FSFE-IE January 2005

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25 participants
55 discussions

Patents letter, V4
by Ciaran O'Riordan 26 Jan '05

26 Jan '05

As mentioned in a previous mail, AFAICS our mission is to either: > persuade our MEP in JURI (Brian Crowley) to ask parliament to restart the > directive. The current letter wouldn't be good for this purpose. Crowley is well aware of the problems and harms of software idea patents. When we write to him, we have to give legislative grounds for a restart, and show that this tough measure is justified. > persuade either our rep on the Council to make this a B-item (who's that?) Our Council rep, not having been involved in the 2003 and 2004 lobbying, is probably quite unaware of the guts of this issue. The current letter should be aimed at (and sent to) him. The first person that can Name That Rep, gets free software! The V4 draft is a bit smaller again. There's still work I want to do on it, but here's the current content. Let me know if I'm moving in the right direction. ---8<-------------------------------------------------- Dear Council Representative, On behalf of Irish Free Software Organisation (IFSO), I am writing to you regarding Directive 2002/0047 COD. IFSO requests that this directive, "on the patentability of computer related inventions", be changed from an A-list item to a B-list item on the grounds that it permits the patenting of software ideas - an outcome contrary to the stated aim of most of the previous Council members. The original version from the European Commission contained unclear wording which would have allowed the patentability of software ideas. This issue was fixed by the European Parliament in September 2003. In May 2004, similar unclear wording was reintroduced by the European Council. IFSO believes that the members of the European Council were deceived by the wording of the replacement amendments presented to them, and IFSO would like to see this directive fixed while it's still possible. First I would like to summarise the two problems caused by software idea patents, and some of the follow on harm. I'll be brief as you may already be familiar with this issue. If you'd like us to expand or back up any of these, our contact details are at the end of this letter. Problem 1: Every individual and business can currently write software. The current cost of writing software is zero. If this directive legalises the patenting of software, then writing software would carry the risk of patent infringement litigation. This cost is far too high for most individuals and businesses. The avoid litigation, a software writer could perform a patent search to confirm that none of the ideas they implement have been patented. The lawyer's fees for such searches are high, and the software writer would still not be certain that the lawyer missed something, or that a judge would interpret a patent the same way the patent searcher did. Even the cost of challenging a claim of patent infringement is too high for most individuals and businesses. Thus, most people would lose the ability to write software. Problem 2: Software patents specifically prohibit writing useful software For a word processor to be useful, it must be capable of reading and writing the Microsoft's Word document format. That format is a defacto standard that contains many ideas. Obeying that standard is difficult for the world outside of Microsoft because that standard is complex, ever-changing, and always secret. If patents were granted on ideas required to read or write that standard, people would be prohibited from writing useful software. In summary, this directive must not: (A) Take away the current ability for all individuals and businesses to write software, commercially or non-commercially, for themselves or for others (B) Prohibit software writers from obeying standards, both public standards and defacto standards Consequences of these problems A. To protect themselves from the patent system, small and medium-sized enterprises would have to seek the protection of a cash-rich or patent-rich company. It's the duty of a free market government to prevent such feudalism. B. Expanding on the word processor example from Problem 2, if Microsoft can prohibit others from writing useful word processors, then only innovations from that one company will reach software users. C. Again using the word processor example: The only operating systems supported by Microsoft Word are Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh. Giving Microsoft legal control over the word processor market also strengthens their control over the operating system market. These problems are not specific to Microsoft, they're just the most exemplary monopolist. D. The patent costs mentioned in Reason 2 above would increase software production costs, naturally these would trickle down to software purchasers. Since Ireland, and even the EU as a whole, is a net importer of software, it makes negative sense to increase the purchase cost of software. E. Software idea patents would be particularly prohibitive to free software. Sometimes called "libre software" or "open source software", free software is software that gives every recipient royalty-free permission to modify and redistribute it. Everyone is free to examine the software's behaviour and change that behaviour if they're not happy with it. That means that everyone is free to translate it into any language, adapt it to any standard, customise it to any disability, etc. The lack of mandatory royalties, and the (usually) non-commercial distribution mechanisms, would make it particularly difficult for free software developers to obtain patents, ensure they're not infringing a enforceable patent, or license patents from others. == Closing requests == In the USA, the Federal Trade Commission's 2004 report on patents said this in it's conclusion on software idea patents: "Many panelists and participants expressed the view that software and Internet patents are impeding innovation. They stated that such patents are impairing follow-on incentives, increasing entry barriers, creating uncertainty that harms incentives to invest in innovation, and producing patent thickets." The report gave no redeeming qualities at all. We are extremely lucky to be able to learn from the mistakes of another economy that introduced software idea patents. It would be folly to discard this hindsight. Also, I would like to clear up a misunderstanding that still resurfaces, and that is the line: "TRIPS requires software patents". This statement can end discussions prematurely but it is only one interpretation of TRIPS. TRIPS Art 27 says: "patents shall be available for inventions in all fields of technology, provided that they are ... susceptible industrial application". Many TRIPS signatories have legislated that this does not cover software ideas. I suggest the EU joins them. The amendments of the European Parliament were clear and well thought out. Some minor textual clean up would be required, but any attempt to compress their amendments will only yield a result such as what happened in the European Council: loopholes would be left open which could be exploited to obtain patents on software ideas. IFSO has been working on this directive since mid-2003, and we will do our best to provide comments and advice on various amendments in the run up to any further votes or meetings. In the mean time, we urge that this issue be removed from the list of A-items. If you would like to contact IFSO, we can be best reached by email: committee[at]ifso.ie. We also have a correspondent in Brussels who would be interested in taking part in any in-person meetings. ---8<-------------------------------------------------- -- Ciarán O'Riordan http://www.compsoc.com/~coriordan/ Free Software in Ireland: http://ifso.ie

