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City of Munich Freezes Its Linux Migration
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Aug 04, 2004 07:41 AM
from the patently-something dept.
from the patently-something dept.
Jan0815 writes "Yesterday I received disturbing news from the CTO of Munich, Wilhelm Hoegner. As previously mentioned, there is a rising concern that software patents could stifle development of open source worldwide. FFII has complete coverage of what is going on in Europe." (FFII stands for Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure.) Reader jmt(tm) writes "The call for bids was supposed to be published in late July, but the Munich Green Party had pointed out about 50 possible patent conflicts which the city wants to evaluate before moving on."
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Attempt to stop those patents (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That is helpful (Score:5, Insightful)
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Freezes Linux (Score:4, Funny)
Even though its german, read the study (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.ffii.org/~blasum/basisclient
Even though it is german there are a lot of patents listed in english and you will be able to see how incredibly absurd this whole thing is.
For example there are patents for:
- Tabbed Browsing
- Multitasking
- Using your browser to browse online forums
- Creating documents through macros
to just name a few.
A political decision (Score:5, Insightful)
The green party wants to point out what harm a law that allows software patents can have for small and mid sized companies.
the problem with Linux - intellectual property (Score:5, Insightful)
The next generation of spurious lawsuits will be targeted at users of the technology. Without a blanket organisation to indemnify (sp?) the users, I suspect widespread adoption will slow very quickly. I was hoping IBM or a big player would step into this space (as per the one-off SCO lawsuit situation re: HP) but right now the scope of lawsuits is so vast that it would be suicide to do so in a blanket fashion.
When I buy and deploy MS, at least I know that EOLAS won't/can't come after me. Linux however faces increasing paralysis as this 'death by a thousand cuts' discourages widespread adoption.
Can anyone comment on the largest linux deployment in the world? How many large scale deployments exist? I'll ask people to ignore academic installations, as they are rarely relevant to corporate/government environments which drives the IT industry.
some more details who supports what here... (Score:5, Informative)
They are pro Linux (at least for Munich), and against (pure) software patents.
Just to prevent misunderstandings...
Re:some more details who supports what here... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, yes, they are doing the right thing. Let's pray it works out.
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Microsoft VS a country? (Score:5, Funny)
"Try it... you can come to OUR courts and do it"
"..er..erm..but we can't use our money to win there"
"...hmmmm.. indeed"
I hope they do move over to it and then if Microsoft try anything they'd have to win with evidence and not with money.
It's call to arms... (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder... (Score:4, Funny)
Gee, I wonder where they got such a coMprehen$ive list from?
Now is the time... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not only a danger to Open & Free software (Score:5, Insightful)
However, it is MUCH worse than that. Software patents are a danger to ALL software development, particularly software done by small firms or in-house, which is where most of the software development is done. If software is patentable, and if all those obvious patents are granted and upheld. No-one will be able to develop any software for fear of being sued.
I hope the software patents issue is not seen to be only an issue for Open Source and Linux. It's not. It's a danger to all of us. Even if companies will still create new software, it will be much more expensive due to research and defense of possible patent infringement, patent fees, and additional coding to work around expensive patents.
And the winner is .... (Score:4, Interesting)
How Software Patents Should Work. (Score:4, Insightful)
Lets consider tabbed browsing, and 169 degre opening doors on these new Nissan Titans.
My company spends millions building this door, the hinge is a peice of work requireing many hours of effort and testing. We pantent it all of course and are awarded it and people buy our trucks for it's superior way of opening vs say a ford with the same feature.
Tabbed browsing should be considered in this same light. Everyone should be able to implement tabbed browsing. Company X could code it one way and Company Y would code it another way. Both have tabbed browsing, one's method is superior, provides more features, and the code size and memory footprint per tab is lower than the competitor.
Just blindly posting patents for the idea is wrong. Software patents should be more specific and not on the general idea. Yes you can have a patent on a tabbed browser but not on the tab metod itself just your way of coding it.
Re:How Software Patents Should Work. (Score:5, Insightful)
The US screwed up and went against globally accepted patent stanards and reversed it's on accepted patent standards when it began issuing software patents.
