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The FSF should not substitute pressure group tactics for reasonThe FSF should not substitute pressure group tactics for reasonPosted Sep 26, 2010 13:37 UTC (Sun) by coriordan (guest, #7544)In reply to: The FSF should not substitute pressure group tactics for reason by bojan Parent article: FSF says: USPTO should publish guidelines excluding software patents
Thanks for finding it. It uses the same words as TRIPS, and that wasn't a problem for the politicians when we were fighting to get software patents out of the EU, so it shouldn't be a problem here. But it does impose certain rules on how we define and discuss things. The key part is "all fields of technology". We maintain that writing software, like writing a book, is not a field of technology. The FTA doesn't define "technology", so the Australian government still has sovereign power to do that.
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TRIPs obligations certainly mattered in the EU Posted Sep 26, 2010 13:54 UTC (Sun) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] It uses the same words as TRIPS, and that wasn't a problem for the politicians when we were fighting to get software patents out of the EU [...] TRIPs certainly mattered a lot to many of our politicians here. In particular, it played a role in the EU Council, the bloc's most powerful legislative body. But there were also many MEPs who were concerned about it. The only thing to consider is that the European Parliament can't pass laws against the Council's will. Therefore, it can sometimes propose aggressive amendments but everyone knows that those won't be passed into law without the Council's approval. he key part is "all fields of technology". We maintain that writing software, like writing a book, is not a field of technology. The FTA doesn't define "technology", [...] I've been in this industry for 25 years and it's absolutely common to talk about "technology" or "technologies" when referring to innovative software. It's also common to refer to "software engineers". But I've never seen a software developer business card say "[Senior] Software Writer" (or "Author") or "Vice President of Software Writing" (or "Authoring"). New Zealand is a party to TRIPs and we'll see whether anyone tries to call into question its compliance with that treaty. For now the jury is still out on New Zealand's position anyway, and it may allow EPO-style software patents in the end, in which case the TRIPs question wouldn't be raised by anyone.
TRIPs obligations certainly mattered in the EU Posted Sep 26, 2010 14:19 UTC (Sun) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] Nope. TRIPS was raised by the pro-swpat camp. That's normal, they'll try anything to convince politicians that they have to vote their way. But there's no substance. The law only uses ordinary meanings (such as industry terminology) when there is no legal definition. But in this case there is a legal definition, it's in TRIPS Article 10:
So software is a literary work, not a technology. Titles on people's business cards don't change this.
TRIPs obligations certainly mattered in the EU Posted Sep 26, 2010 14:35 UTC (Sun) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] Nope. TRIPS was raised by the pro-swpat camp. The pro-swpat camp included many politicians and particularly many (most) EU member state governments. [quote from TRIPs] Computer programs, whether in source or object code, shall be protected as literary works under the Berne Convention (1971). [end quote from TRIPs] The conclusion is wrong because you suggest an exclusivity that simply isn't there. What you quoted doesn't say that computer programs can't infringe patents. A program's code is protected by copyright and nevertheless it can also give rise to patent infringement suits, as happens in all parts of the industrialized world all the time. Titles on people's business cards all throughout the industry shows that this is considered "engineering" and that the software industry considers itself part of the technology industry. It's not a question of whether that's a legal concept but it shows that what you claim flies in the face of how that industry defines and perceives itself.
TRIPs obligations certainly mattered in the EU Posted Sep 26, 2010 15:37 UTC (Sun) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
Well, of course the politicians of the pro-swpat camp are going to say that. They'd say anything that might help their side. That's no sign of honest evaluation or conviction.
If there was a politician who was *against* swpats, but said s/he had to vote for them because of TRIPS, then there would be credibility to the claim, but that never happened.
I agree there's no exclusivity, and TRIPS doesn't say that we win, but that's not the point. The point is that some are worried that TRIPS says we lose, but that's not true at all.
TRIPs obligations certainly mattered in the EU Posted Sep 26, 2010 22:25 UTC (Sun) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> I've been in this industry for 25 years and it's absolutely common to talk about "technology" or "technologies" when referring to innovative software. It's also common to refer to "software engineers". But I've never seen a software developer business card say "[Senior] Software Writer" (or "Author") or "Vice President of Software Writing" (or "Authoring").
