A big setback on software patents [LWN.net]

Up until the last moment, it looked like things might go the right way. The European Council's attempt to adopt the software patent directive as a no-debate item seemed doomed as a result of opposition from Denmark and a few other countries. In the end, however, the Council violated its own procedural rules by adopting the directive anyway, and nobody stood up to stop it. Barring an unlikely sequence of events, software patents will become the law in the European Union.

The unlikely sequence of events is this: the European Parliament will have a second reading of the directive in the next few months; at that reading, it will have the opportunity to reject or amend the directive. The Parliament had, the first time through, added amendments which made it clear that the patenting of software was not to be allowed, so there is reason for hope. The problem is that, on the second reading, an absolute majority of votes is required for any amendment. Simply getting enough members into the chamber to create a majority is often a problem with the European Parliament, so getting enough of them to vote for positive changes in the patent directive will be doubly challenging. To many observers, fixing a directive on the second reading seems just about impossible.

There is reason to hope, however. The fact that the Council ignored the Parliament's request to restart the procedure and the manner in which the directive was adopted has upset a number of members of Parliament. These members may just find enough energy to haul themselves down to the debate and vote to reassert the Parliament's authority. If these members continue to hear from their constituents in the mean time, they should be even more motivated.

In other words, now is not the time to give up and let up on the pressure. Instead, it is more important than ever that EU citizens express their views to their representatives. With enough effort, this battle might, just yet, be won.

And it is an important battle. The possible effects of software patents on small European businesses have been well discussed. But the absence of software patents in Europe has had a chilling effect on software patent enforcement in general. Currently, a patent holder could make life difficult for free software in the U.S., but European developers would just sneer in that smug manner unique to Europeans talking about American ways. So a patent challenge against, say, the Linux kernel could be a problem for an American company or developer, but it would be unlikely to impede Linux itself.

In a world with global software patent legislation, however, the situation is different. A patent challenge could shut down Linux over much of the planet; there would be no place for the software to run to. For this reason, European resistance to software patents helps to protect all of us; the forces behind software patenting understand that fact well. So we must hope that the European Parliament can find the energy to stand up for its rights.

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Oh come on

Posted Mar 10, 2005 11:15 UTC (Thu) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link]

No, I don't like the way US citizens call themselves "americans", with the understanding that they are the only ones (Canadians, mexicans, and a host of citizens of other countries are americans too, you know).

No, I don't like the way the US considers that the world somehow ends at its borders.

I could go on... your point being?

Oh come on

Posted Mar 11, 2005 2:14 UTC (Fri) by dvdeug (subscriber, #10998) [Link]

Everyone in the world calls people from the US Americans. It's really not surprising, considering they are from the United States of America. If you want to talk about North Americans, or South Americans, that's unambiguous, but where's this pressing need to talk about all the people from the northern tip of Nunavut to the southern tip of Argentina?

It seems more a topic for people to bitch about than an actual problem.

USofA's southern neighbours

Posted Mar 11, 2005 21:31 UTC (Fri) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link]

(Mexicans) and a lot of other Spanish-speaking people (more than the
English-speaking people IIRC) call them "Estadunidenses" (something like
"Unitedstateans".
Me? I call them USofAns. :-P

Oh come on

Posted Mar 10, 2005 11:20 UTC (Thu) by skarkkai (subscriber, #4128) [Link]

I'll start off by partially agreeing with the comment I'm replying to: political and geographical insults are always a tad on the dangerous side.

However in this case, I personally didn't mind. I'm one of the smug European sneering-at-the-Americans developers. All of my coder friends, as far as I know, are too. As such, I feel the remark in the article was accurate.

Obviously, merely making a disparaging remark that is accurate wouldn't be okay. But I feel it's more okay when the behavior in question is not only insulting toward the maker of the remark, but also somewhat arrogant, childish and short sighted. And I believe the unbased arrogance was largely the point of the remark. It's a point so well made was that it was perhaps worth making.

Sneering is a bad habit

Posted Mar 10, 2005 12:30 UTC (Thu) by davidw (subscriber, #947) [Link]

You're making a mistake when you get to the point where you think you've got all the answers and don't have anything to learn from the other guys. As an American living in Europe, I've frankly had my fill of sneering from all sides, be it Bush and his cronies or the other side here that seems to play a version of "7 degrees of separation" in order to link problems everywhere back to the US.

Ciao,
Dave

Oh come on

Posted Mar 10, 2005 11:21 UTC (Thu) by simon_kitching (guest, #4874) [Link]

Well I thought it was rather funny. I'm not European but I assure you we non-americans are *all* amused by quaint US "ways", like suing everybody in sight and selecting a president based on religious beliefs. Then our fellow countrymen do something completely idiotic too, and we realise the pedestal we're standing on isn't so stable after all..

Oh come on

Posted Mar 10, 2005 11:26 UTC (Thu) by arafel (subscriber, #18557) [Link]

I'm afraid I'd have to second that. Jonathan, if this is your article, I have to say I'm disappointed.

