Talk on The Danger of Software Patents" by Richard Stallman

by Terry - none Wed May 19, 2004 12:32

Some time back, the EU was bringing forth legislation about software patents, but it met quite a lot of opposition and never got passed as a Bill.

Now that Ireland have the EU presidency, the Progressive Democracts (as far as I know, and not neccessarily FF), put the software patents issue back on the table, (on behalf of Microsoft no doubt).

This reminds me of the way, we voted for NICE twice, the first time being the wrong answer.

Anyhow, the new motion on software patents had got almost all the way through the EU and it was about to be passed to the EU Parliament for a final vote, but with the recommendation for no further discussion since no objections had been raised.

Clearly everyone thought they had dealth with the problem already and were unaware the proposal had been reinserted again. Apparently though, at a press conference, one of the countries suddenly announced that they did have problems, and this obviously alerted others, as then a number of other countries raised objections.

Thus it is partially in light of these events and the talk above on the 'Danger of Software Patents' should be put in context.

Needless to say, introduction of software patents would be of no benefit to the many software companies in Europe, when faced against the giant of Microsoft.

Hmm, what if Newton, Faraday, Maxwell, Darwin and others had patented their inventions and discoveries?

by Terry Wed May 19, 2004 15:11

'EU software patents: how the vote was won'

The European Directive on software patents was voted through last night by the slimmest of margins. Crucially, Germany switched its position at the last moment and voted to support the directive, despite its previous vehement opposition.

Full report at: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/19/how_the_vote_was_won/

And more to the background at:
EU Software Patents and Microsoft sneakiness
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/13240/

by Reasonable Wed May 19, 2004 16:18

After all, he did invent gravity. if it wasn't for him, when we throw things up, they might not come back down, because of newtons genius we can now play field sports.

And if it wasn't for Darwin we might have never evolved from apes.

and the people who decoded the Human Genome should get a cheque every time somebody is born using their intellectual property, DNA

Why shouldn't these people get credit for their ideas?

I also think the ancestors of whoever invented maths should recieve a royalty everytime somebody recites the 2 times multiplication tables or measures anything using numerical values and the first person to grind wheat into flour should have a monopoly on all bread and pastry based products.
Its only fair.

by G Mon May 24, 2004 13:34

Just so everyone knows, TCD have decided to waive the fee for the talk, so it is now free for anyone to attend.

by megmeg - non_organised Mon May 24, 2004 15:14 megmeg at neuralyte dot org

I saw richard's talk in bristol and it was very insightful and informing, if your a geek, or even a non_geek, don't miss the chance to see the man : - )

/bristol_geek_girl

by :-) Mon May 24, 2004 17:21

:-)

by T Tue May 25, 2004 14:11

There's more background information on this topic from the 'Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure'

Their website is given below.