Agreed. I think anyone trying to convince Australians that software engineering is not technology, when the whole area falls under ICT (the T standing for Technology), is bound to fail the common sense test.
However, explaining to people that software is maths written in a specific way has better chance of succeeding, IMHO.
TRIPs obligations certainly mattered in the EU Posted Sep 27, 2010 1:21 UTC (Mon) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
We don't really have to convince the general public of it, we just have to explain it to the legislature. It's a drafting formality.
What we have to convince the public of is that software patents are a social and economic problem that have to be abolished.
Only if a legislator expresses worry about TRIPS, then we explain that software development is legally like literature or math.
When TRIPS says "all x is patentable", we have to say software is not x. It's not ideal, but otherwise we lose :-/ so we just have to accept that it's our job. (I'm open to better ideas and better ways of implementing this idea, but this is the current state of the issue.)
(One thing I forgot to mention further up is that our interpretation of TRIPS is strengthened by the fact that ours is narrow. It's a general principal of law - and general principals are sources of law, just as legislation, jurisprudence, and doctrine are - that international treaties that reduce the sovereignty of a country are, like criminal law, to be interpreted narrowly rather than broadly. Our position is legally solid.)
TRIPs obligations certainly mattered in the EU Posted Sep 27, 2010 2:22 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> We don't really have to convince the general public of it, we just have to explain it to the legislature. It's a drafting formality.
Generally speaking, members of Australian legislature are Australians :-)
Most of them have a built-in bullshit filter.
> Only if a legislator expresses worry about TRIPS, then we explain that software development is legally like literature or math.
You mentioned before that writing software is like writing a book. It isn't. You can write any gibberish in a book and it will still be a book. Software, on the other hand (at least one that works to some degree) requires an implementation of logic. A written algorithm (in the broad sense). Book is no such thing.
Also, people that write software have more in common with engineers than with book writers and other artists. Anyone with even the most shallow knowledge of the industry can see that. That's why I think it is counter productive to compare programmers to artists. Nobody is going to believe it.
On the other hand, programming has much more in common with applied mathematics. If you've ever been to an interview for such a job, you'd know that immediately. Nobody asks questions about your artistic talent. They are asking questions about your ability to codify solutions to essentially mathematical problems.
TRIPs obligations certainly mattered in the EU Posted Sep 27, 2010 2:41 UTC (Mon) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
> Generally speaking, members of Australian legislature are Australians :-)
Yes, but they're legislators. They should understand or at least care about legislative terminology. From the population, we don't need consensus on exactly which words to use. They have to express what they want the law to do, and the legislators have to put that into words that work in the legislative context.
> You mentioned before that writing software is like writing a book. It isn't.
To engineers. But that's not the debate. We don't have to convince software developers to stop calling their work technical, we have to convince the legislature to exclude software from patentability.
The problem is, TRIPS (and the FTA) says that "all fields of technology" are patentable. We want software to be not patentable. What's your solution?
You're right that software is like (or simply is) math, but that doesn't address the problem at hand about "all fields of technology". I might have tunnel vision, but I can only see that we have to say that software (in legal terms, and maybe only in legal terms) is not a field of technology. I'd love to hear another solution.
TRIPs obligations certainly mattered in the EU Posted Sep 27, 2010 3:38 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> To engineers. But that's not the debate. We don't have to convince software developers to stop calling their work technical, we have to convince the legislature to exclude software from patentability.
Well, what are the legislators going to do first? Ask someone that knows. And they will tell them writing software is technical.
> The problem is, TRIPS (and the FTA) says that "all fields of technology" are patentable. We want software to be not patentable. What's your solution?
Maths is technical. But it also isn't patentable. I think we need to ask pro-patent folks to show the legislators the magical software (patents) they have that isn't essentially maths. They cannot do that. All software patents are in fact monopolies on various algorithms (in a broad sense - I keep repeating this, because someone is going to pull some strict definition of algorithm, claiming that while(1); or something doesn't qualify).