Specifically the US abandoned the "Mental Steps Doctrine". The Mental Steps Doctrine said that mental processes are not - cannot be - inventions. And that anything that can be done mentally is not - cannot be - an invention.
It may be slow, but absolutely any code can be executed mentally. I am a programmer, executing code mentally is a routine part of writing and debugging code. All software is fundamentally mental steps - mental processes.
Physical objects and physical processes can be inventions. Mental processes and calculations are not inventions.
Answer me this:
If I choose some convient/simple software patent, and I then proceed to in fact execute that software through pure thought, have I committed patent violation? Were my thoughts a violation of the law?
And if not, then please explain how it magically become an invention and a violation when I take the obvious and non-novel step of using an ordinary computer merely to speed up that exact same non-invention calculation?
I really really want you to answer that. It's funny, every time I ask that of a software patent advocate they completely ignore the question. They can't rationaly answer it, so they pretend the question was never asked. So I will state right now that if you reply in support of software patents, yet completely ignore the previous two paragraphs, I will just repeat the question. Can thoughts executing the software violate the law? And if not then how does the obvious use of a computer merely to speed things up turn a non-invention into an invention?
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Disturbing indeed (Score:5, Interesting)
Products from Microsoft or Sun are just as likely to contain infringing code as Linux, but if such code is found, it's likely that the producer of the software finds itself at the wrong end of a lawsuit, not the users. The scary bit about the problems with Linux and purported IP infringement, is that the people laying claim to parts of Linux go after the users, since there is no real producing company to sue.
So it is accurate to state that software patents stifle free, open software development specifically. To use software patents against an incorporated competitor isn't very practical. You'll have to actually fight your claim in court, since your competitor's product is their bread and butter, and it'll be worth it to them to defend it. But to fight an OSS competitor, it is enough to threaten potential customers with a lawsuit... to them, the risk of a lawsuit isn't worth it, and they are likely to choose a non-OSS solution (unless they think the claimant has no case whatsoever).
You can be sure that Gates & Balmer are dancing a little jig after hearing this news... I'm not against patent law per se, but lately we see too many examples of corporations threatening to sue over the most outrageous claims on IP, and getting their way by scare tactics, not having to prove their claims or even spending one penny in court. I fail to see how this practice is in the 'publics best interest', as the proponents of software patents claim it is.
All operating systems share the same risk (Score:4, Insightful)
Since Windows is much bigger (code-wise) than *BSD/Linux/Amiga/etc., would that not mean that it has a higher chance of running into patent issues?
Would the users be immune to the issue since they did not infringe (the software developer(s) did)? Eolas did not go after the users but Microsoft.
Great news (Score:5, Interesting)
NOT JUST LINUX! (Score:5, Insightful)
They need to immediately do an excruciatingly thorough search for software patents that Microsoft software may be infringing. Be sure to include ALL of the software in the Microsoft package - from Windows to Office to Media Player to Outlook and Exchange to Microsoft IIS webserver to PowerPoint to Internet Explorer, everything.
Presuming they find a few, then obviously the EU needs to "freeze" any Microsoft purchases as well.
Oh, and while they are at it, IBM has a couple of active software patent infringments against SCO in court right now. So if by some odd chance some EU government office is dealing with SCO software, well I guess they'll just have to "freeze" that too. Chuckle.
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Some of those patents are plain criminal (Score:5, Informative)
Tabbed browsing...
Reading fees for web based applications...
Web shopping basket....
60 Firewall patents....
Jpeg compression...
Windowing systems...
Document creation via macros...
Multitasking...
SMB/CIFS...
Web based deployment...
These patents are literally criminal. Why bother to use a computer at all. Why bother to even consider working in IT since, due to patents, you're fucked the moment you write your first line of code. Christ alfuckingmighty, Microsoft and these fucking patents make one feel like being back in the fucking dark ages when you were forced by law to pay taxes to the fucking church just because they were there.
I'm going to work in a fucking restaurant as a waiter. At least there I know why the customers and the boss treat me like shit.