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RE: [Fsfe-ie] Our Council rep
by Teresa Hackett 25 Jan '05

25 Jan '05

Thanks, Ryan, for the correction. I knew she was one of the "three hail Mary's"-picked the wrong one! A previous message to the list indicated that the meeting would be attended by Mary Coughlan, but perhaps this was the wrong meeting? Not sure. Interesting if was Pat the Cope Gallagher - I met him at a public library conference in Portugal a couple of years back, so he's aware of access to information type issues. And the COREPER rep I gave is from Marine section, not agriculture. Teresa On 25/01/2005 16:22, "Teresa Hackett" <teresahackett(a)eircom.net> wrote: > Mmmm, our Council rep for this issue is the Minister for Trade & Enterprise > (Mr Martin), backed up by civil servants in Dublin (ENTEMP-see their > website) and the Council civil servants in Brussels (COREPER-see below). > Because the vote might be taken at the fisheries meeting, then the present > is the Min for Agriculture (Mrs Hanafin). The civil servants have been > dealing with this issue from the start, it's new for the Minister(s) because > they're new in post. Just a small correction to your email - the Minister for Agriculture is Mary Coughlan, not Mary Hanafin. Also, the fisheries function falls under the Minister for Communications, the Marine and Natural Resources, Noel Dempsey. I'm not sure if this means that it will be Dempsey who attends the meeting rather than Mary Coughlan. A third possibility is Dempsey's junior minister, Pat the Cope Gallagher, who seems to take a more direct interest in fisheries issues. Ryan

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Re: [Fsfe-ie] Patent letter, new, shorter, V3
by Malcolm Tyrrell 25 Jan '05

25 Jan '05

Ciaran, your letter seems fine. I will say that I feel that the emphasis should not be on the badness of software patents, but rather on the failure of the current directive to block them. The argument that "software should not be patentable" is now openly accepted by almost all parties (even if they don't really agree). In particular, People supporting the current draft are claiming that it is sufficient to stop software patenting and that "that open-source crowd" are just causing an unnecessary fuss. We have to persuade people that the current document is not sufficient to stop software patents; and that the political hassle caused by rejecting the directive or restarting the process or whatever is necessary. That said, your letter is still good. Some comments: Remove the last line. Also, expand "aka". Use the email address "contact at ifso" rather than "committee at ifso" and replace the "at" in the real draft. I'm not sure calling the TRIPS angle a "bluff" is productive as you might start sounding a bit too lefty. Good luck, Malcohol. _________________________________________________________________ Sign up for eircom broadband now and get a free two month trial.* Phone 1850 73 00 73 or visit http://home.eircom.net/broadbandoffer

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Patent letter, new, long
by Ciaran O'Riordan 25 Jan '05

