrote: > I share many of MJ Ray's concerns about the design of the GPLv3 > development process. > > I fear the process will not take into account all the issues that will > be brought to the FSF's attention. The process leaders could neglect > (even in good faith) the issues that they feel as unimportant or minor, > while concentrating on some others only. yes, it is true , the last call will be made by Richard. However I do not consider this a disadvantage as Richard is known to accept any substantial argument based on the argument alone. He is a lot better in this than any scientist I know. So if somebody wants an issue in - give Richard a good argument. > How can you assure every group's voice will be heard? > How can you assure the Discussion Committees will represent the various > categories of interested parties adequately? > IIUC, Committees will be formed by invitation in top-down fashion: how > can a group of interested people become one such committee? The process document at http://gplv3.fsf.org/process-definition describes two possibilities to become part of a committee: You get an invitation from the FSF or you get invited later by one of the committees. Given that the committees are there to channel the comments so that the FSF and Richards are able to work, the design is reasonable. Basically I imagine those committees to be the ears and eyes of Richard. This means they better should fit him and his working style. With such wide open ears, documenting everything reasonable they hear, it will be hard for a group to not be heard. They would need to throw away their ticket number. > IMHO, the FSF should make this process more democratic and open. > > P.S.: please Cc: me on replies, as I am not subscribed to the list; > thanks. I think this process is a huge improvement over how it was done in the past any by other groups that draft licenses. Note that the GPL writing was never a democratic process. If we were to follow the majority it is likely that we would not have Free Software, GNU/Linux nor the GNU GPL. Having the main part of the process written down in a rather short document, the ability to give trackable comments, and the time frame of a year make this process quite open. Nevertheless, there is always room for improvement and I expect the FSF to be open for your comments! What we can do in Europe is to convince our governments and companies to donate more money and time into thinking about Free Software and enabling the European Free Software people to carry the discussion to as many places in Europe we can. Best Regards, Bernhard

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Gnash - GNU Flash Player / John Gilmore
by Ciaran O'Riordan 30 Jan '06

30 Jan '06

I just found this surprising new project from John Gilmore: http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash/2005-12/msg00000.html ---------------- Gnash is a new GNU project to build a media player that's compatible with Macromedia "Shockwave Flash" standards and plays common ".swf" files. Gnash will work both as a standalone application, and as a browser plugin (initially for Firefox). Gnash is based on the excellent work done on the public domain program "GameSWF", a graphics library for games that contains the heart of a Flash interpreter. Further development will aim this code toward the goal of playing arbitrary Flash "movies". This goal diverges from the goals of the GameSWF maintainers (which are to make a good public domain graphics library for games), and they were unwilling to accept some of our patches as a result. We're forking the code and pushing foward. New code for Gnash will be licensed under the GPL (version 2 or better). I'm sure we can contribute public domain bug fixes back to GameSWF, though our major development will be GPL licensed. John Gilmore ---------------- More on John Gilmore here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gilmore_%28advocate%29 I found out about Gnash in the Take Action section of the gnu.org homepage. -- Ciarán O'Riordan, _________| Support free software: join FSFE's Fellowship http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ | & encourage others to do so: http://fsfe.org ___________________________| http://ciaran.compsoc.com/fsfe-fellowship.html

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WEF Digital 2.0: Powering a Creative Economy
by MJ Ray 26 Jan '06

26 Jan '06

[Visible on SFinfo at 1600 UTC tomorrow. Reception and some background on my Google Problems page http://mjr.towers.org.uk/blog/2006/google ] WEF Digital 2.0: Powering a Creative Economy Neue technologische Designs ermöglichen ein grosses Feld von neuen Konsumgütern und Produkten. Zugleich bereiten sie aber auch den Boden vor für die zerstörerischen Kräfte von morgen. - Was kommt in der nächsten technologischen Revolution auf uns zu? - Welche Technologien der nächsten Generation treiben die globale Wirtschaft an? - Wie sollen neue Unternehmen oder die heutigen multinationalen Betriebe am besten auf diese neuen Gelegenheiten setzen? Teilnehmer: - Geoffrey Moore, Managing Partner TCG Advisors LLC, USA - John T. Chambers, President and CEO Cisco Systems Inc., USA - William H. Gates III, Chairman and Chief Software Architect Microsoft, USA - Eric Schmidt, CEO Google Inc., USA - Niklas Zennström, Co-Founder and CEO Skype Technologies SA, UK http://www2.sfdrs.ch/tvprogramm/tv_detail.php?slotid=43C6E7DA-6BF7-4CAF-AEA… [Now, the only one of those who doesn't alarm me is the first one and that's probably only because I don't know who he is. Gather round, one and all, get ready to chuck the rotten fruit at the TV.] -- MJ Ray - personal email, see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html Work: http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ irc.oftc.net/slef Jabber/SIP ask

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Booth News #1 - FSF Europe at FOSDEM 2006
by Volker Dormeyer 25 Jan '06

