I am a C++/Java coder contracting to part of Xerox on a project for Nokia. I've been interested in GNU/Linux since 1991, and the free software world more recently.
I just saw on www.linuxtoday.com that all 20 EU member states had voted against software patents. Hopefully this is true, and the borg are banished for a couple of years at the very least. Any comments/news??
by the way, I've been contributing to the FCPU project discussions for some 2 years now (or so). As part of this, I have this idea to program (via an XML tree based editor) in XML. I already have some basic XML->Java source XSL going. The DTD can make UML or dataflow diagrams compulsary (or URI links to them), and by transforming using a different XSL, you should be able to get a func spec out of the code.
Any interest?
Jeff Davies
Hi Jeff,
On 25-Nov-00 Jeff Davies wrote:
I just saw on www.linuxtoday.com that all 20 EU member states had voted against software patents. Hopefully this is true, and the borg are banished for a couple of years at the very least. Any comments/news??
The story you've read is only partly correct; in fact, they didn't vote yet. They ("they" are all part-taking countries of the European Patent Convention, except Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland) did just come to the agreement to not allow Software Patents.
A decision of the EU (meaning, the European Comission (20 members) is expected on Dec, 15. The European Comission wants to see some "expert" report (meaning, statements from the business) first.
As a summary we can say that Europe will be free of software patents, that's right :-)
Armin.
Hmmm... I think I have to correct things :( :
Armin Herbert a écrit :
Hi Jeff,
On 25-Nov-00 Jeff Davies wrote:
I just saw on www.linuxtoday.com that all 20 EU member states had voted against software patents. Hopefully this is true, and the borg are banished for a couple of years at the very least. Any comments/news??
The story you've read is only partly correct; in fact, they didn't vote yet. They ("they" are all part-taking countries of the European Patent Convention, except Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland) did just come to the agreement to not allow Software Patents.
The EPC counts 20 members, some of them are members of the European Union, others not.
A decision of the EU (meaning, the European Comission (20 members) is expected on Dec, 15. The European Comission wants to see some "expert" report (meaning, statements from the business) first.
As far as I know, the EU counts only 15 members at the present time.
As a summary we can say that Europe will be free of software patents, that's right :-)
Not at all.
If the EU soon decides to have them in the EU, the EPO (European Patent Office) will soon decide ta have them too... so the fight is not over even if we allready won a battle.
Now, for more details and explanations on all that, and what's ahead : http://petition.eurolinux.org/pr/pr6.html http://petition.eurolinux.org/pr/pr7.html http://petition.eurolinux.org/pr/pr8.html
Please, spread the word, and don't hesitate if something is not really clear.
Hi Oliver,
On 26-Nov-00 Olivier Berger wrote:
The EPC counts 20 members, some of them are members of the European Union, others not.
We agree about that.
A decision of the EU (meaning, the European Comission (20 members) is expected on Dec, 15. The European Comission wants to see some "expert" report (meaning, statements from the business) first.
As far as I know, the EU counts only 15 members at the present time.
Yes, but as you can see in [1] the European Comission counts 20 members, AFAIK representatives of the 15 member countries. Sh*t. Any lawyer here? I'm confused ;-)
As a summary we can say that Europe will be free of software patents, that's right :-)
Not at all.
If the EU soon decides to have them in the EU, the EPO (European Patent Office) will soon decide ta have them too... so the fight is not over even if we allready won a battle.
What do you mean by that? If 17 out of 20 members of the ECC decided not to allow software patents, what could happen if their countries join the EU (and what about Switzerland e.g., who decided _not_ to join?) ? And .. well, that's speculative, but in my opinion Poland (which probably will be the first country joining the EU) won't care about software patents, because their main goal is to import from, not to export to the EU member states?
Oliver, can you please tell us more about this and illuminate the dust a bit? I couldn't learn much from the press releases you quoted.
[1] http://europe.eu.int/comm/commissioners/index_en.htm
Armin.
Armin Herbert a écrit :
Hi Oliver,
On 26-Nov-00 Olivier Berger wrote:
The EPC counts 20 members, some of them are members of the European Union, others not.
We agree about that.
A decision of the EU (meaning, the European Comission (20 members) is expected on Dec, 15. The European Comission wants to see some "expert" report (meaning, statements from the business) first.
As far as I know, the EU counts only 15 members at the present time.
Yes, but as you can see in [1] the European Comission counts 20 members, AFAIK representatives of the 15 member countries. Sh*t. Any lawyer here? I'm confused ;-)
Ah... you may be right... I was indeed talking about the member states, not the Comisioners (? "Comissaire" in french)
As a summary we can say that Europe will be free of software patents, that's right :-)
Not at all.
If the EU soon decides to have them in the EU, the EPO (European Patent Office) will soon decide ta have them too... so the fight is not over even if we allready won a battle.
What do you mean by that?
That the EPC was not changed by the EPO because they want to wait until the European Comision make a decision (after the current consultation).
So if the comission decides to make a directive that would allow the software Patents, it will a be a clear sign for the EPO to change the EPC. And tha would be a definite defeat for us.
We have to keep raising concerns at the EU institutions : parliament, comission, and of course at the national level too, in order to comfort the curren situation : no software patents. Of coure, the best way to do this is to answer the current consultation, especially with http://petition.eurolinux.org/consultation/
If 17 out of 20 members of the ECC decided not to allow software patents, what could happen if their countries join the EU (and what about Switzerland e.g., who decided _not_ to join?) ? And .. well, that's speculative, but in my opinion Poland (which probably will be the first country joining the EU) won't care about software patents, because their main goal is to import from, not to export to the EU member states?
And indeed, if we make the EU a bit larger, including countries not concerned very much by the software economy issues, the situation will be worse. The FSF Europe will be a strong counter-power, and I think that we have to be prepared to fight everywhere in europe, especially on the law aspects of freedoms associated to software use and programming.
If you know lawyers that would be able to join us, it could be great !
Oliver, can you please tell us more about this and illuminate the dust a bit? I couldn't learn much from the press releases you quoted.
I hope you'll have a clearer view on the patents issue, and for more information, I advise you to brows www.eurolinux.org, www.freepatents.org or petition.eurolinux.org.