25 Jan '05

Hi all, It's not certain whether our favourite directive will be voted on in Monday's fisheries meeting or not, but if this letter is ready, maybe it should be delivered on Monday morning either way. If it'll be printed, that means it has to be ready to print on Sunday afternoon. My internet situation isn't what I wish it would be, so I'd rather stick to this list than use the wiki. The letter's not finished, so giz a hand. Section 2 still needs work: editting, reordering, additions, and removals. This letter is already a tad over 4 pages in OpenOffice, so please don't suggest many additions. I'd like to get it down to 4 pages. This was written offline so there may be dates/figures/quotes that have to be confirmed or fixed. (I hope no Esperantists are offended) ------------8<----------------- Dear Representative, On behalf of Irish Free Software Organisation (IFSO), I am writing to you regarding Directive XXX. At issue is that this directive, as written by the European Commission, would make software ideas patentable. This was fixed by the European Parliament, but the EP's work was undone by the European Council. IFSO believes that the European Council was deceived by the wording of the replacement amendments they adopted, and IFSO would like this break down in democracy to be fixed. This directive needs further work, and it certainly isn't in a state where it can be voted on as a minor item in a fisheries meeting. The content of this letter is as follows: 1. Fundamental reasons for excluding software ideas from the patent system A. Willful use of old ideas B. Unknown use of old ideas 2. Important secondary reasons 3. Misconceptions 4. Closing request 1.A. Willful use of old ideas Standards are to software what languages are to humans. Inventing my own innovative language, or learning Esperanto, is a waste time if I want to communicate with my european representatives. Much the same, to take part in the democratic process, I've found that I need software to view the Microsoft Word formatted documents that my representatives attach to their emails. The Microsoft Word format is a defacto standard. The most viable alternative is the free software OpenOffice.org suite. Most people have never heard of it. Providing an alternative to Microsoft Office is very difficult because the document format standards followed by Microsoft's software are complex, ever-changing, and always secret. If Microsoft is allowed to patent even one idea required to read or write their defacto standards, what is very difficult now will become legally prohibited. Alternatives will become as useless as Esperanto. So IFSO's first requirement is that patent legislation must not prohibit people from writing software to use standards, both public standards and defacto standards. 1.B. Unknown use of old ideas The second fundamental issue is that individuals and businesses must remain free from the uncertainty that their software ideas might already be patented, or in the patent application process. Patent searches, litigation insurance, license negotiation, and infringement litigation are just a few of the costs in the design and manufacture of products such as washing mashines or pharmacuticals. The patent costs are enough to prevent the general public from manufacturing their own washing machines and pharmacuticals, but this is not a problem since the lack of raw materials and a factory would prevent the general public from manufacturing these items anyway, even if there were no patent costs. The same is not true for software. Writing software, like writing a book (or a letter), is within the ability of any individual or business. It is a democratised act. IFSO's second requirement is that the current ability of all individuals and businesses to write software and make it available to others, both commercially and non-commercially, must not be taken away by patent legislation. 2. Important secondary reasons The following reasons have been labelled as secondary because the fundamental reasons would stand even if all the following were fixed or judged to be inconsequential. The following are important none the less. A. Law is best when it is clear. There are few opportunities to write legislation that has a sharp line between regulated and unregulated. Here is such an opportunity: I cannot write hardware, and computers cannote read/run hardware. IFSO requests that writing and running software, should not open anyone to patent litigation. Patent inflationists would like fuzzy law which can be reinterpretted, or which can enforce an interpretation by the cost of contesting a bad patent in court, or the threat of litigation, the cost of which is too high for individuals and for most businesses. B. The costs of the patent system are enough to prevent Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) from independently entering the market. Their remaining option would be to seek to be bought out by a cash-rich or patent-rich company. It is the duty of a free market government to prevent such feudalism. C. Dealing with software idea patents is especially problematic for free software. "Free" in the freedom sense, not cost. Also called "libre software" or "open source software". Free software comes with permission to make and distribute copies, so regulating copying in order to pay a per-copy patent license is not possible. In 2003, the European Commission's Information Society Initiative reported that free software may be a second and last chance for a european software industry. D. Expanding on the above situation about patents causing people to require Microsoft software in order to view Microsoft Word formatted documents: If I must use Microsoft Office, then I must be using Microsoft Windows or Apple's Macintosh operating system. No other operating systems are supported. Thusly, Microsoft's defacto standard document formats would maintain their operating system market dominance and exclude new alternatives as well as existing alternatives such as GNU/Linux. E. Again using Microsoft as an example, if patents mean that only Microsoft's software is useful in the Office suite realm, then the only innovations that can reach the public are the innovations of that one company. F. The patent costs mentioned above would increase software production costs. These would naturally end up at the consumer. Since Ireland, and indeed the EU as a whole, is a net importer of software, it makes negative sense to increase the cost of software. G. Expanding the scope of patentability to include software ideas is beyond the remit of this directive. [add quote] H. Software already has legal restrictions in the form of copyright. Many, including IFSO, feel that the restrictions of copyright are too great, particularly in the aftermath of the European Copyright Directive 200N. No activity is currently restricted by both copyright and the patent system. Software writers do not deserve this punishment. I. Less than 30% of the software idea patents received applied for in the EU are by european individuals or businesses. It's the USA, and to a lesser extent Japan, that wants to patent software ideas in the EU. [must find actual number, on ffii.org.uk IIRC] J. The US Federal Trade Commission's patent report said: "Many panelists and participants expressed the view that software and Internet patents are impeding innovation. They stated that such patents are impairing follow-on incentives, increasing entry barriers, creating uncertainty that harms incentives to invest in innovation, and producing patent thickets." It gave no redeeming qualities. 3. Misconceptions to be cleared up #1: "TRIPS requires software ideas be patentable" This bluff assumes the listener won't check TRIPS. In fact, article 33 of TRIPS requires that (get actual quote)"patents be granted for all fields of technolgoy". Many TRIPS signatories have legislated that software ideas are not patentable. I suggest the EU joins them. #2: "If software ideas are unpatentable, every innovation in any device that uses software will be unpatentable" IFSO's request is that software writers and users should not be at risk of patent infringement. This will not interfere with whether washing machine designers or manufacturers would be at risk of patent litigation. 4. Closting requests IFSO was pleased in October 2003 when the European Parliament adopted a series of amendments which clarifed the non-patentability of software ideas. Contact us a [address], meet our folk in IRL or BXL, etc. --------8<--------------------------- Ok, that's what I have. Kinda long, and actually there's things I'd like to add to it. It's not ready or polished or even finished but I wanted to get it onto the list while I continue working on it. -- Ciarán O'Riordan http://www.compsoc.com/~coriordan/ Free Software in Ireland: http://ifso.ie

