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Who is being divisive?Who is being divisive?Posted Nov 29, 2006 0:47 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510)In reply to: Who is being divisive? by stijn Parent article: Who is being divisive? I edited out curse words where I noticed them, and one seriously age-ist pean against baby-boomers, and one guy who wrote, I kid you not, "this is like masturbation - it's shaking hands with the devil". If you see more really egregious stuff, point it out. That done, I did not choose to edit the other 2450 people, and the Jeff Merkey contribution that really belongs on his blog rather than the petition, simply because I felt the document would not be representative of the signers if I did. Yes, they are angry. But one reason for the words you see is that in general our community members are not very articulate in writing political arguments. Many people have sent me at one time or another statements like I wanted to explain this to my friend, but did not have the words. Thanks for providing them. I don't believe that 2450 people have ever signed anything in the entire history of Free Software and Open Source. This is a first. The depth of anger about the Novell deal is really stunning. Bruce
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hyperbole? plenty of petitions, few results Posted Nov 29, 2006 2:47 UTC (Wed) by stevenj (subscriber, #421) [Link] I don't believe that 2450 people have ever signed anything in the entire history of Free Software and Open Source. This is a first. The depth of anger about the Novell deal is really stunning. This is a bit of an overstatement, Bruce. I tried Googling "free software petition" and "open source petition" and quickly found several counter-examples:
hyperbole? plenty of petitions, few results Posted Nov 29, 2006 4:26 UTC (Wed) by roelofs (subscriber, #2599) [Link] Personally, I've never seen any convincing evidence that these kinds of online petitions make any difference.Perhaps this isn't a perfect example, but:
This was more about supporting open standards than open source, and I suspect Mozilla/Firefox may have had a bit more to do with the improvement than did the petition, but I'm pretty certain folks at Microsoft were aware of it, at least. Greg
hyperbole? plenty of petitions, few results Posted Nov 29, 2006 6:25 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510) [Link] This open letter has had some good results. There's been a lot of press, especially internationally, and thus a lot of people understand the issue who would otherwise have known nothing of it. I have an investment analyst conference call in the morning to talk about it - investors have become aware of the problem and want to know more. It's helping shed light on the software patent problem, and we desperately need that. And I think it's helped change opinions one step outside of our community from the initial ones, that Novell is going to gain a substantial advantage out of this, to a more accurate perception.Those 2450 people showed how they feel in a way that outsiders could understand and then judge Novell by. That was important. They will probably not change Novell's minds. That was not expected. But they have changed other people's minds. Bruce
hyperbole? plenty of petitions, few results Posted Nov 29, 2006 7:03 UTC (Wed) by eru (subscriber, #2753) [Link] [...] I tried Googling "free software petition" and "open source petition" and quickly found several counter-examples:* against European software patents: 462808 signatures [...] Personally, I've never seen any convincing evidence that these kinds of online petitions make any difference. I don't have either, but the European anti-software petition got quoted in the debates over the EU software patent directive, and I believe it is not unreasonable to think it swayed a few MEPs to our side. After all they are elected politicians and the petition at least showed there are potential constituents who care about the matter. Without this and other public shows of opinion, the EU parliament would probably have rubber-stamped the directive as yet another arcane piece of industrial legislation that no ordinary people care anything about.
hyperbole? plenty of petitions, few results Posted Nov 29, 2006 7:38 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510) [Link] Expressing our opinion as a group, in an organized way, is important. I'm concerned that when we talk about this being ineffective, the end result is that the dissuade members of our community from helping in an important way.Sure, I'd like to have a more direct way for them to help. I'm working on that. Thanks Bruce
hyperbole? plenty of petitions, few results Posted Nov 29, 2006 9:45 UTC (Wed) by stijn (subscriber, #570) [Link] By the way, I still think the petition a very good idea, and your letter addresses the issues well, so thank you for that. The personal notes do make it .. more personal and I guess more convincing as well. The thing that struck me was the attitude of people turning their back on Novell without leaving any apparent room for reconciliation (the impact is mostly in the gesture I presume). I don't think I saw anything that should be censored, and my use of the word 'offensive' might have been a wee bit strong. I guess a petition is as good a place as any to display strong emotions - it just reminds me of the way threads spiral out of control in newsnet.
hyperbole? plenty of petitions, few results Posted Nov 29, 2006 17:56 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510) [Link] The thing that struck me was the attitude of people turning their back on Novell without leaving any apparent room for reconciliation (the impact is mostly in the gesture I presume).Those are the people who feel that the petition isn't going to change Novell's minds. They are signing it to state their feeling on the issue, not as a prayer for reconsideration. Thanks Bruce
Who is being divisive? Posted Nov 29, 2006 10:20 UTC (Wed) by jhellan (subscriber, #17103) [Link] Ah, the open letter.
