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
