Re: [Patents] Re: IBM, Microsoft, BEA Snub W3C

[Xavi Drudis Ferran <xdrudis@tinet.org>]

El Wed, Apr 23, 2003 at 10:41:24AM -0400, Russell McOrmond deia:
> (Removing long CC list of mailing lists I am not a member of, leaving just
> the individuals and the patent forum)
> 
> On Wed, 23 Apr 2003, Xavi Drudis Ferran wrote:
> 
> > Protesting against those who have economical interest in destroying
> > their market (by monopolising it) and no obligation to listen to
> > protesters is wasting time compared with protesting to elected
> > legislators and publicizing the issues.
> 
>   Protesting isn't the type of pressure I was thinking of.  While protests
> may be good in the short term at raising awareness that there is a
> conflict, we need to be fully engaged in suggesting positive policy
> alternatives to have any long-term affect at all.
> 

Indeed. Maybe "protest" was not the best word. 

>   We are dealing with some interesting political issues here including one
> of timing.  We need to promote FLOSS quickly within governments so that
> any policy that is anti-FLOSS will get noticed by government FLOSS
> participants.  Here I don't just mean governments as simple users but
> governments running, studying, adapting, redistributing and generally
> exercising as government bodies all the freedoms of Free Software.
>

Yes. Sometimes I think computer professionals should do a better job
of explaining what software is to the general public. People in general 
seem to ignore very basic facts about the nature of software. Government 
might not react until there is enough public awareness. But yes, all 
efforts to help accept free software in governments are good.

> > >   It should be remembered that this is not the only standard that is 
> > > part
> > > of OASIS, with the Open Office technical committee being very important 
> > > to
> > > our community. 
> > > http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=office
> > 
> > An important note, yes. But again, this proves that pressure should go to 
> > governemnts, not unaccountable standard bodies. Does anyone knoe why OASIS
> > was chosen?. Maybe we do need some more open standard bodies, if the W3C
> > is too web-centric, but we can't hope to avoid RAND bodies.
> 
>   Anything relating to business interactions makes more sense in OASIS
> than in W3C.  "OASIS and the United Nations jointly sponsor ebXML, a 
> global framework for e-business data exchange."  It would be useful for 
> anyone involved in this discussion to read the ABOUT for OASIS:
>   http://www.oasis-open.org/who/
>

I have now. I'm still a bit unclear. But it's something.
 
> 
>   Some people are assuming bad intentions based on the choice of standards
> body, but there may not be any.  There is a problem with software patents
> in any standard, but choosing the right standards group for the right
> standard is not a negative thing.
>

Well, I didn't mean to assume bad intentions, I just meant to ask why it was 
choosen.
 
> 
>   I will next week be giving a presentation on "Office productivity for
> government" in a government track to try to accomplish exactly what you
> are suggesting http://www.flora.ca/rwl2003/ .  This is not a ;'protest',
> but an educational opportunity for government bureaucrats to learn some of
> the full policy implications of their software choices.  Thinking of
> software as simply something that governments 'use' is entirely
> inappropriate given that most governments are already the largest single
> producers of software within a given country, although this is currently
> primarily software that is only used in-house.
>

Yes. Sorry about using "protest". I just mean any effort aimed at 
explaining/convincing.
 
> > Well, a patent is not much better just because you use it defensively:
> > a- it can be used offensively later when budgets go low or anything
> 
>   This is why the non-revocable RF license. This IBM representative didn't
> get this either.  He kept asking me to quote any time IBM aggressively
> defended a patent, and I told him that this was not relevant.  A
> benevolent dictator is still a dictator, and can not be supported.
> 

IBM aggressive?. I believed Reback when he told it:
http://www.forbes.com/asap/2002/0624/044.html

But RF policies only ensure a limited use of the patent, and 
standards are still under threat from corporations not participating
in the stadard. E.g. the JPEG fiasco. 

What I mean is that having RF in standard setting bodies is good, even
necessary, but the fundamental problem to solve is another, the very 
existence of software patents. 

> 
>   We may all believe that software patents are illegitimate, but a
> (questionably corrupt) reality in many parts of the world.  We can all
> argue that this is a case of extreme special interests managing to
> convince some lower-courts that this was an enforcement issue (copyright
> is not 100% enforceable, so therefore stronger protection was needed)
> rather than being an economic one (determining the optimum level of
> protection required for different classes of software in the context of
> all relevant public policy), but this argument isn't going to help us in
> day-to-day operations of our businesses.
>

Come on. This is like saying that we all know government officials of 
country X are corrupt, so instead of asking for an end of corruption 
we should ask for black money not raising beyond inflation, because that
is easier to be won and would help our businesses since we would get an 
upper bound on how much to spend in black money. 
 
>   RF licenses may not be as good as abolishing software patent, but we may
> not get all governments to recognize the economic issues in the short
> term.  There are some rather convincing lobbiests on the other side who
> have most governments convinced this is an infringement enforcement issue.
> 

If so, then we need more education.

>   While not always popular in the software community as a whole, as a Free
> Software creator I am focused on the following path:
> 

Did I sound as attacking you personally?. You don't have to justify or
present credentials. I thank you for your work, and look forward to learn 
from it.

> 
>   c) Get governments to recognize the need to have a Fair Use (fair
> dealings in Canada) regime for patent law.  Given Free Software is a
> market failure for patents (we can not just license patents except in the
> case of very specialized RF licenses) it would follow that Free Software
> should qualify under a Fair Use exception.  This possibility is now in
> front of Industry Canada as it was featured in a report on software
> patents that I did for ICT branch
> <http://www.flora.ca/russell/drafts/software-patent2003.shtml> (update to
> be released soon with some important corrections)
>

This sounds unfair for non-free software, which is also a market
failure for patents.
 
>   d) Continue to work as "the good guys" in helping the rest of the
> software industry deal with software patents.  While a Fair Use exception
> would deal with the immediate problems of our community, and some members
> are only concerned about Free Software, there are many members who
> recognize that software patents create considerable problems for any
> non-incumbent monopoly software creator.
>

Still unfair. Why should the rest of software business have to deal with 
software patents?
 
> 
>   Just remember that IBM is large and diverse enough to almost be
> considered its own country - the left hand may be trying to cut off the
> right, and the head may not even be aware of this yet.  The same is true
> of a number of countries such as the USA which is both a strong supporter
> of FLOSS at some levels, and opposing FLOSS at others (interface
> copyright/DMCA, software patent, lack of anti-trust enforcement).  It is
> our job to try to wake these bodies up to their own internal
> policy-inconsistency problems.
>

I believe it is more likely in governments than in IBM. But I don't 
unsderstand IBM anyway. 
 


-- 
Xavi Drudis Ferran
xdrudis@tinet.org