Re:...EU software patents? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:...EU software patents? (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem isn't software patents. The problem is that some software patents are just rediculous and they should be given to someone that at least tries to implement the idea.
Just imagine, you spend years coming up with something that ou think is great. Some big company sees it and copies it. They have the money to promote it and they corner the market. You've wasted a couple of years without any return.
Most of the patent litigation that gets reported on slashdot is usually the other way around, heck most of it is just the potential of a patent to be used in a bad way, but there are cases where the little guy that poured his heart and soul into something was able to prevent a bigger company from ripping him off.
Granted, if you're just someone who doesn't innovate, just copies other ideas, then you don't want software patents.
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Re:...EU software patents? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody comes up with ideas on their own since none of us is on an island completely seperated from the rest of humanity. You added your small piece to the idea of many others and that should not give you any right to control that.
Look at how many came up with stuff like read-copy-update stuff. Things are independently come up with so many times in so many places that software patents are just not a good idea. We all build our stuff on the backs of others and when we get to a certain level of knowledge as a whole the same idea will be come up with in many places.
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Re:...EU software patents? (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree that software patents aren't the problem. In fact, I'm unaware of any actual patents on software. There are patents on methods or algorithms that are implemented in software, but that's justifiable. For example, if I made a control systems algorithm that I implemented mechanically or electronically it would certainly be patentable, so why shouldn't it be patentable if I implement it in software?
What seems to be the problem is the defacto removal of patent restrictions regarding obviousness and prior art, along with the patent duration. Very obvious things are getting patented in software. It's like patenting a plastic doll because it now has a new hat.
But my biggest concern with this Munich thing is why the concern over Linux specifically? Patent violations are just as, or more, likely in proprietary software. In fact, all litigation I'm aware of for so-called "software" patents have been between proprietary software companies and there have been no lawsuits over Linux violations yet. Plus it is quite obvious that Linux developers would be quick to make new "non-violating" implementations very quickly if anything was found. In other words, the reasoning behind slowing Linux implementation in Munich makes no sense to me.
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Re:...EU software patents? (Score:5, Insightful)
Cost:
people can't use an idea for a certain amount of time without paying the inventor (this time is incredibly long in any high tech field, including software)
Benefit:
- it encourages spending on research and technology (the software patents we hear about didn't require much of this other than writing the code - the "invention" was just a natural result of the design of the product)
- it encourages inventors to disclose their inventions (while this may be useful for things like manufacturing processes that would otherwise be trade secrets, software almost inherently discloses the invention when the software is released)
I think that the cost side for software patents outweighs the benefit side. IOW software patents give less to society than they take away.
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Re:...EU software patents? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, you patent your idea and turn it into a product. However, some big company comes along and "steals" you idea. You contact your lawyer, who contacts their lawyer to get Big Company to pay for a license fee. Unfortunately, it turns out that your own product infringes on 53 of Big Company's patents, so your lawyers agree that the best solution is a cross-licensing deal, where they get to use your patent, and you get to use their 53. In the end, the only winner is: patent lawyers.
Have any such examples? One?Remember, patents exist to promote innovation -- to allow inventors to spend their time working on inventions that wouldn't be possible if you couldn't prevent others from copying it. What kind of software innovation is only possible thanks to software patents?
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Re:...EU software patents? (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Even non-rediculous software patents are a problem. MAYBE software patents would be OK if software had always been patentable... but it hasn't! We've been writing software since 1960, but people only started trying to patent it in the 1990s.
That's 30 years of time when many inventions were made, but no patents were filed. So tons of software ideas were invented, used or not, and then programmers moved on, leaving old ideas free to be patented decades later by someone who wasn't really the first at all.
Just imagine, you spend years coming up with something that ou think is great. Some big company sees it and copies it.
Just imagine, you spend years coming up with something that ou think is great. You write a program, self-publish it, and the shareware-fees begin to roll in. Then IBM calls you and says they patented it years ago. Sure, they never brought it to market- they just have lawyers who patent every little idea that crosses their engineers' heads, without checking if it's practical or profitable.
