[Fsfe-ie] campaignfor(hampering)creativity

[David O'Callaghan]

On 11/04/05 10:46, Malcolm Tyrrell wrote:
> Someone on the campaignforcreativity list sent me this announcement e-mail.
> Looks like things are hotting up again.
> 
> http://campaignforcreativity.org/camp4creativity/

(I thought there used to be a wiki page refuting some of their 
arguments, but I can't find it now, so I've had my rant here... if 
someone wants to start a wiki page for this stuff I'll gladly add to it)

: The objective of our campaign is to ensure that the legal protections
: we enjoy, such as copyright, trademarks, patents and design rights are
: not diluted. These protections are a right, they are not a privilege.
: We must not allow them to be trampled on. We must fight back."

Whee! This pseudo-rebellious bullshit really annoys me... Fight the 
power, man!

: Is the Campaign opposed to open source software?
:
: No, not at all. In fact we are supportive. The directive will have no
: effect on the development of open source software.

Except to massively increase the risks of doing so and the costs if 
patent searches, cross-licensing and litigation become necessary

: Patents have to be applied for.

Not sure if this is intented to mean "There is an imperative to apply 
for patents" or "Patents are not granted automatically".

: If open source developers want to create and publish
: their own work they will continue to be free to do so.

How magnanimous! Except now they will face greater artificially-created 
costs and risks, for the benefit of a few megacorporations and parasitic 
patent farms.

: Once an invention has been made public it cannot be patented by
: another, so it would be impossible for a company to 'steal' open
: source material.

I think this is intended to mean that it is "impossible" for a company 
to patent an idea that has been published as open source software. 
Except I can think of at least one case where this has happened: Network 
Associates' broad anti-spam patent which was applied for in December 
2002 and comes way after SpamAssassin and also after Paul Graham's 
article on Bayesian Spam filtering from August 2002 
(http://paulgraham.com/spam.html).

: On the other hand, without patents commercial companies, or indeed
: anyone who creates software or any other invention, would find it
: impossible to make a return on their work.

Nonsense! "Impossible" is a pretty strong word. There are plenty of 
commercial software companies making a return on their work without 
patents. MySQL AB is probably a good example, but there must be many 
small companies who make a profit on the software they develop without 
patents.

: So whilst we support giving inventors a choice, those who oppose
: patents would create a world in which only non-commercial software
: would exist."

Further nonsense! Personally, I'd like more software to be Free 
Software, but this is orthoganal to the patents issue, and indeed to the 
commercial/non-commercial issue.

Kind regards,

David


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