[Patents] Re: [Fwd: The dready threat of Hague Convention]

[critto@poczta.wp.pl (Krzysztof Sobolewski)]

From:                   PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>
To:                     Bernard Lang <Bernard.Lang@inria.fr>
Copies to:              Jozef Halbersztadt <halber@timsi.com.pl>,
        <patents@liberte.aful.org>
Subject:                Re: [Patents] Re: [Fwd: The dready threat of Hague 
Convention]
Date sent:              Mon, 20 Aug 2001 19:05:32 +0200 (CEST)

> > One problem I noticed is that people in charge in government do not even
> > know what is going on.  They believe it is a simple technical matter
> > that they can leave to assistants, who often do not report nor
> > accurately assess the importance of the issue (and it is clearly
> > deliberate)
> 
> At first sight this looks like a discussion about whether computer
> programs should be copyrightable or not.  A fight of some Linux
> libertarians, citing some trendy economic studies, against the common
> sense that complex functional creations should as far as reasonably
> possible be controlled by their owners.

That's why we need to strenghten our PR (public relations) and 
marketing abilities. I've seen the work of FFII, LPF and 
FREEPATENTS online, and I think it's good. I hope it's good in 
'meatspace' as well.

DMCA is the new threat; but EFF is already combatin' it, and it's 
the organisation that stopped (or abolished) circa few dozens of 
tyrannical legal acts (!!), their power is really big. So we can hope 
they will win this time, too.

But we must do our work. To "deconfuse" people -- provide them 
the appropriate information


> 
> This misunderstanding is furthered by the fact that the EPC talks about
> "programs for computers".  In the context of patents this means something
> completely different than in the context of copyright: algorithms rather
> than the individually created tissue.  (see the EPO guidelines of 1978
> http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/papri/epo-gl78/ as well as court decisions of
> the 70s).  To the informatician it is clear that programs are algorithms
> and vice versa, but the normal PC (l)user understands programs as concrete
> entities on his disk or has a copyright-guided perspective.

Yes, but it's not the plain human language -- it's legalese :) And 
now without irony: such differences aren't very broadly understood, 
and they don't have to. As for Poland, a car is legally called 'two-
track motor vehicle', and it equals the more popular word 'car'. 

The confusion lays somewhere else. When people confuse 
copyrights with patents, or fair use with piracy, _THIS_ is the really 
bad confusion.

Anyway, in Poland we dont' say about 'copyrights' but about 
'author's rights' -- so it sounds a bit differently ...

> This is why I have lately been insisting on not using terms like "software
> patents" but instead referring to "logic patents".  This directs the
> unexperienced mind right into the center of the problem and thereby also
> indicates the importance of the issue.

Maybe you're right. I'm almost sure you are, but I must think on it 
for a while ...

> I suspect even that organisations like "Academie de Technologies" and
> "Gesellschaft fuer Informatik" were goaded into accepting pro swpat
> reports not mainly because there is the widespread "slave-owner ideology"
> and corporate interest which I was analysing earlier.  

Maybe ... I don't know about them; it's the first time I see their 
names; are they important to German science?

> An even more
> important reason is that we always fail to grasp one basic reality:  the
> standard audience is a clueless audience, and this even applies to
> organisations of so-called technologists or informaticians.  One could
> probably find out that 2/3 of the AdT/GI members will understand the swpat
> only as a "Linux Geeks, supported by trendy economists, trying to abolish
> all authors' rights" and form a healthy conservative reaction to this
> before we even get a chance to talk to them about what is going on.

Well, Hartmut, I dare not to agree here. 
Programmers and developers _understand_ the threat posed by sw 
patents and DMCA -- because *they are directly threatened*. For 
example, Dimitry Sklyarov's case brought a very large outrage. As 
did the Napster case (unfortunately lost, but mostly because 
Napster was bribed with the "good offer", and it's Napster's own 
choice).

Programmers and other developers are _sensible_ to our message. 
All we need to do, is to deliver it to them, and then spread it among 
them as widely as possible, to 'infect' their minds with anti-sw 
patent thought. They will treat us like 'saviors'. Well, not 'they', 
because I'm the programmer myself, too ...

Of course, some lawyers, some scientists may be not so sensible, 
what only means that they aren't really reasonable; they prefer the 
popular myths and trends before the reasonable thinking about 
implications of the human actions. Maybe some of them don't 
deserve their titles? 

Maybe some of them'd change their minds after prof. Felten's case 
(threatened in USA after publishing some info; get to 
http://anti-dmca.org


But 85000 thousand signatures against SW PATS makes a 
difference. We are doing a good work, and we'll continue, till the 
threat is over (or maybe it never will be over -- as Patrick Henry 
said, "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance"), and if not, we will 
keep it harmless. 

Sure, we don't need "standard" audience; we need the interested 
parties' audience; audience of programmers, computer journalists, 
scientists.

We need the persons and entities (groups) devoted to specefic 
issues, as in any battle or sports' match. Surely, nobody alone 
could do everything. But united, we'll go far (as we gone today, and 
further). 

And  I think that we need to strenghten the *boycott* actions -- it 
pays. Adobe's given up and dropped their charges against Dimitry 
Sklyarov (http://www.freesklyarov.org) after the large "boycott 
Adobe" action, http://boycott-adobe.org. It's especially important -- 
when the 'interested parties' (corporations) will see that people are 
boycotting their products, they won't be so eager to obtain patents 
and pursue their 'violations'. Well, I think that I don't have to 
explaain it to you -- it's a very popular form of protest in Western 
Europe, as I've heard .. In Poland, we are only starting ...

Yours in Liberty, for The Future of Programming,
   Critto


Yours in Liberty,
     Krzysztof (Christopher) "Critto" Sobolewski

e-mail:critto@poczta.wp.pl, liberter@poczta.wp.pl
www:www.critto.prv.pl, www.libertaryzm.prv.pl
phone:301-72-50, 0608 114 421
address:ul. Krosna 32/2, 80-857 Gdansk, POLAND, EUROPE
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