But now that you've generously done the work of building a market for their patent, they'll be happy to drop the lawsuit against you, as long as you cease your business immediately. You took a big risk, it paid off, and you lost!
You've wasted a couple of years without any return.
The argument that patents protect little inventors from big corporations is mostly backwards today. Filing patents costs money, but it's something a big corp can handle easier than a little guy (by rolling the price of a dedicated IP lawyer into the overhead).
Patents are useful in some fields like pharmaceuticals, but not in software.
Granted, if you're just someone who doesn't innovate, just copies other ideas,
Note that copying other's ideas is the foundation for capitalism...
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Re:...EU software patents? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't even like the idea of patents in medicine. Aside from the fact that the only possible use for patents in medicine is to limit the distribution of cures to those who can pay for it, thereby callously disregarding the value of human life, there's a deeper concern.
There are several arguments that run along the same thread, but all of them is a permutation of profits driving interest in further R&D:
- If we don't let them patent, and thereby profit, what's to encourage future cures being developed?
- If everyone can get the cure for cheap or free, why will anyone pay the prices necessary to help the developers recapture their investment?
These for me are just a bit to close to saying that we need to keep people dying so that the medical industry can keep making money. After all, isn't the ultimate goal to put the medical industry out of business? I'd like to think that the goal (however unrealistic) is a world in which people are so healthy that drugs and complex medical products are no longer needed for the most part.
So long as we continue to reason along the lines of, "But who will support the drug companies, and how will they make a buck?" we are espousing a mentality that needs continued suffering and death, because a) if people aren't suffering and dying of diseases, there's no impetus to develop drugs because there's no market, and if people aren't suffering and dying because a drug is b) so freely available, there's no motivation for the wealthy who can afford it to actually pay for it...
I'm just not sure patents in general are ever a good idea.
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Re:...EU software patents? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now let's run this through a real life example. You spend years creating something completely different. Something new enough that it truly deserves a patent (say something on the order of public key encryption), and you create a product and start to market it. The big software companies, especially Microsoft, immediately set to work cloning your work, and within a year they have competing products.
However, you have a patent on the really clever bits, right? So you are saved.
Wrong! Instead, when you approach Microsoft and friends about licensing your patents they simply show you 20 patents of theirs that you violate. Microsoft has patented the double-click, for crying out loud. Your patent lawyer then advises that you sign a cross-licensing deal with these companies, and asks you for a big fat paycheck. So now you have spent years creating the software, and tens of thousands of dollars patenting your ideas and you are still screwed.
The only way for the little guy to win with patents is to see where the market is going, patent ideas that are likely to block upcoming software innovation, and then sit back and wait. The trick is to write absolutely no software. That way you don't violate anyone else's patents. In fact, that's what a lot of companies are doing. They don't actually create any software, they just lay out landmines for the folks that are actually doing the real work.
Don't tell me that promotes innovation, because I don't buy it.
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Re:...EU software patents? (Score:5, Insightful)
The general /. consensus has always been that a software company can copyright its code, but should not be allowed to "patent" an idea. In other words, Microsoft should be free to claim ownership of their DoCrazyStuff() function, but should not be granted exclusive rights of "providing an method on a computer by which crazy stuff may be facilitated".
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Re:...EU software patents? (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway
And before i get flamed, yes I know a license for code is different from a patent, but guess what, in software, the most valuable part of the software is the ideas, the algorithms. It's usually not very hard to implement the ideas(though that doesn't mean it isn't often screwed up).
Okay, I have an idea: an O(log n) sorting algorithm. How brilliant I am! I should patent it and make a bunch of money immediately! Oh, okay, there's the matter of implementation, but that's for the little people to worry about.
You see where I'm going with this? Ideas are easy. Implementation is 99 44/100 % of the work -- always has been, and probably always will be. And yet now, we're at the point where not only are companies patenting specific implementations, which I would have a problem with in and of itself (copyright vs. patent) but ideas before an implementation even exists. It's not like they've done the work and want to protect the fruits of their labor; they're saying, in effect, "If anyone ever does this work, we own their ass."