Oh come on

Posted Mar 10, 2005 13:13 UTC (Thu) by angdraug (subscriber, #7487) [Link]

Oh come on, people are different in different parts of the world. You gotta live with that, mkay? Difference is not all about superiority or inferiority, so what's the problem with pointing out that e.g. some folks use little-endian dates, and some write them in middle-endian order?

Oh come on

Posted Mar 10, 2005 13:33 UTC (Thu) by arafel (subscriber, #18557) [Link]

Pointing out that we use different date formats - fine, no problem. I don't pretend to understand why the US style is used, but as long as someone tells me what format a date is in, no problem.

This is entirely different from claiming that European developers tend to sneer at American developers, which is inaccurate and somewhat insulting. I suppose it might have been intended as a joke, but it kind of missed the mark if that's the case.

Oh come on

Posted Mar 10, 2005 13:42 UTC (Thu) by evgeny (subscriber, #774) [Link]

# make check
checking for sense of humor... FAILED

Oh come on

Posted Mar 10, 2005 13:54 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

Sorry if that line upset you. It was certainly not meant to "bash" anybody.

I was really just trying to raise a small smile. But, that said, there is a certain smugness that Europeans (lots of them, anyway) adopt when discussing the peculiarities of the U.S. You see it in the "ah, but software patents aren't our problem" posts that used to go around. I see it every year when I go and hang out with the in-laws in Italy. In my experience, Europeans think they have found a better way to live with each other. They might even be right.

Anyway, if I offended anybody, I apologize. Such was not my intent. LWN has as many readers in Europe as in the U.S.; even I would not be so stupid as to go trying to annoy such a large part of our readership.

Oh come on

Posted Mar 10, 2005 14:22 UTC (Thu) by arafel (subscriber, #18557) [Link]

Can't speak for the original poster, but no need to apologise; I've come out of delicate-flower mode now. ;-)

Oh come on

Posted Mar 10, 2005 14:49 UTC (Thu) by pkolloch (subscriber, #21709) [Link]

I am European and I loved to sneer in a smug way when software patents still appeared nicely impossible here. Thus that line raised some kind of bitter amusement and a laugh. I think it is quite apparent that the generalization is not meant seriously and an artificact of humor I enjoy.

Well, I would appreciate it, if I could go on with my smug ways, get smug replies from others. As long as I don't have to bother about software patents. Smugness hooray!

If software patents get rejected in the EU in a distant future, I will look forward to making smug remarks about how utterly stupid the US is (after a large celebration). And that it shows in them adopting software patents. I will act as it was never considered in the EU. And surprise, I will not be utterly serious about the generalization. Huh! Try to stop me!

Oh come on

Posted Mar 10, 2005 18:57 UTC (Thu) by Alan_Hicks (subscriber, #20469) [Link]

Sorry if that line upset you.

Down here we have a saying, "A hit hound hollers ever' time." Means people get upset when you call them on something they know is true.

there is a certain smugness that Europeans (lots of them, anyway) adopt when discussing the peculiarities of the U.S.

You're dead on here. It's not the fact that Europeans have that smugness that bothers them. Rather it's the fact that you called them on it that has a few of 'em riled up. Personally, I wouldn't worry about it if I was you. The Europeans have their smug attitude and we have our "my way or the highway" attitude (yes, I'm an American and I'm likely more stereotypical American than anyone else these people know). I think anyone looking at the story understands that the line was a humorous statement of a stereotypical fact, and isn't anything to get all bent out of shape about really.

Oh come on

Posted Mar 11, 2005 11:46 UTC (Fri) by jschrod (subscriber, #1646) [Link]

I'm a European, and I'll have to say -- don't pay attention to that demand for politically correctness. This is, oh, so, American! (I'm smug, too, aren't I?) [0.5 :-)]

Joachim

Oh come on

Posted Mar 11, 2005 21:36 UTC (Fri) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link]

I think the guy's sense of humour was turned off... :-)
Anyway, down here in Brasil software patents are strictly forbidden, but
at any Congressional Bill dealing with IT, I always shudder in fear...

Oh come on

Posted Mar 16, 2005 13:57 UTC (Wed) by wookey (subscriber, #5501) [Link]

Precisely - I thought it was funny, jonathan :-)

You would think free-software people had learned to grow sufficiently-thick skins by now :-)

let forget it

Posted Mar 18, 2005 16:53 UTC (Fri) by Nicolas (guest, #28602) [Link]

I would say the worst of this unfortunate line is that half of the
comment are completely unrelated to the very imoprtant topic of Patents in
Europe.

It is a natural tendency of everybody of always thinking that the-other
(whoever s-he is) is wrong in some way or another.
And it is a natural tendency to take the-other's remarks the wrong way.

Just to make sure we stay focused on the important issues, it would be a
good idea to try not to tap into these unfortunate instincts of ours.
(Or when you do, at least let it come with a smile :-) so that everybody
understands it is intended as a joke).

Writing is just a very poor communication medium.

nicolas