> You're right that software is like (or simply is) math, but that doesn't address the problem at hand about "all fields of technology". I might have tunnel vision, but I can only see that we have to say that software (in legal terms, and maybe only in legal terms) is not a field of technology. I'd love to hear another solution.
Yes, software is technology. But, it is also maths. And because maths is not patentable, software should not be either.
TRIPs obligations certainly mattered in the EU Posted Sep 27, 2010 4:10 UTC (Mon) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
> because maths is not patentable, software should not be either.
Small problem: you're leaving the work to the legislator. Instead of offering a solution (saying why software is not patentable), you're pointing out a second issue (math is not patentable), explaining the similarity, and telling the legislator to do whatever's necessary to ensure that your issue gets treated like the second issue. If our side won't tell them how to solve the problem, they'll get it solved by the other side. For example, you could get a situation like we have in Europe where software isn't patentable, but software with a "further technical effect" is. The EPO grants tonnes of software patents.
But the bigger problem is that some math might be patentable. (It *shouldn't* be, but currently is.) Math is unpatentable in the USA (all math is facts of nature and thus only found, not invented). Would a US-style exclusion of math from patentability be a win? They're snowed under with software patents.
In Australia, there's the "IBM v. Commissioner of Patents" case. I haven't found the ruling's text but many sources show that that Commissioner rejected the patent[(1991) AIPC 90-781], on "smooth lines on a screen", for being math, but the Federal Court of Australia overturned the decision and upheld the patent.[(1992) AIPC 90-853, 22 IPR 417] If we ask the legislator to treat software like math, we might be asking for software patents.
TRIPs obligations certainly mattered in the EU Posted Sep 27, 2010 4:16 UTC (Mon) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
I'm documenting Australian case law here:
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Australia#Case_law
...if anyone wants to help out.
TRIPs obligations certainly mattered in the EU Posted Sep 27, 2010 4:33 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> but software with a "further technical effect" is.
You see, these are just weasel words by big business, pointing out the initial problem that I tried to render.
We all know software in itself cannot have technical of physical effects on its own. It needs a physical machine to do that. In the same way that a good book may motivate a person to do something, but in itself cannot actually do anything.
The bottom line is this:
1. A few have found a way to extract money for nothing. They won't give the right up easily.
2. Legislature treats this extraction as "economic activity", therefore they won't shut it down.
To be honest, I don't see how any of this can happen at all. I can only see more useless stuff being patented. Yes, I'm pessimistic about it.
But, at the same time, I don't want to pretend that software is like a poem or a novel.
TRIPs obligations certainly mattered in the EU Posted Sep 27, 2010 4:59 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] I agree with you that one can dislike software patents and still be intellectually honest instead of trying to claim that the Earth is a disc. It's probably possible to convince more people of creationism than of the idea that software development isn't an engineering kind of activity to at least some degree. I think "extraction" overgeneralizes by describing patents purely on the basis of their downside. Even if one looks at the bad behavior of certain patent holders, or at an individual patent document that doesn't look like deserving of a 20-year monopoly right, politicians do indeed have reasons to believe in the importance of intellectual property to the economy. There is very significant support from businesses of all sizes -- all the large players but also some medium-sized and small players -- for software patents. That support isn't counterbalanced by small and medium-sized businesses opposing software patents to any remotely meaningful extent, as I just explained elsewhere in this discussion.
TRIPs obligations certainly mattered in the EU Posted Sep 27, 2010 5:04 UTC (Mon) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
So, what's your suggestion? You just buy the line that for as long as TRIPS is in force, all signatories have to grant patents on software?
TRIPs obligations certainly mattered in the EU Posted Sep 27, 2010 5:13 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] So, what's your suggestion? You just buy the line that for as long as TRIPS is in force, all signatories have to grant patents on software? As you know, political and legal processes are not binary. Even their outcomes are often non-binary. I would indeed say that if any jurisdiction truly wants to abolish software patents, it has to face the risk of a TRIPs infringement procedure at the level of the WTO, if someone brings a complaint (a complainant would also weigh the pro's and con's because obviously there's a risk to any party in a dispute that it might lose). I would also say that there's a very significant probability that a panel hearing such a case would consider software engineering a technological activity. But where there's a will, there's often a way. For an example, if such a major force as the EU decided to take a decision like that, and if it had some other allies in the world, it might be able to create a situation where TRIPs could be amended, or "clarified". However, that would only happen if there was a political will to abandon TRIPs (or in the worst case even leave the WTO). It's hard to see how that political will could ever be there when there simply isn't any meaningful support from businesses for the anti-software-patent cause, as I described elsewhere in this discussion.