Open source has created a lot of new ideas, and will continue to create new ideas. These should be embraced, if you hate patens so much, don't use the stuff in the patents.
The new ideas F/OSS has created tend to be in specific implementations, not in Big Ideas. (NB: the Big Ideas tend not to come out of companies like Microsoft, either. Mostly they come from academic research, or from corporate labs like Bell Labs or PARC that function almost as separate entities from the parent corporation.) Now, I'm not saying it will always be this way. We may be starting to see the age of F/OSS doing genuinely new things, not just improving old ones. LAMP, f'rinstance, although it consists of a combination of older ideas, has become a social as well as technical phenomenon, moving waaay beyond Just Another Server Setup. But Most F/OSS and proprietary developers spend most of their time implementing improvements on ideas that have been around in academic CS since the Seventies.
In fact, that time period brings up something I hadn't thought of before. Why, exactly, are almost all of the "modern" programming techniques we use based on academic CS from the Seventies and before? Well, in 1980, there was this little thing called Bayh-Dole
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Re:...EU software patents? (Score:5, Insightful)
For copyright violation.
"...and yet when it comes time for Linux to lift ideas from Microsoft, /.rs get really mad because they don't think Microsoft should be allowed to own it's ideas."
It's patented ideas.
Really - I cannot understand what is the matter with the moderators this morning - this drivel isn't even factual and rational, let alone insightful.
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Re:...EU software patents? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:...EU software patents? (Score:5, Informative)
There are thousands of software developers who read slashdot. Find one who says "I found this great algorithm in the patent literature". Or find a reference to one on a web page. Or find someone who knows someone whose third cousin once heard about a software developer saying that. Until then, shut up about software "patents" increasing knowledge.
I put "patents" in quotes because the EU hasn't made them legal yet, and they've never been legal in the U.S. The Supreme Court has ruled each and every time that software is not statutory material for a patent. And their most recent decision (Diamond v. Diehr, 1981) cautioned that you couldn't make nonstatutory material statutory by changing the wording, etc. See section IV of the majority opinion.
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Re:...EU software patents? (Score:5, Insightful)
If your company cannot comepte in the market without patents, then your company deserves to go down in flames.
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Re:...EU software patents? (Score:5, Insightful)
But it's a reality that doesn't have to exist.
Linux being abandoned in Europe because software patents "have" to be introduced would be a bit like the cure for cancer being discovered and promptly suppressed because cancer "has" to be incurable.
There is no sight more demoralizing for the idealist than seeing work on the construction of the wall of reality speed up as he approaches.
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Re:...EU software patents? (Score:4, Interesting)
They have to provide value for money for EU citizens and this unfortunately puts them at odds with the nice businessmen who give them nice envelopes of cash (EU commissioners are unelected and don't exactly have a reputation for honesty).
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Re:...EU software patents? (Score:5, Interesting)
You're right, they're not elected, but they're appointed by their respective national governments, which arise as a result of democratic election. I know it' debateable whether this is good enough or not, but then again, there are countries that don't have directly elected presidents.
I think a lot greater problem with software patents is that the issue is well understood only by a few people. Knowing enough about programming AND law is a rare combination.
It is very easy to confuse (and bribe) anyone into supporting the patents. Hopefully the case of Munich will actually be a good thing, because it will make politicians realize, that yes, software patents do matter to them!
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Re:...EU software patents? (Score:5, Informative)
Stop Software Patents!
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Re:...EU software patents? (Score:4, Insightful)
They're not illegal, they're just not legally enforceable; there's a big difference.
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Re:...EU software patents? (Score:5, Informative)
Some important issues they raise in the 'patent PDF'
- mozilla tabbed browsing (from opera?)
- GIMP image export formats (ie. JPEG, GIF)
- OOo macro support
- OOo XML schema (from MS Office)
- CIFS / SMB
- Use of browsers for eCommerce (Oracle patent)
Seems to me that they have been exaggerating some patent issues.
Others might apply, such as CIFS, Gimp GIF issues etc.
