Patent Nonsense: Euro elections and Geekfest collide

dublin | eu | news report

Tuesday May 25, 2004 11:59

by seedot

1 guru, 250 programmers and 3 MEP candidates. The campaign against EU patents - or how the world is really run.

You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wear a yellow t-shirt.

When Indymedia has pictures of Guards in riot gear, protestors in costumes or attacks on some local politician thousands click on the link and often there are hundreds of comments. When technical issues get covered the silence is often deafening. When the guru of the free software movement, Richard Stallman, gives a talk in a lecture theatre in Trinity college its not the type of event you would expect to incite passions. Where’s the politics?

This talk though, was important enough that three MEP candidates turned up in the middle of the campaign, including one sitting MEP. Organised by the Irish Free Software Organisation as part of their campaign against software patents the talk laid bare much of what troubles people about the EU and the role of ‘Mega Corporations (tm Richard Stallman) in setting public policy. The audience was what you would expect – mostly male, mostly computer literate, mostly involved in the software industry. But the material was accessible, interesting, even funny. And very frightening.

Stallman has been giving this talk for a while now, most recently in London on Friday, and it shows. He acted out the conversation between IBM with their 9,000 patents and a new company with a single patent in the form of a dialog, playing the part of big scary IBM on his tiptoes. Some of the jokes were for the audience – a routine about the difference between physical engineering and software engineering, based around inserting an ‘If’statement in a ‘While’ loop doesn’t seem to offer much laugh potential – but I guess you had to have been there. Overall, he stayed on issue and I don’t think anyone would have been swamped by technology – so why do issues like this not get more attention?

Definitely not coming from an ‘anti-capitalist’ framework, Stallman laid out the case that software patents discourage innovation, harm developers and serve the purpose only of mega corporations and patent parasites. He gave examples such as the gif and jpg standards (for graphics on the web), and the way spreadsheets sort data all being covered by patents. He talked of how much work would be involved if someone tried to abide by the laws, checking every patent – and even then it is likely they would not be able to buy a license. He talked of the political process – where the European Parliament opposed patent legislation only to see the issue come back up in the Council of Ministers. He spoke of the Australian government, a European small businesses group of 2 million members and most of the informed software community (both users and developers) opposing this legislation.

During the questions at the end we saw some of the infamous bad humour as he laid out how questions were to be asked, gave out that he couldn’t hear or understand people and then interrupted every question to aggressively make his point. It’s obvious why Richard Stallman is not a politician. Of the politicians (or aspiring politicos) who were there, Eoin Dubsky and Patrician Mackenna had a bit of a love in saying they would vote for each other if they were in the right constituency (probably a surprise to the green candidate in Leinster). MacKenna was the more interesting of the two talking about the process of amending the legislation and the ongoing battle against the lobbyists in Europe. Ivana Bacik popped up at the end to add her support – in an unfortunately blatant piece of electioneering since she hadn’t heard the talk.

The IFSO recorded the whole thing and, as you would expect, the web is overflowing with information about this. Have a read and ask the candidates – this is something that does happen in Europe, that an MEP can affect and that most of them know nothing about. But then, they’re no different to most of us.

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Comments (13 of 13)

did anyone remember to compliment his beard?

by eyes shut and lips a puckering....

Tue May 25, 2004 13:23

I think Stallman has had more _real_ political influence than any member of the EU parliament, who yesterday were exposed by the International Herald Tribune of recieveing after all benefits and perks are accounted for an average of 100,000$ a year.
That's about a 100,000€.
Stallman is one of those who (like myself) supports the global justice wage.
a blanket amount of cash without borders globally to allow everyone access to things like:-
Carbohydrates, water, a bit of protein and occasional postcards to the mammy.
He estimates his needs at 100$ a week.
without rent.

think about that.

