This is certainly the case with the countries of Europe and their bent toward copying US software policy. What will be interesting is how they address the advance of open-source methods. I’m not confident they will jettison the US system for one of their own. Not at this point.
What they will do is determine a way to gain a tighter grip on the control of software technology communication, if only to maintain perceived competitiveness in certain industries.
Boy, they’re going to be in for a shock.
]]>I don’t see it, either (I’m living in Germany).
> Who calls it a democracy? It’s a federation of states.
But each state claims to be democratic (which is only partially true). During the last years, I more and more got the impression that we live in a so-called oligarchy (where a–albeit, at least partially–“democratically” elected minority rules over a vast majority of citizens). My guess is, that is’s basically no more than a few thousand people who really make the decisions (and definitely *not* the people). At the same time, it’s essential for this kind of system to work (and to *continue* working) to hide the truth from the majority, giving the impression that, although there *are* grave problems we are currently facing, we *basically* do have a democratic system. Otherwise, the now established structures would collapse very soon.
Claus
]]>I’d be interested in genuine commentary on the constitution too btw, I’m a federalist but this kind of thing makes me waver in my support.
]]>See page 117 of the following document (which is the fifth of about 60 pdf files making up the constitution).
http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/lex/LexUriServ/site/en/oj/2004/c_310/c_31020041216en00550185.pdf
]]>But in the end, I can see that many european laws go on the right direction,
for a more fair and better environment for european humans.
So I don’t think we are more lobby-driven than the Us !
]]>What is a “software patent” concept in this directive that so many people are so highly excited about ? Is it the “IPR maximalist” extreme i.e. that if anything is implementable in software, then surely it must be patentable [like the known offline business methods bconverted to digitized form that the U.S. Patent Office keeps handing out patents on] ? Or is it the “IPR minimalist” extreme i.e. that if anything is implementable in software, then surely it cannot be patentable in any shape or form ? Which is it ? What are we talking about ? One of these extremes or something in the middle ? What exactly does the directive text provide in this regard ? Seems to me that participants in this row do not agree on what are we talking about. No wonder, then that total confusion and huge acrimony reigns.
My take on the directive is that it is neither of the two extremes, and should not be either. Whether the “middle” that is being proposed is workable or not, that is a fair question. But we would surely defuse most of the heat around this if we could agree that the directive does not propose either extreme.
* * *
Many commentators here seem to suggest that open source software should be exempted from patents. A most interesting suggestion. Would anyone care to provide a rational justification for such an exemption – because of the community project nature of OSS development perhaps ? Another reason ? I completely share the feeling that there should be some limits to patents potentially blocking or imposing costs on stuff that *should* be usable by all of us but have doubts that a blanket exemption for OSS is the right way to go.
Timo
]]>As Florian Mueller points out on his website, Microsoft is the biggest tax provider in Ireland (because of Ireland’s tax dumping policy, Microsoft established a big part of its european decision center in Ireland and some manufactures too).
And the EU commissioner Mc Greevy, in charge of the process of adoption of the directive, was formerly the Irish Minister of Finance. He’s therefore Microsoft’s best friend in the Commission, and was basically nominated for this purpose.
And no doubt this has a lot to do with the fact that the process is going faster now.
]]>