Commercial Open Source Software

FR: ICT 2008 - The European Commission’s Directorate General Information Society and Media is organizing the biennial ICT Event, formerly known as the “IST Event“. The event, the most important forum for discussing research and public policy in information and communication technologies at European level, will take place in Lion on 25-27 November.

European Journal of ePractice nº 4 -  This issue of the European Journal of ePractice is dedicated to efficiency and effectiveness. Is open source covered?

MEPs petition European Parliament switch to Open Source - A petition to make the European Parliament switch its IT systems to Open Source has so far gotten the support of a hundred MEPs.

Five years ago, on 24 September 2003, the European Parliament adopted some amendments to limit the scope of software patentability, listening to many European SMEs and associations. Today A global coalition of more than 80 software companies, associations and developers has declared the 24th of September to be the “World Day Against Software Patents“.

On 24 September 2008, the World Day Against Software Patents will provide volunteers with the opportunity to express the growing concerns of users, businesses and developers. The granting of software patents by patent offices around the world affects their freedom to innovate. The organisers expect 24h of activities across the globe. Volunteers will gather in front of patent offices to inform the general public of the problems underlying software patenting.

A global petition demanding to effectively stop software patents worldwide will be launched on the same day. In some regions of the world such as Europe, the United States, or India, dedicated campaigns are being prepared by local supporters. The organisers intend to celebrate the World Day on an annual basis unless substantive clarifications are adopted in national laws that stop software patenting along with their effects on the digital economy.

Sign the petition.

Read FFII press release and go to the  Stop Software Patents website for further information.

Technorati Tags: software patents, FFII, Stop Software Patents

A group of FFII activists have decided to set up big European petitions targeting national legislators of the members of the European Patent Convention to clarify the limitations of patentability.

We are aiming to collect at least 1 million signatures, which implies the support of a large number of associations.

We would like, as the first phase, to collect the names of local associations which will probably support the petition to stop software and business method patents. We are going to contact them for the details on a second phase.

For this we need your help - please go to http://stopsoftwarepatents.eu/

and fill in the data of any organisation of your country which you think would probably support the petition.

Thanks in advance,
Iván Villanueva and Miernik, activists of the FFII and former board members

In Italy Italian Linux Society and Associazione per il Software Libero have already signed the petition, I hope more will support the initiative soon.

After a hiatus of three years, the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP) met for its 12th session on June 23, 2008 to June 27, 2008. Given the collapse of the talks to initiate a Substantive Patent Law Treaty (SPLT) to harmonize patent law with respect to prior art, novelty, inventive step and grace period, even the most prescient of WIPO watchers were at a loss in prognosticating the outcome of the WIPO SCP. In 2007, informal consultations of the WIPO SCP were not able come to consensus on deciding upon a work program for the WIPO patent committee.

As a result the the WIPO General Assembly (2007) instructed the International Bureau to

establish a report on issues relating to the international patent system covering the different needs and interests of all Member States, which would constitute a working document for the next session of the SCP. The Report would contextualize the existing situation of the international patent system, including reference to the WIPO Development Agenda process, and would contain no conclusions.

Under the stewardship of the Chair (Maximiliano Santa Cruz, Chile), and his two Vice-Chairs (Mr. Yin Xintian, China) and (Bucura Ionescu, Romania) working in concert with the International Bureau, this meeting bore witness to the flexibilities displayed by Member States including Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, the European Union, Egypt, India, Pakistan, Singapore and Switzerland to ensure that the WIPO patent committee embrace a positive agenda. This positive agenda is evidenced in the Summary by the Chair(SCP/12/4 Rev) posted by WIPO on June 27, 2008. It should also not be forgotten that during the patent committee interregnum, the International Bureau launched a series of patent symposiums that covered a range of issues including the research exemption and patents and standards.

Despite strong signals sent by Group B countries (rich countries) early on in the Committee that left no doubts that patent harmonization was foremost on their agenda, the conclusion of the meeting took a different turn, a balanced outcome that gave something to developed countries and developing countries, users and right holders alike.

Read the full article, by Thiru Balasubramaniam

Black Duck Software is an intellectual property management firm based in Waltham, Massachusetts delivering services to identify risks and vulnerabilities in an enterprise’s open-source code.

Doug Levin, Black Duck’s CEO, today was available for a phone call to tell me more about how they help organizations use open source software and third-party code components while managing software licensing obligations and other business risks.

Firms offering intellectual assets giving “horizontal” support, meaning companies that sell services not related to a specific package and not related to software development, could play an important in the European market.

While Asia and USA are historically more acquainted with buying his services, Doug claimed that the European market would develop in the near future and he cited several open source project (Mandriva, ZEA and Alfresco among others) that the company has already worked both directly and indirectly. SourceSense among others is already partnering with them in three different countries, while other two medium sized IT German firms are also Black Duck customers.

Software patents are not central to business accelerators for Black Duck; copyright and 3^rd party and OSS license violations are central to Black Duck’s services, products and training.
Talking about takers of GPL Doug stated:

So far small gpl projects associated with FSF were the first to go. We are seeing GPLv3 adoption in relatively small numbers and not being adopted by large projects. SugarCRM and Sambva were exceptions in this respect.