MEP support

by of no particular persuasion

Tue May 25, 2004 14:43

The comment re Ivana Bacik is a bit unfair, I think. She was invited last week and had a prior engagement, but said she would come along if she could. She didn't hear the talk but she had been briefed on the issue beforehand. For me, I would rather that she lent her support publicly than not come at all. Of course she's electioneering, there's an election coming up. That's what Eoin Dubsky and Patricia McKenna were doing too.

As usual, mindless Stallman bashing.

by Mr Tibbles

Tue May 25, 2004 15:40

"During the questions at the end we saw some of the infamous bad humour as he laid out how questions were to be asked, gave out that he couldn’t hear or understand people and then interrupted every question to aggressively make his point."

I've heard dozens of lectures by Stallman and have never interpreted the actions described above as "bad humour", nor would I consider "interrupting" questions as "aggresive". For some reason, the author would have us think that a request for questions to be asked in turn and only at the end of the speech is "bad humour". I fail to understand why people think this is a character flaw.

Further, not hearing or understanding someone is hardly "bad humour". Has it not occured to Seedot that perhaps Stallman has simply not heard or not understood someone. Finally, interrupting questions; in every case that I have seen this happen, the questioner is either asking a question that has already been answered in the speech or is completely irrelevent to the topic at hand.

I was enjoying the article very much until the interminable issue of Stallman's personality was raised. Why for god's sake, can't these very important issues be discussed without resorting to Ad Hominem attacks. What I find most bizarre is that the author seems to agree with Stallman but none-the-less feels the need to comment on his personality. Has the cultish anti-RMS movement really brainwashed everyone so completely?

Less sensitivity please Tibbles

by Chekov

Tue May 25, 2004 15:49

The article was a report of the RMS talk, it's hardly surprising that the report included some details about him. Mentioning the 'bad humour' of RMS while reporting favourably on the content of the talk is a long way from Stallman "bashing". Interrupting questions may not always be aggressive, but when you are a famous big-name and the questioner is a nobody, it generally comes across as such.

It is possible to support somebody's opinions and actions without entirely losing your critical faculties and just because the author doesn't think that RMS is infallible, doesn't make him any less of a supporter of his campaign against patents.

Great report Seedot, just one quibble though. As far as I know the European parliament has already come out against the patents - but their advice was subsequently completely ignored by the European comission. So although this is an area where MEPs can perhaps do something, it is something that may well be ignored by the decision makers.

responses

Tue May 25, 2004 15:56

re: Ivana Bacik

My issue was actually the content of Ivana's contribution - which was a standard 'We support this issue'. It was unfortunate that she was not able to contribute more fully to the discussion - having a valuable legal perspective.

re: bad temper

The treatment of the first questioner was quite poor. You could see how nervous the approach made him as English was his second language and being criticised so strongly only hindered the question. Most of the rest of it was sort of funny - but I think it did prevent a larger debate happening.

re: the Parliament

as far as I know the commissions changes still have to be ratified by the parliament - so they are of some use, Chekov ;-).

Parliament vs Commission

by Yeneef

Tue May 25, 2004 16:12

The council of ministers has the final word so it is really our national government/ minister that should be lobbied for the greatest effect.

The 'battle' against lobbyists in Europe is not so simple, some of the most effective lobbying by professional public affairs firms has been in relation to green legislation. When you want something done get a professional to do it.

by redjade

Wed May 26, 2004 07:41

May 25, 2004

Richard Stallman on software patents

DUBLIN -- The straight-talking Richard Stallman visited Trinity College Dublin and fired a salvo of anti-software patent jibes at megacorporations, patent attorneys and flunkie European politicians who dared to advocate the patenting of software. True to form, Stallman delivered a fast-paced lecture to an audience of 285 interested listeners, including three candidates standing for election to the European parliament and two suits from Dublin's largest IP firm. Stallman parried questioners, chided the soft-spoken and slated the unconverted with a fact-filled 80-minute lecture and a combative debating style.

more at....

Just what you'd expect

by Dr. Faustus

Wed May 26, 2004 08:18

I'm male, computer literate and involved in the software industry. Just what you'd expect.