TRIPs obligations certainly mattered in the EU Posted Sep 27, 2010 5:27 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]
I'd like to add something. I answered the question from the angle of what I think a WTO panel would believe in the event of a TRIPs infringement procedure. In that respect, one can only talk about probabilities.
But I'm also ready to spell it out what I would say in the totally hypothetical scenario that a TRIPs panel heard me as a witness, or that I received a questionnaire from the WTO.
I would definitely say that what we do as software developers is an engineering job. I would point out that arguably it's a very special kind of engineering, or has elements that aren't like traditional engineering, but if asked to describe my reaction to some people's claim that it's just like "writing", I would have to say that equating software development to the work of a musical composer or a book author is an ill-conceived, ideologically motivated idea by people who refuse to recognize reality when it doesn't come in handy.
I, for my part, would therefore say that a country that's signed TRIPs but abolishes technical software patents is in breach of TRIPs and would, if I were (which I won't be) a judge having to decide on this, lose the case.
TRIPs obligations certainly mattered in the EU Posted Sep 27, 2010 9:59 UTC (Mon) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]
> dislike software patents
Just to make my position clear, I think a lot of the patent system these days is broken. It almost looks like anyone can get a monopoly on their part of the "world", without much opposition or thought. Monopolies should generally be hard to get, IMHO.
We recently had a documentary air about some genome patents causing exuberant prices being charged to regular folks for genetics tests. You know, regular mums and dads. A guy from the company holding the patents in the US explained the situation away by saying that people don't care whether their iPods are patented or not. Well, that about sums it up - we are the idiots willing to pay for this crap, so I guess we deserve it.
Yes, running a business is no walk in the park. It's ruthless. Business people deserve our respect, because they risk a lot to get things done and in the process provide jobs. That doesn't necessarily mean governments should be issuing monopolies to them willy-nilly.
TRIPs obligations certainly mattered in the EU Posted Sep 27, 2010 12:23 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] Business people deserve our respect, because they risk a lot to get things done and in the process provide jobs. That doesn't necessarily mean governments should be issuing monopolies to them willy-nilly. I agree. I didn't mean to advocate "monopolies on demand". What I meant is the following: IP is an area of economic policy. If software patents do serious harm, there has to be some serious suffering. Serious suffering would have to result in serious resistance by businesses. Absent such serious resistance, there's a lot of political support for those patents and nothing remotely capable of counterbalancing the support. Consequently, politicians have no basis on which to propose or support abolition. Even with a lot of suffering being proven by serious resistance, politicians might still maintain the status quo over fears of destabilizing the knowledge-based economy by introducing fundamental changes to the IPR regime. But then you'd at least have reached a point at which abolition is really worth considering from a politician's point of view. If you don't even have resistance, you lack evidence of harm and don't get even get to the point I just described.
TRIPs obligations certainly mattered in the EU Posted Sep 29, 2010 15:52 UTC (Wed) by aigarius (subscriber, #7329) [Link]
The statement that there is support for software patents from business is a lie.
While a few large companies do support software patents because they have a lot of them and because their position on software patents is drafted by their patent lawyers (and no their actual management).
However overwhelming majority of IT related businesses and also all non-IT businesses that have looked into the issue are opposed to software patents.
I personally know that because I argued the anti-software patent stance to the Latvian IT association against a few well versed Microsoft lobbyists and in the end all key members of the IT association (except MS) voted to send a strongly worded anti-software patent message to EU Parliament and to Latvian government on behalf of Latvian IT industry.
We have seen the same situation all across EU - a few large players were in favor of software patents and where there was no opposition and no information they just wrote 'industry opinions', but in the cases where both arguments were brought forward and where there was an actual discussion IT community strongly rejected software patents.
