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Algumas críticas costrutivas a este site. Devem ser encaradas como ideias para a melhoria deste movimento.
I believe the swpat.ffii.org would reach further, and more influentially with a look and feel directed to business, NGO's and government orgs, with solutions, howto's, whyto's. I say this after I directed a friend, working for a multinational software company to swpat.ffii.org. He suggested that the page looks too 'grass roots' and 'evangelical' to be 'looked at twice' by management in his company. He said it seems to be directed to 'activists' and does not give an image that exemplifies the fact that swpat's are outside of professional and even commercial interests (especially for smaller enterprises).
In my own opinion there is a problem with both this, and also the language of swpat.ffii.org. I feel that the language the site uses is a little scornful, pessimistic and catastrophic (the language of those already lost). While this is often a successful technique to spur drastic action, it appeals to only those that already care. However, it is not the free-software movement that is influential here, and for this reason should not be swpat.ffii.org's primary audience. The influential are those voting in Parliament, analysts working for Member States, technology magazines, CEO's and beaurocrats. As it stands, the language of the site does little to the ends of the movement as an optomistic and affirmative endeavour in the interests of better serving the social, cultural and professional interest.
While much of the language is directed at the real risks that unlimited software patentability pose, I think swpat.ffii.org should also offer itself also as a professional consultancy, as opposed to strictly an advocacy organisation. It should pronounce the benefits of a software-patent free Europe, as opposed to only the negative impact of software patents.
Julian Oliver
delire at xdv dot org.
There is a call for a consumer boycot of Nokia, because they spread misinformation while campaining pro software patents. See www.vitanova.dds.nl
Ante Wessels
Q: I would like specific examples of how software patents have inhibited or made more costly open source/free software development in the US (where they are legal). Can anyone provide me with some? - Struan
A: In this you will find example given by RMS talking about an early compression program and more: http://audio-video.gnu.org/audio/rms-speech-patents-lse2002.ogg http://audio-video.gnu.org/audio/rms-speech-cambridgeuni-england2002.ogg http://audio-video.gnu.org/audio/rms-speech-patents-westminster.ogg
Azi: How much money is at stake for the players ? How much revenue do these patents generate for Alcatel annually? How many companies are paying these players royalties? What is the avarage annual royalty paid? With such huge sums at stake for such well connected companies, how will any of this actually change?
phm: A lot is at stake for the patent arms of Alcatel and the like. These departments employ hundreds of people. Companies like Alcatel do not necessarily benefit on the whole. But their organisations have been adapted and feel they are on the winner side of the game. They are of course also politically well organised and keep reinforcing the game by regulation. But 1/10 of their organisational strength can be enough to defeat them. They are paper tigers, relying completely on political masquerading. The problem is that until recently not even that 1/10 was ever put together.
Q: Any more news on the ruling on software patents? I understand that the council made a decision on the 10th, but can't find any information anywhere about what is going on. Anyone know?
Aldous
Here you are from the Green's List of Who voted http://greens-efa.org/pdf/documents/SoftwarePatenting/AppelsnominauxMacCarthy2003-09-24.htm Green in Eurpoe Homepage http://www.greens-efa.org/en/
Q: What I cannot seem to find on the FFII pages is a list of which MEP voted for/against which amendment. Was the voting secret or open? If it was open, where can I find detailed results, to see which MEP needs further support for defending the amended directive?
A: It is there, see http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/plen0309/vote/
Q: Isn't it really convenient that while BBC News24 have finally covered the patents protests (albeit only on the biznews) that Microsoft have grabbed the headlines again. Contrary to what their spinmaster said on Irish radio today, the technology existed for years to protect content from porn-links. This is cynical headline-grabbing at it's worst. WAKE UP MEDIA -this stuff matters -or will it be like everything else, wait for the disaster then report? m mcweeney Ireland
A: See http://swpat.ffii.org/players/media/ and edit the wiki extension to insert commented links to media reports.
Q: The originating page asks for support on these issues and links to a sign up page. Unfortunately after signing up with an email address a further page is presented which demands completion, asking for residential address and so on, and requiring a good deal more time. Well, not actually in my case as I will not complete two stage selling forms operating on the principal that now we have your commitment we will trade on it to get what we want. Make such requests on the first page so that people can see what you intend asking for. Even if it were an honest process, an unintrusive process, how many people have time for cumbersome web forms? If it is a case of obtaining lobbying data that would be best achieved by a subsequent email asking for cooperation.