25 Jan '06

Hi all, it's FOSDEM time again. This years Free Software Developers Meeting (FOSDEM) will take place in Brussels during the weekend 25/26 of February. A few days ago, we started to plan the representation of the FSFE at this event. FOSDEM ist one of the major events related to Free Software, which is very close to the community. 1) Our Team We are looking for some people able to help us at our booth. As usual, the major job would be to talk to interesting people and sell some merchandise stuff. We will present and inform about the Fellowship program as well. Please let me know if you are interested in supporting the FSFE this way. Even if you know somebody, who might be interested, I would like to encourage you, to tell me. 2) Hotel The FOSDEM team was able to gain a special (although not very good) rate for FOSDEM visitors at the Saint Catherine Ibis Hotel. The rate is at EUR 69,- per room/night (it doesn't matter, whether it is a double room, or not) plus EUR 10,- breakfast per person/night. The hotel can be booked with a special form, only. Additionally, I would like to offer to look for an additional Hotel in the hope to get a better rate. Please let me know what you think here? Thanks and regards, Volker -- Volker Dormeyer <volker(a)ixolution.de> Join the Fellowship and protect your Freedom! (http://www.fsfe.org)

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Microsoft tries to fool European Comission
by Rui Miguel Silva Seabra 25 Jan '06

25 Jan '06

Danger Will Robinson: http://today.reuters.com/business/newsarticle.aspx?type=ousiv&storyID=2006-… Smith said all source code related to protocols in the Commission remedy would be made available, but only for inspection. It may not be used by licensees. He said Microsoft would charge no extra money for the code beyond what it was already planning to charge for the protocol licenses. Rui

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Howto: Create Free Professional Banner!
by Roland Häder 22 Jan '06

22 Jan '06

Hello GNU people out there, I have finished the very first ALPHA version of my documentation how to create cool advert-banners for your homepages. It's licensed under the GNU FDL so feel free to download it from my server. But one thing: I have "re-produced" and heavily modified Jens Lautenbacher's toturial which can be found here: http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/The_Basics/ But in the head it says: "Text and images Copyright (C) 2002 Jens Lautenbacher and may not be used without permission of the author." Does this mean I am allowed to produce a totural like mine or not? Well, addionally I have added an album which contains screenshots of my work when I have designed my "Against-Software-Patents" banner. Direct link to the album: http://photos.mxchange.org/viewer.php?album=albums/Design-Arbeiten/HOWTOs&p… Link to all (currently one...) my documentation works: http://docs.mxchange.org Cheers, Roland PS: Please never ask me for a M$ Word document... ;-)

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possible gpl violation by webshop xt:commerce
by Hanno Böck 21 Jan '06

21 Jan '06

Hi, Just found the following issue: The webshop xt:commerce, which is a fork of the GPLed oscommerce, doesn't provide it's latest version for download, but they still claim it's GPL. Now, to get the source, you need to pay a "development- and support fee" of 98 eur for twelve months. So this seems to be a clear violation of the GPL. What's the next step? Writing a polite email to them probably. Can anyone help me writing it (preferrably in german), especially pointing to the correct parts of the gpl? (Contact me via jabber, see below) -- Hanno Böck Blog: http://www.hboeck.de/ GPG: 3DBD3B20 Jabber: jabber(a)hboeck.de "Was berechtigt eigentlich jeden Computerbesitzer, ungefragt seine Meinung abzusondern?" Jean-Remy von Matt

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Microsoft grateful for Vienna Manipulations?
by Georg C. F. Greve 20 Jan '06

20 Jan '06

FYI. [ http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/microsoft_grateful_for_vienn… ] Microsoft grateful for Vienna Manipulations? greve Friday 20 January 2006 Many of you read the GROKLAW article on how Microsoft manipulated the Vienna Conclusions of the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Many people around the world spoke up against this form of political manipulation and control by joining the call to "Fellow Me: Say NO! to Vienna Manipulations" Two months later, Austrian chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel has yet to answer the inquiries by the media about these outright manipulations of a United Nations event he himself opened and was patron of, and the results of which were distributed officially by the Austrian government at the summit in Tunis. I would not hold my breath, though: "Schweigekanzler" was selected as "word of the year 2005" in Austria. It could be translated to English as "silent chancellor", or maybe even "hush-up-chancellor". Microsoft however seems to have loved so much discretion. At least that was my first thought when I read the article "Microsoft looks beyond Vista, sees Vienna" on CNET News.com: "The 'Blackcomb' code name has been changed to 'Vienna,' but we do not have any other details to share on timing or focus," Microsoft said in a statement to CNET News.com. "This does not reflect a big change for us; we have used city code names in the past, which are derived from cities/locations in the world known for great 'vistas'--the kinds of places we all want to see, experience and that capture the imagination. Vienna fits with this concept." Vienna fits the concept of a place that Microsoft likes to see, huh? Given the lack of response to such outright political manipulation at the highest levels, I'm not surprised. Even for Microsoft it is rather obscene that they would so blatantly choose the name of a city where they were caught red-handed while manipulating the outcome of a United Nations conference. Apparently Microsoft feels like rubbing in their superiority to concepts like democracy. Even though I had hoped this was public knowledge by now, it really seems that not enough people have heard about this. So please put something along these lines in as many places as possible: Microsoft likes Vienna and what it stands for? I don't: Fellow Me: Say NO! to Vienna Manipulations Here is the HTML blurb you could use for that: vienna_manipulations.html

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Re: Closing this list (gplv3@fsfeurope.org)
by Florian Weimer 19 Jan '06

19 Jan '06

* Georg C. F. Greve: > In case you are interested in general discussions on Free Software, > our mailing list discussion(a)fsfeurope.org will remain available for > that. Will there be a general discussion list for users who wish to exchange thoughts, without the intent of submitting a formal comment yet? Such a list would be quite useful, even if the S/N were pretty low and you'd have to use your killfile extensively.

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Discussion January 2006