In many cases when an association expressed support of software patents it was later discovered that members of these associations not only were not asked of their opinion, they did not even know that their association provided such a position in their name.
TRIPs obligations certainly mattered in the EU Posted Sep 29, 2010 16:53 UTC (Wed) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] While a few large companies do support software patents because they have a lot of them and because their position on software patents is drafted by their patent lawyers (and no their actual management). It's obvious that experts draft the details. But their positions per se are definitely decided and wholeheartedly supported by senior management. There have been plenty of clear statements by CEOs of pro-software-patent companies. I already contradicted the FFII on internal mailing lists back in 2004/2005 when the claim was made that it's only the in-house patent lawyers of those corporations who support them. It was wrong all the time. Oddly enough, the kinds of people the FFII relied on are not even at the level of a department manager, let alone have ever seen a boardroom from the inside. Aigars, don't believe that fallacy. The senior executives of those companies know very well what intellectual property is about. I personally know that because I argued the anti-software patent stance to the Latvian IT association against a few well versed Microsoft lobbyists and in the end all key members of the IT association (except MS) voted to send a strongly worded anti-software patent message to EU Parliament and to Latvian government on behalf of Latvian IT industry. For lack of knowing the details and circumstances of this, I can't argue with you over your Latvian experience. However, I haven't ever seen anything like this in the largest EU member states, especially not the large ones in the Western part. The failure of the FFII's "Economic Majority" effort was very telling.
TRIPs obligations certainly mattered in the EU Posted Sep 29, 2010 17:41 UTC (Wed) by aigarius (subscriber, #7329) [Link]
Economic Majority did what it was supposed to do. It showed that anti-swpat campaign is not a few crazy lefties with a web site (well, I mean not only) and it provided both numbers and some very useful quotes from real life businesses in a multitude of countries. That information was much more useful in turning heads of politicians that millions of dollars that our opponents floated into Brussels to hire every and all lobbyists available at the time.
TRIPs obligations certainly mattered in the EU Posted Sep 27, 2010 4:36 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] We don't really have to convince the general public of it, we just have to explain it to the legislature Politicians are citizens as bojan pointed out, and if they were to take a decision resulting in diplomatic conflicts (such as an infringement procedure at the WTO level, which can make a government look really bad) and/or in an outcry by industry (that is, major employers), it certainly plays a role whether they have a position that's defensible in a public debate. What we have to convince the public of is that software patents are a social and economic problem that have to be abolished. That's impossible unless you have widespread and meaningful support from businesses. The absence of that support was why I decided years ago to cease all futile attempts at abolition, not only because of futility but also because one can't credibly claim something is an economic problem when there's no serious support from businesses. When I became involved with software patents, in the middle of the EU process, I received at least the support I needed for my campaign (which was more difficult to do than creating the campaign itself) and I thought that later in that EU process, or after we scored a defensive victory, there would be more opposition to software patents from economic operators. But there never was. The FFII made itself totally ridiculous with its "Economic Majority" campaign. In retrospect I think the pro-software-patent side didn't fully seize the opportunity that the FFII created by failing to get even a small fraction of the support that would have buttressed its claims. The FFII received support (most of it purely verbal, hardly anyone putting any money where his mouth was and no one putting any serious money behind the cause) from less than 2,000 companies, with collective revenues of about 3.2 billion euros. That's pretty much chump change compared to the economic weight of those favoring those patents. The FFII also made itself ridiculous in front of the US Supreme Court by filing an amicus brief with another NGO and four individuals they described as "four global software professionals and business leaders". None of them was really a major programmer or entrepreneur. One of them has to the best of my knowledge never had a real job; one of them is an activist and legal researcher, but not a businessman; another one is an independent software development subcontractor not doing exceptionally well; and one of them actually did a successful open source investment and possibly some other work somewhat related to venture capital (and that person, even though far from famous or economically powerful, was the closest thing to a "business leader" they had amonng their group). The only conclusion a reasonable and independent observer can draw is that the winners want those patents and losers oppose them. That's sad, but that's what happens when zealots fail to recognize reality and live in their dream world. Politicians won't change their overall approach to intellectual property just to accomodate free software. Instead, the free software movement has to adjust to reality, which certain parts of it probably never will and therefore they will remain politically ineffective. It can win where there's also a real economic interest in what it pursues. In my opinion what you're pursuing and what I used to pursue is a totally lost cause unless businesses (especially also small and medium-sized ones) really suffer so much under the software patent burden that they take serious action on a broad basis. The fact that businesses simply operate under the circumstances, looking at patents as a cost of doing business as opposed to a major injustice or threat to their livelihood, shows that there's something fundamentally wrong with the anti-software-patent cause. IP policy is economic policy. In economic policy, money talks. It shouldn't talk in the form of bribery, neither in a legal sense nor in any other way that would go against democratic principles. But it's perfectly appropriate for politicians to listen to the world of business. It's fine that your campaign is backed by NGOs; the problem is that there isn't any campaign of this kind backed by companies to any serious extent. As a result, that movement lacks credibility in the eyes of politicians (or other key players, such as journalists, analysts, judges etc.), and it also lacks resources. I bet that the point will come, maybe when you're finished with university, where you, Ciarán, will also decide to move on and get real.