- Why is it done as presently?
Q: Open letter to Europarl from an italian blogger whith knowledge about the telecom area:
Blogs.it: Open Letter to Strasbourg and Bruxelles
A: Some more telecom-related cases would fit well into the Patents in Action documentation. Maybe some people at Telecom Italia will be open for these arguments.
phm: I removed the text of the open letter from this wiki, since it only reduplicates the blogs.it text. Nothing against the text, it is quite interesting to read.
Q: Can we patent any software which will make life of lawyers/politicians miserable, so they understand ?
Some one please answer.
A: Patent the "online patent submission and search method".
How To Help us Fight Software Patents
Talk with > Write > Phone > Fax your national Parliament or Goverment:
This page is german, but you can look for the correct domain of the parliament web site: http://www.bundestag.de/europa/parl_peu.html
Put info whom to write to into the national wiki pages:
etc Direct your message to your local MPs and let them forward it to the appropriate party representatives and to the ministers in charge of the subject. Usually, this is the ministry of trade or the ministry of justice.
Tell them your own experience and draw the conclusions, mentioning for example:
- Programmers shall not be deprived of their work. When a programmer has made a program, he has the copyright on it, and no one else shall be able to restrict his right to publish or sell it or lay down the conditions of use without the programmer's consent. This is the very foundation of any working business model in the software market, and software patents undermine it.
Software patents promote only one business model: Impose a private tax on market players, divert resources into patent filings and lawsuits instead of R&D, perform litigation instead of innovation. This climate only supports megacorporations and oligopolists, it raises prices, slows down innovation, hinders competition, decreases variety and quality.
- It is easy to describe an algorithm as a computer-implementable method, the actual work is in doing the implementation. That's what programmers do. Therefore, the incentive must be for the programmer, in the form of copyright, without any legal uncertainty or risk of stepping onto patent mines.
Software patents have not encouraged innovation, but have stifled it. Broadly known examples are data formats and communication protocols using compression methods: Stac (ISDN), LZW (GIF), RLE (JPEG), MP3 where patents severely affect interoperability. (See http://swpat.ffii.org/patente/wirkungen/)
- Algorithms are useless until implemented. Patenting algorithms means hindering others from making them useful. This directly hinders innovation.
- It's like patenting truths to hinder others from making any use thereof. Logic is a system, and making one part unavailable demolishes the system.
- The hope for a genius rewarded by a software patent has no support from real business. Actually, software patents are spread out like traps for others to step into by accident.
- The key to distinguish unpatentable logic from patentable subject matter is a strict definition of technical contribution, requiring the use of controllable forces of nature to achieve predictable results. The european parliament has provided such a definition, and it shall not get weakened.
- Without requirement of a use of controllable forces of nature, claims become so abstract that they cover any implementation, not just a specific one. This is what makes software patents so harmful und unjust.
- The task is about reverting EPO grant policy back to a lawful doctrine. It is not about legalizing illegal patents in the name of harmonization.
- It is not up to us to switch to doing patent business when we already know that it's bad. It is up to politics to save us from getting robbed by software patents.
- Explain that the US patent laws, the EPO is adopting, are designed to protect slave labor and not Intellectual Property. In order for US corporations to move production around between countries with cheap labor, they have to prevent their products from being copied by manufacturers in those countries and be sold into the markets. The US is putting pressure on countries to have the same patent laws. The US patent laws create market monopolies necessary to facilitate this use of slave labor, even for products that technically are not new inventions, but just variations over old themes. This is an attack on the work forces of countries that provide the bare necessities of a modern democratic society with a higher cost of living.
- The US patent laws the EPO is adopting, is protecting market monopolies by big corporations, which forces smart people to work for them instead of starting their own businesses.
- A good environment for starting up software development in Europe will encourage smart people in the US and around the world to come to Europe to build their futures there.
Background Information:
http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/europarl0309/aipla0310/
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Signup via the FFII Participation System
Donations to FFII
Contact konto at ffii org(Holger Blasum, Treasurer) for receipts and details. Donations are tax-deductible. Detailed bank account data on: http://swpat.ffii.org/letters/parl034/