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Re: [Fsfe-ie] next bach of ifso cd's
by Malcolm Tyrrell 25 Jan '05

25 Jan '05

> I know; it's probably impossible to include more packages than we > already have unless we go to DVD. Before we get too attached to the idea, we should find out what the price hit of DVDs is. Good luck, Malcohol. _________________________________________________________________ Sign up for eircom broadband now and get a free two month trial.* Phone 1850 73 00 73 or visit http://home.eircom.net/broadbandoffer

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UN body promotes open source in education
by Paul Reilly 25 Jan '05

25 Jan '05

Interesting article from ZDnet today. http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/linuxunix/0,39020390,39185038,00.htm Some good links on the original story. The Document they refer to is here: http://www.iosn.net/education/foss-education-primer A UN-funded body has produced a guide that encourages the use of Linux in educational institutions. The International Open Source Network (IOSN), which is part of the UN's development programme, published the guide to free and open source software in education last week. The FOSS Education Primer explains the advantages of using open source software and gives information on server and desktop software that can be used in education. The guide says the advantages of open source software include lower costs; the opportunity for students to learn about programming by examining and modifying the source code; and better reliability than proprietary software. "The development methodology of FOSS [free / open source software] tends to assure high quality of the software," says the guide. "Bugs are removed with the help of large numbers of developers, and the resulting software is more reliable. This is especially true of the more mature FOSS for servers." The guide -- which can be seen here -- has been released under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows other organisations to copy and distribute the work. Last year the IOSN released a guide to using Linux on the desktop for novice PC users. The UK government is also encouraging the use of open source software in education. At last week's BETT trade show Ruth Kelly, the secretary of state for education and skills, said in her keynote speech that open source software can be useful in education. "We believe that high quality and well supported open source solutions have a valuable role to play in education," said Kelly. At the same show SchoolLINUX.com, a company which develops Linux tools for schools, was inundated with requests for its open source desktop operating system for schools.