TRIPs obligations certainly mattered in the EU Posted Sep 27, 2010 8:42 UTC (Mon) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] We'll see in 10 years time :-) My thinking is that we both saw how much work it takes to change legislation and jurisprudence. It's a mammoth task. Your reaction is to look for an easier solution (while making disparaging remarks about the people who continue to work on the original solution). I think the other solutions are duds. It's a massive task and there's no easy win. So my reaction is to look for the most effective method (participation + wiki building), and keep working on the original plan of changing legislation and jurisprudence.
TRIPs obligations certainly mattered in the EU Posted Sep 27, 2010 8:59 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] (while making disparaging remarks about the people who continue to work on the original solution) Above all, I highlight the futility of the effort, and while you portray it as a matter of "much work" and a "massive task", the thing is that you can work as hard as you want but without support from businesses, you're in a strategically lost position in any economic policy context. In terms of what I said about the FFII, that organization is really in a lamentable condition and the four "global software professionals and business leaders" they cite in their Bilski brief just show that the FFII doesn't have any meaningful support for its opposition to software patents. It does get support from businesses to promote open double standards; maybe not the organization, just individual activists, but still. Since the FFII even fails to serve as a knowledge base, your wiki is really needed and I like it, but there's no way that community participation can defeat software patents.
TRIPs obligations certainly mattered in the EU Posted Sep 27, 2010 19:56 UTC (Mon) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link] New Zealand shows us that the effort is not inherently futile. As can be verified via the official web sites of various portions of the machinery of state of New Zealand, the Select Committee report endorsed the "no swpat" amendment to the government's Patents Bill currently awaiting parliamentary time for its second reading, and the Commerce Minister has accepted the recommendation of the Select Committee.
TRIPs obligations certainly mattered in the EU Posted Sep 27, 2010 20:04 UTC (Mon) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] Be careful about New Zealand. I've explained in this blog posting that abolition isn't certain there. They say they'll allow patents on "embedded" software and included smartphones in that definition. If the kind of software running on a smartphone is patentable, then that means all software may end up getting patented. My blog posting discusses different possible outcomes in more detail.
More detail on the FFII: its insignificance and its venality Posted Sep 29, 2010 13:55 UTC (Wed) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] For those who are interested in more detail on what I wrote about the FFII, here's a link to my latest blog posting. It provides conclusive evidence that the FFII's General Secretary and possibly other FFII leaders are simply guns-for-hire willing to participate in "staged drama" and other activities as long as someone pays, even if they don't believe in the cause they're pursuing. In its efforts against ISO standardization of OOXML, certain FFII players apparently had undisclosed financial support from big business, but as far as the FFII's core agenda (anti-patent etc.) is concerned, my aforementioned posting explains that they aren't officially backed by any meaningful group of organizations.
More detail on the FFII: its insignificance and its venality Posted Sep 29, 2010 15:27 UTC (Wed) by aigarius (subscriber, #7329) [Link]
Please stop FUDing Florian.
