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Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => General Internet News => Topic started by: Argo on August 28, 2003, 07:02:40 PM
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Yesterday, August 27th, Lempkee submitted that iospirit.de maybe closing for good due to software patents. The main page once you got to iospirit.de indicated that they had closed temporarly to protest software patents (in the EU).
The site is now back from its one day protest as part of a larger movement. I inquired about their protest. You can see their responce below.
Argo: Greetings, My name is Chris Fraser, aka Argo a moderator at Amiga.org. One of our members noticed your new front page and submitted a news item about it. He seemed to be under the impression that your whole site was closed or is closing permanently.
iospirit: No, that is not the fact. We are taking part in a net-wide protest against the planned
introduction of software patents in the EU. Thousands of other sites, including e.g.
www.kde.org or www.ffii.org have been taking part as well (it was a one-day demo),
the original frontpage is back today.
This protest was organized by ffii.org, you can find more info at http://swpat.ffii.org/ ..
Argo: The only other information submitted was from your front page. I was wondering it you would like to comment or answer a few questions? If you are, please answer these.
Is iospirit.de closeing?
iospirit.de: No, far from it. As said, we are/were "just" taking part in the protest against software patents, that would make developing software a legally extremly risky job and - as
pointed out - can generate legal issues for distributing code you wrote yourself. And
as it seems, our participation has reached its aim - more public awareness of this threat
for the EU and world-wide economy, especially small markets (including MOS/AMIGA)
in general.
Argo: What is your modivation or reasoning behind your support of this protest?
iospirit.deSoftware patents (think LZW, think GIF, think color-correction, think 1-click, think
mouse-pointer) in the US have always had a negative effect on independant and
small software developers. It is impossible to check your software against possible
patent-infrigements unless you can hire a patent lawyer of your own. This makes
software development a real pain (and not the fun it actually is), hinders innovation,
monopolizes the market and is only in the very interest of the big players (for they can
dictate the prices and - by patenting even the most trivial things - push smaller
competitors out of the market). The big loosers of software patents are free software,
innovatition, independant and small software development houses and ultimately
the end-user, who'll have to pay the bill (lawyers and patents cost money, no competition
or high licensing fees can/will lead to a multiple of the prices you used to pay).
Argo:If those reasons or modivations are legal, has there been any legal actions against you?
iospirit.deNo, not at all. See above. However, with the introduction of software patents, the
only safe place for innovators in Europe would be Switzerland (for it not being member
of the EU).
E.g. Oliver Kastl (CacheCDFS, now CloneCD/CloneDVD-fame) has already moved
from Germany to Switzerland for DMCA-like laws being introduced in Germany and
are supposed to be introduced in the rest of Europe. I'm confident more will follow as
software patents get introduced. Good for Switzerland, bad for the rest of Europe as it
will loose most of its big tax payers.
Argo: Any further comments? Thank you
iospirit.deYes :) .. I've moved the index.html to http://www.iospirit.de/index030827.html, if you still want to refer to it.
And one more thing: support ffii.org with your own signature! A decision on software patents is soon to
be made, every supporter counts.
Best regards,
Felix Schwarz
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argo: ok, heh i wondered where my post went.
thanx for clearing it up ..
pps: i fear that switcherland (and NORWAY) will increase in popularity the next few years :)
as none of em is in "EU" , sadly we have something simmilar so norway might not be safe anyway...
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Kudos to iospirit for making us aware of this issue.
I totally agree, I'm against software patents as well.
I especially like people such as those that iospirit that protest laws early and do so in a legal way.
Rather than others who do not inform themselves early because they just plan on ignoring the law anyway (you know who you are).
Copyrights usually encourage innovation and do not destroy innovation, but these wide ranging patents are exceptions to that rule.
As for eula's...they are not an exception to that rule, and general disregard for IP rights that pirateers show, actually has the effect of discouraging innovation by making it impossible for innovators to make a living.
Like when Mac OS X is pirated..of if OS 4 was pirated. That type of thing.
But I digress....again, good job to Felix for fighting the good fight.
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Dam eu have they nothing better to do other than act like morons. :-?
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the AROS team is also protesting ...
http://www.aros.org/index.php (http://www.aros.org/index.php)
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Boycotting all patents is anarchistic lunacy. Boycotting patent abuse is the solution.
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hm, anarchistic lunacy ... hm, hmm ... sounds good ... *G* No,
seriously, why would it be lunacy to fight all patents? They kill off
innovation and development and make the life of small software
companies and especially free software developers very hard. Well, who
are we to complain, software patents at least don't kill human beings.
Have a look at the pharma-industry and you'll see the true, cruel face
of patents. Or don't you think, if there's some medicine aganist some
kind of cancer, everybody should be able to get it and not only the
ones who are able to pay the ridiculos prices set by the company
holding the patent??
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If you want to protest against EU software patents in the planned form, please leave your name here:
Petition to the European Parliament (http://petition.eurolinux.org/index_html?LANG=en)
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Dammit, I am so sick of the word "innovation", Fnord. Innovation is not progress or improvement. Innovation is simply change. You can't stiffle change. Maybe if "alternative" software developers were less interested in copying everything Microsoft and Apple did, and really DID innovate new, bold ideas, they wouldn't bitch so much about patents.
You got a problem with the MP3 patent? Make something else! Your MP3 player won't play the new, patent-free format? Tough. The problem is that people are too damn lazy to protest and boycott.
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Nope, not "and NORWAY" - unlike Switzerland, Norway (along with Iceland and Lichtenschtein), are part of the European Economic Area Agreement (EEA aka EØS) and is actually supposed to introduce software patents, as well as EUCD, along with the EU member countries.
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Waccoon:
"Maybe if "alternative" software developers were less interested in copying everything Microsoft and Apple did, and really DID innovate new, bold ideas, they wouldn't bitch so much about patents."
Since when have Apple and Microsoft been the only one to innovate, and others only copied off of them? They (Microsoft especially) have copied others; others meanwhile have also come up with new ideas.
Don't turn this into a M$/Apple versus alternative-software battle. It's certainly true that individuals and smaller companies have less to lose (they have less money to research whether their product is patent infringing; they have less money for legal fees which mean they may have to settle against a prosecution, or give up prosecuting others, even if they are in the right; they don't have a stack of existing patents to trade with other large companies), but even so, Microsoft can be affected just as much as anyone else (eg, see http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/28/133211&mode=thread&tid=113&tid=123&tid=126&tid=155&tid=95&tid=99 ).
"You got a problem with the MP3 patent? Make something else!"
The problem with sitting down and developing an alternative compression algorithm is that you might inadvertently use an algorithm that has also been patented. The fact that you develop independantly is beside the point - you'll still find yourself getting sued for your hard work.
Secondly, whilst I don't know the details of the mp3 compression format, surely it uses plenty of existing computer algorithms and mathematical ideas. Clearly they didn't reinvent the whole of mathematics and computer science (and do so in a different way) - they built upon existing ideas. If we're going to have patents, then we should at least have it fair, and make it so that the mp3 creators in turn pay back money. The problem is in going from a world without IP laws, to suddenly deciding that everything new should be giving strong legal protections from further use or development. It's an analagous situation to the way that Disney insist copyrights last forever when it comes to their work, but they in turn use other people's work to produce derivatives.
"The problem is that people are too damn lazy to protest and boycott."
I don't understand - you're arguing against ppl who are protesting against software patents, but now you're saying they're too lazy to protest?