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Re:Translation . . . (Score:5, Informative)
The list of example patent claims (most of which would be easy to fight but we aren't really rolling in dough here in Munich at the moment) should be clear enough and translation sites don't mangle them too much.
Note that this is mostly based on patent applications, not accepted patents. The majority of concerns become moot if the EU denies software patents.
Cheers,
woof.
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Re:that's crazy (Score:4, Interesting)
Everyone is running around screaming about the "liability" of using linux and it "possible violates" some patents.
please, I guarentee that hese same patents arebeing violated by microsoft, if not more of them.
why is it that people think that if I use Microsoft I am immune to being sued while linux= anyone can sue me for any reason?
when did this sillyness in thinking come about??
IBM is being sued for breach of contract by SCO, nobody is being sued "because they use linux" contrary to the hype and fud spread by the media.
so yes, please can someone in the know enlighten us as to why?
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Re:Munich Green Party (Score:5, Informative)
If everyone in the industry and in politics understood that you can only be either for open source or for software patents, it would all be a lot easier. Some say that software patents have not hurt open source so far but today we have the first incident that shows how software patents can put a hallmark Linux project in jeopardy.
What people need to understand is that the competitors and enemies of open source may very well accept today's stack of open source software, but they lay huge patent minefields in new areas of technology so they can arbitrary restrict the functionality of open source and keep its market share limited in the future. However, the best that can happen to all of us is an unfettered proliferation of open source.
I'm not just involved in open source. I'm also developing a closed-source computer game based on the
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No, it is something else (Score:4, Insightful)
If my theory is correct, it is an incredibly dangerous game they are playing. However, if it helps stop software patents in Europe it is worth it, even if it means losing Munich to Microsoft. It would be losing a battle to win the war.
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Re:drawbacks of civilization (Score:5, Funny)
Want to see a legal version of windows? I can make a copy of mine, so you can see what it looks like.
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Re:Make a mental note: greens scary (Score:5, Insightful)
And please explain to me how it would be better not to raise issue now? How is it better to simply wait for it to pop up later in the form of an actual patent lawsuit after the EU passes the Software Patent Directive?
The worst case scenario is that the Munich Linux project gets killed now rather than later by actual patent suits. The best case scenario is that raising the issue now will dissuade the EU from legitimatizing software patents in the first place.
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A answer from Munich (Score:5, Interesting)
this is why we decided to freeze this huge project, that the SPD, the major partner in the german administration and our political partner in this project, just cant allow to fail. The had too much trouble with toll-collect, a recent huge waste of tax money. That way the SPD just cant continue to silently support software patents in the EU. Without a EU software patent law, we happyly invite you to OUR courts to discuss this in full detail.
Yours sincerly, the greens of germany
P.S.: Did you manage to unbundle your software from your OS in the meantime, or do we need to call the EU to fine you again?
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Re:To: Mr Hoegner (Score:5, Insightful)
3. A call from you for us to help you find prior art would meet with tremendous response.
No! Absolutely not!
The goal here is not to invalidate a handful of stupid software patents. The goal here is avert the EU from passing a directive legitimizing and legalizing software patents themselves.
If the Council's version of the Software Patent Directive passes it will legalize the patenting software. If software is established as patentable then defeating these few patents isn't going to help. There will be tens of thousands of software patents issued every year and we inevitably lose.
However if the Parliment's version of the directive passes then it will affirm that the existing European Patent Convention which explicitly excludes software from patentability does in fact prohibit software patents. That last sentence is confusing, but it is correct. There is already a European Convention saying you cannot patent software. The problem is that some people are playing word games, by their interpretation the text prohibiting software patents doesn't actually accomplish anything, by their logic it was intentionally written to do nothing.
If Parliment's version of the Directive passes then all previously issued software patents will be established as invalidly issued. All of them are invalidated in one fell swoop and no new software patents can be issued.
So the goal of raising this issue was to shine a spotlight on the disaster to ensue if the Council's version passes. The intent is to ensure the Parliment's version passes, preventing these patents from becoming valid.
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