You and me both know that when push came to shove tens of thousands of small and medium businesses supported FFII and contributed to the cause of stopping software patents. Small business, however can not stay focused on a decade long lobbbying and counter-lobbying effort - they have to work.
Currently the business people are in an apathy towards software patents: don't bother me until it becomes a problem for me again.
Our opponents don't have that problem - big business and paid lobbyists can wait 5 years to try again. They only become stronger over time by infiltrating the political circles with dinners and conferences.
More detail on the FFII: its insignificance and its venality Posted Sep 29, 2010 16:43 UTC (Wed) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] Please stop FUDing Florian. Aigars, I'm not fudding. I stopped campaigning against software patents (my current work is focused on how to deal with them since they exist anyway) because I came to the very conclusions I outlined here. You and me both know that when push came to shove tens of thousands of small and medium businesses supported FFII and contributed to the cause of stopping software patents. That's what we all used to think. Maybe there are tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of people willing to say they dislike software patents. But if you have to deliver evidence of harm, you have to really prove that there's suffering. The ones who rely on those patents and favor them say that they need them and that taking them away would have disastrous consequences. If you want to counterbalance that, you have to show real suffering. And you can't. You believe there are tens of thousands of companies, but the "Economic Majority" effort I talked about was an all-out offensive before the EU's final decision and it only took a few minutes for a company to sign up. If the FFII couldn't get any noteworthy level of support at the most critical juncture, it's unconvincing if you just substitute your belief for any demonstrable numbers. Currently the business people are in an apathy towards software patents: don't bother me until it becomes a problem for me again. Those patents exist all over the world including in Europe. They are also upheld by European courts all the time. So if there isn't a problem now (even if you say they're weak in Europe, they're certainly strong in the US), then there isn't serious harm. Do you have proof of companies having gone out of business because of such patents? I've never seen any. Maybe it happens very rarely, but I'm not aware of any widespread problem. Small business, however can not stay focused on a decade long lobbbying and counter-lobbying effort - they have to work. They could make money available and they never seriously did. If they had a big problem, they'd spend money to fix it. Obviously some of those companies are very small. But there are also some generating hundreds of millions of euros/dollars of annual revenues. They speak out against software patents, but it's more like "I'd rather not have them" than "they're a serious problem". Therefore, some of those entrepreneurs prefer to spend money collecting Ferraris but wouldn't give someone like the FFII (or even more serious organizations) significant money. Apparently the only time the FFII received generous financial support was in a context where it was most probably funded by a PRO-PATENT company.
More detail on the FFII: its insignificance and its venality Posted Sep 29, 2010 17:37 UTC (Wed) by aigarius (subscriber, #7329) [Link]
FFII did just enough to defeat software patents last time they came up for discussion. Gathering and spending more money would be just a waste.
My position is that some huge companies are asking the government to grant them monopolistic powers for money. It is their burden to prove overwhelmingly and beyond any shadow of the doubt that these new patents are useful not only to them but also to the whole society (who are giving them the monopolies). The fact that some people in the US have such 'nuclear weapons of IT destruction' and have successfully threatened to use them and gotten huge sums money from companies that actually produce stuff is not a good reason to give out cheap nukes to everyone this side of the pond as well.
More detail on the FFII: its insignificance and its venality Posted Sep 29, 2010 18:49 UTC (Wed) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] FFII did just enough to defeat software patents last time they came up for discussion. You and I and everyone else, we defeated one particular legislative proposal, but we didn't "defeat software patents." As you can see here, the German high court now declares pretty much all software patents valid. Or look at the European software patents mentioned in this article. There would be a lot more like this that I could show and document, but it's more than enough to reduce your claim of "defeat software patents" to total absurdity. The whole anti-software-patent movement in Europe has only scored defensive victories (preventing exacerbations) but there are large numbers of software patents in Europe and they are enforceable. The FFII has during 10 years of its existence not made any offensive headway -- not even one tenth of an inch -- in terms of taking initiatives that would reduce the number of software patents granted/upheld. And why can't you get lawmakers to do anything in your favor? Why is the most this movement can achieve to prevent or delay decisions, but never any progress toward the actual goal? Because you don't have sufficient support from businesses to impress any political decision-maker that they should pass new laws based on your ideas.
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