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

[Russell McOrmond <russell@flora.ca>]

On Thu, 24 Apr 2003, David GLAUDE Mailing wrote:

> Because if a government ask for compliance to a standard that require 
> non-free licence to use a patent to be implemented.
> Then it is unfair to Free Software answer.

  We need to make ourselves clear on this point when moving forward:


  a) A "defacto standard" is just an attempt to put a positive spin on 
"incumbent monopoly" and sometimes even "illegal monopoly".  It is simply 
a vendor choice, not a standard.

  b) A "patent encumbered standard" is just yet another version of a 
vendor choice, and should receive the same scrutiny as other cases of 
problems in competition policy.  I included discussions about the Canadian 
Competition Bureau's Intellectual Property Enforcement Guidelines (IPEG) 
in a submission on Innovation -- others may want to look up their own 
domestic policy and work to expose it:
  http://www.flora.ca/innovation-2002.shtml#ipeg

  c) Only Open/Libre Standards (freely implementable by everyone,
including the FLOSS community) should be able to be considered standards
by governments.

> PS: Reverse way Microsoft could call it unfair for a governement to 
> require the software they acquire to be Free Software. But in fact even 
> Microsoft is capable of making Free Software, they are just not willing 
> too. ;-)

  As a fan of Lessig I really believe that "code is law", and further that 
the FLOSS community is to the modern world what those fighting for other 
governance accountability such as Access to Information laws were in the 
past.

  I simply do not see interface copyright (and Legal protection for TPM --
the nasty parts of the DMCA) or software patents as an economic incentives
issue as they are a disincentive.  I do not see them as a legal
enforcement issue of legitimate rights, but an accountability and
governance issue that must be corrected.

  Given that software is the code=law that controls our communications
tools in our modern world, it should be abundantly clear that the risks to
society of over-protecting software are several orders of magnitude
greater than the risks of under-protecting software.

---
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
 Any 'hardware assist' for communications, whether it be eye-glasses, 
 VCR's, or personal computers, must be under the control of the citizen 
 and not a third party.   -- http://www.flora.ca/russell/