2450 people signed it, included the following:
"It is likely that there are many thousands of unlitigated potential infringements within the entire Novell system."
Bruce got 2450 people to say that they believe Linux is guilty of infringing patent rights on a vast scale. Tactically, that isn't the most clever move I've ever seen.
Unpleasant, but probably true Posted Nov 29, 2006 14:00 UTC (Wed) by emk (subscriber, #1128) [Link] Bruce got 2450 people to say that they believe Linux is guilty of infringing patent rights on a vast scale. As a software author and signatory to Bruce's petition, I have every reason to believe that this statement is correct. The patent office has granted thousands of broad-reaching patents (despite clear prior art), and any program longer than a few thousand lines probably infringes several--even if it was written long before the patents were issued.
Who is being divisive? Posted Nov 29, 2006 17:59 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510) [Link] I've never felt that denying an easily-provable fact is a good strategy. Do you believe that we couldn't match any existing Free Software up with a patent? Or do it 1000 times? We have to solve that problem, not deny it exists and leave it as the elephant in the living room of Free Software.Bruce
Who is being divisive? Posted Nov 30, 2006 8:47 UTC (Thu) by jhellan (subscriber, #17103) [Link] The number "many thousand" is based on pure guesswork.
The number 283 for the Linux kernel alone comes from a study commissioned by a company that wanted to sell insurance against that risk. We could certainly take it at face value, but in that case we have to do the same with the Microsoft sponsored studies about Linux.
Who is being divisive? Posted Nov 30, 2006 15:24 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510) [Link] The number 283 comes from Dan Ravicher, who was at the time a volunteer counsel for the Free Software foundation, and is now leader of the Public Patent Foundation and an attorney for the Software Freedom Law Center. OSRM paid for the study, but it didn't tell us anything we did not already know.Bruce
Who is being divisive? Posted Dec 1, 2006 8:48 UTC (Fri) by jhellan (subscriber, #17103) [Link] Exactly. As we both have said, the study was paid for by a company which had a commercial interest in scaring developers. And the results can't be verified, since they are secret.
Ravicher report Posted Dec 1, 2006 9:23 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510) [Link] Actually, the results can't be published because if they were, the Linux programmers might be exposed to treble damages for knowing infringement rather than simple damages for unknowing. Indeed, I asked not to be informed of the specific patents in the study for that reason - it would have increased my legal risk as an occassional kernel programmer.There is a parallel study, however, that is published, because Europe doesn't have that pernicious "you pay more if you look" law. It's at Your Webshop is Patented. If you want to verify the Ravicher study, you can do so at www.uspto.gov . Just take a part of the kernel and start typing keywords into the patent search form. But please don't tell us of the specific patents you find. You'd be increasing our legal risk. Bruce
Ravicher report Posted Dec 2, 2006 13:56 UTC (Sat) by jhellan (subscriber, #17103) [Link] So looking at the patents increases your legal risk. You know, I exected that response.
And somehow you seem to believe that signing a statement that you believe that you are infringing thousands of patents does *not* increase your legal risk. Strange.
Ravicher report Posted Dec 2, 2006 15:45 UTC (Sat) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510) [Link] Engineers everywhere are told "don't look at patents". The concern is that a specific patent text belonging to the plaintiff can be shown to have been known by the defendant. In contrast, knowing that software is generally infringing of patents does not pass the court test necessary for the award of treble damages.Bruce
Who is being divisive? Posted Nov 29, 2006 15:34 UTC (Wed) by gravious (guest, #7662) [Link] Ah, that's naughty - you shouldn't editorialise what wasn't yours to editorialise. If that is the level of some of the comments you received then I am afraid you should have to live with that. (Unless all you care about is the numbers that bolster your position but not the sentiment behind those numbers - ahem). I'm no Microsoft fanboy but I'm not blinded by a hatred of them and don't think everything they touch becomes tainted by association automatically. Having said all that, Bruce, at least you are directing the volatile anger in a coherent manner. Please give Novell some time to respond before hitting them with your big petition stick.
gracias,
Who is being divisive? Posted Nov 29, 2006 18:03 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510) [Link] I did my best to preserve the sentiment while deleting the obscentity. I don't believe I edited more than 6 comments, and I didn't delete any - just cleaned them up while preserving the content. It wasn't statistically significant and protected whatever dignity the process has.Bruce
Who is being divisive? Posted Nov 30, 2006 16:39 UTC (Thu) by lysse (subscriber, #3190) [Link] Oh, there's a petition... *scurries off to be no.2584*
> ...one guy who wrote, I kid you not, "this is like masturbation - it's shaking hands with the devil"
Completely off-topic, but thank you for sharing with us all a new euphemism for the male member. My culture has been enriched. :)
Who is being divisive? Posted Nov 30, 2006 16:44 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510) [Link] I'm just glad I wasn't brought up that way :-)
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