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Poland rides to the rescue - again...
by Barry Mahon 25 Jan '05

25 Jan '05

From the Register. I am in New Zealand at present so get to see todays news early.... Poland blocks software patents again By Lucy Sherriff Published Monday 24th January 2005 16:53 GMT Poland has intervened again to stop the Council of Agriculture and Fisheries from rubber-stamping the EU directive on computer implemented inventions. Late last week, the controversial legislation, better known as the software patent directive, was reported to be an A-List item on the agenda of the Council of Agriculture and Fisheries. This would have seen it voted through to its second reading. Polish under-secretary from the ministry for science and IT, Wlodzimierz Marcinski, first made his opposition to the directive known last year. He said: "Poland is determined to opt for unambiguous expression in the law of the European Union on issues connected with the patentability of computer-implemented inventions, which at the same time must ascertain that computer programs are excluded from patentability." Thanks to the second Polish intervention, the vote has been delayed. Opponents of the bill say that the JURI committee (responsible for legal affairs) now has a window of opportunity to restart the whole process. JURI is scheduled to meet in Brussels on 2 and 3 February, and Florian Muller of pressure group No Software Patents, says there is a good chance that the committee would vote to restart. So what will happen next? "That is the $64,000 question," says Jeremy Philpott, a spokesman for the UK Patent Office. "Don't forget we are looking at adoption of a common position here. If it is adopted, it will move on to its second reading. If it isn't, it'll just lie of the fringes of the parliament." He suggests that it would be better to send it forward to its second reading, and deal with any perceived problems there, rather than try to unpick it. Going back to the beginning, even on legislation as controversial as this, could set a worrying precedent for lawmaking in Europe, Philpott warns. The alternative is a scenario where even the most basic tenets of a piece of legislation would be open to negotiation right up to the last minute, inevitably drawing out the process and making it more difficult to pass laws, he says. "Some commentators have concerns about unpicking a common position. The common position is a point which all parties have agreed to, from which you don't backtrack." ®

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IFSO Wiki updates
by IfsoWiki＠ifso.ie 25 Jan '05

25 Jan '05

* GlennStrong IfsoCd/DiscContentsTue, 25 Jan 2005 08:30:01 -0000 URL: http://www.ifso.ie/cgi-bin/wiki.cgi/IfsoCd_2fDiscContents * GlennStrong IfsoCdTue, 25 Jan 2005 08:30:01 -0000 URL: http://www.ifso.ie/cgi-bin/wiki.cgi/IfsoCd * GlennStrong IfsoCd/ProductionTeamTue, 25 Jan 2005 08:30:01 -0000 URL: http://www.ifso.ie/cgi-bin/wiki.cgi/IfsoCd_2fProductionTeam

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Re: [Fsfe-ie] next bach of ifso cd's
by Malcolm Tyrrell 25 Jan '05

25 Jan '05

I think we should view the IFSO disks as one of our key projects. It gives Free Software great exposure. Perhaps we can set up a working group to help David? Amongst other things, we will need people to test it before it is mastered. It might be that some folks on the ILUG and at various Netsocs would be willing to help as well. On the issue of CDs vs DVDs, there's probably a lot of old computers out there without DVD drives, so we might lose some coverage if we go with DVDs. Adding video is a good idea, though. On the issue of sleeves, I'm very much in favour. Aside from an opportunity to discuss Free Software, they'll allow us to display the warranty. Good luck, Malcohol. _________________________________________________________________ Sign up for eircom broadband now and get a free two month trial.* Phone 1850 73 00 73 or visit http://home.eircom.net/broadbandoffer

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re: [Info] BBC Radio 4 : In Business :"Breaking Down of the Patent System"
by jm＠jmason.org 24 Jan '05

24 Jan '05

>> Does anybody know if there is a way to listen to this without >> RealPlayer? Even with Free/Non-Free questions aside, that particular >> program gives me the willies. >There is none. The best you'll be able to do is install the version of >RealPlayer that's based on the same codebase as HelixPlayer except it >includes proprietary RealAudio and MP3 codecs. well -- transcoded here, 12MB ogg: http://taint.org/xfer/2005/BBC_Radio_4_-_2005-01-24_Breakdown_of_patent_sys… --j.

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FSFE-IE January 2005