Software Patents & the EU

by Barry Mahon

Thu May 27, 2004 11:01

barry.mahon at iol dot ie

Apropos the E Parliament amendments and the Council. The Council (chaired by Harney) voted last week to pass the latest version of the Directive, ignoring ALL the Parliament's amendments. You can read the verbatim via the ifso site and see how our Minister brow beat the national delegations unitl she got a qualified majority. Note also that M$ is the sponsor of the governments EU presidency site.... need I say more...?

Amusement explained

by J.B. Nicholson-Owens

Fri May 28, 2004 03:57

jbn at forestfield dot org

"Some of the jokes were for the audience – a routine about the difference between physical engineering and software engineering, based around inserting an ‘If’statement in a ‘While’ loop doesn’t seem to offer much laugh potential – but I guess you had to have been there."

To each their own, of course, humor is remarkably subjective. But I found that part of the talk to be amusing. For those that did not understand the issue (perhaps those just starting to grapple with the issue), I'll attempt to explain: RMS was making the point that physical engineering is considerably more complex than software programmers in that there are factors one's physical model of the real world will fail to take into account. By contrast, a programmer need only make a new model of how they want their program to operate. For physical engineering, it is the model which is wrong and that model must be improved before the product can be deployed. Examples of some of the complications software programmers don't have to face include worrying about the friction between an "if" statement (a conditional statement: if the CD is loaded, run the program from the CD) inside a "while" statement (while the user is using the computer, display the icons for accessing the web and e-mail).

Software programmers find this humorous because they know there is no such friction between statements in a computer program; this concept simply doesn't apply. The problems programmers face are logical problems and syntactical problems, generally, not problems with voltage drops, friction, heat dissapation, and other such real-world constraints. Of course computer hardware engineers have such issues to contend with, but the subject of the talk concerns computer software development.

play!

by :-)

Fri May 28, 2004 20:24

http://www.idleworm.com/tch/msadv.shtml

Other recent Richard Stallman

by space bunny - Indymedia Scotland

Sun May 30, 2004 13:37

RMS's talk in London: http://www.ffii.org.uk/events/040521_Stallman/RMS-UCL-May04.ogg

The Register report on RMS in London: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/25/stallman_lecture/

RMS's talk in Dublin: http://www.netsoc.ucd.ie/talks/stallman/

Photos of RMS in Edinburgh: http://www.scotland.indymedia.org/newswire/display/238/index.php

A brief interview with RMS just before his edinburgh talk, which can be found in ogg vorbis format here: http://rms.imcscotland.org/audio/rms-interview-edinburgh-270504.ogg (8MB - 22 mins)

Get audio ogg vorbis file of his talk at Informatics Colloquium via Bit Torrent: http://rms.imcscotland.org/audio/rms-speech-gnu-edinburgh-270504.ogg.torrent

More compact ogg speex audio file coming later.

Interview with Richard Stallman, by Anarcho Babe

Sun May 30, 2004 23:30

'' The interview unfortunately is only 15 minutes long, as RMS was late for the interview. So couldn't ask all the questions. Anyway he first was quite grumpy, but he brightened up later. My god I was very nervous, my hands were shaking! It did not help much that he was putting another guy down because "he doesn't want to talk about anything unimportant". Or similar. I should have asked about his definition of insignificance. It seems that politeness is also regarded as waste of time in many cases by him. Anyway, I can't remember the exact words. I am sure RMS can, because he seems to be very focussed and concentrated and exact, and able to keep this focus up for a very long time, also in his selection of words, and he seems to expect it from other people, too. ''

from Anarcho Babe's Blog
http://blog.fempages.org/article.php?story_id=63

- - - - -

Go download her audio file (need ogg!)
http://www.scotland.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/266

here's some photos of RMS
http://www.scotland.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/238

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Patent Nonsense: Euro elections and Geekfest collide

Comments (13 of 13)