Doug and I agreed on the fact that SugarCRM made the best decision by not abiding to the OSI “badgeware approved license, and instead choosing the GPLv3, a license which is much closer to the community.

I am looking forward to meet him soon in Europe, and let you know more about how Black Duck is going to help the European open source ecosystem.

Technorati Tags: Open Source, Open Source Risk, Open Source, Intellectual Property Management, Black Duck, Doug Levin, Software Patent

Microsoft withdrawn two remaining appeals before the European Union’s Court of First Instance against European Commission antitrust decisions.

As reported by Slashdot an article in Australia’s IT News mentions that under its antitrust agreement with the European Union:

Microsoft will publish an irrevocable pledge not to assert any patents it may have over the interoperability information against non-commercial open source software development projects.

Of course you can, if you stay in the green area! by Lateefa

While I understand that Erich Andersen, European General Counsel for Microsoft, said that:

We believe it’s important at this stage to focus all of our energies on complying with our legal obligations and strengthening our constructive relationship with the European Commission.

I don’t understand why Neelie Kroes, EU’s Competition Commissioner, said that:

I have always said that open source software developers must be able to take advantage of this remedy: now they can.

Despite Georg Greeve (FSFE President) seems happy about the news, and Dana Blankenhorn believes that open source developers found a greater protection in Europe, I am concerned.

Answering a Dana’s post, I stressed the importance of the real meaning of the expression RAND, Reasonable And Not Discriminatory.

As a matter of fact even if you have to ask a single dime for each copy of a software, that it simply can’t be free software. In this respect perspective any (open) standard and protocol has to be royalty-free, unless you want to keep out open source. I totally agree with John McCreesh, the EU has worked for three years to produce a mouse, and no one is really taking advantage of if it. Did interoperability win? I am afraid not.

I see FFII, Stefano Maffulli sharing my concerns, and I really hope that the Samba Team will soon take a position on this matter. Benjamin Henrion, FFII representative said:

Kroes has ensured that EPO software patents - which the EU rejected in 2005 - will now strengthen the monopolist’s grip for years to come.

I totally agree with Benjamin, a patent covenant for non commercial open source developers is a small blanket. At the end of the day “free software” might cost a lot to end customers and open source firms, from now on.

Technorati Tags: Commercial Open Source, Non Commercial Open Source, FFII, StefanoMaffulli, DanaBlankenhorn, HenrionBenjamin, NeelieKroes, JohnMcCreesh, RAND, Europe, FSFE, GeorgGreeve

What enterprise software can learn from community sites: Gary Little - Don Marti interviews Gary Little, a partner at Morgenthaler Ventures to talk about VCs investments in open source firms.

2007-10-18 | Open source VoIP being slowly accepted - Apparently Kerravala from Yankee Group thinks that at the current time Open Source VoIP is still immature..

Catching up with Terracotta: Transition to Open Source, Adoption, Hibernate Support - Ari Zilka Terracotta’s CTO says that with open source your number one competitor becomes yourself, and to find more creative value-adds than just support.

Social Responsibility Advocates Demand Open Source Action From Oracle - At the November Oracle Social Responsibility initiative two corporate/social responsibility advocates will likely require the Oracle board to “issue, at reasonable expense, an Open Source Social Responsibility Report to shareholders by April 2008 that discusses the social and environmental impacts of Oracle’s existing and potential open source policies and practices.” Is Social Responsibility the ultimate weapon?

Software Patents: Innovation’s Quicksand - Jeff Kaplan reports that Professor Maskin researches showed that strong patent protection produced less R&D spending, and slowed productivity growth.

Technorati Tags: Commercial Open Source, Open Source VoIP, Software Patents, Terracotta, Oracle, Social Responsibility

The ‘Warrior’ within Jonathan Schwartz - interesting article on Schwartz life, via James Governor
Tips: Firefox and OpenOffice document handling - easy instructions to see ODF document within your favourite browser

Patent infringments Lawsuit Filed Against Novell& Red Hat - Jeremy keeps us updated on the patent infringment issue. Read also Luis Villa’s post.

OSS Venture Capital and M&A - Savio Rodrigues wonders about the Open Source market

The Court of First Instance found Microsoft guilty of preventing rivals in server software and products such as media players. In the next two months Microsoft could appeal at the European Court of Justice.

Prevent..by jasoneppink

Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner for Competition Policy, said:

So what does this judgement mean for the future?

First, and most importantly, it sends a clear signal that super-dominant companies cannot abuse their position to hurt consumers and dampen innovation by excluding competitors in related markets.

I asked also my friend Simo Sorce, Samba developer and the Samba Team GPL Compliance Officer his opinion, and he told me:

This sentence is extremely important, it finally establish as a fact the abuses of Microsoft in the market. I think that this is a remarkable result, and I hope that now Microsoft will provide documentation so that interoperability can be achieved in a more timely and open manner, without blocking development of Free/Open Source Software solutions.

Carlo Piana, FSFE’s legal counsel, in the same vein:

FSFE and the Samba Team welcome the decision of the court. This is a milestone for competition. It puts an end to the notion that deliberate obfuscation of standards and designed lock-in is an acceptable business model and forces Microsoft back into competing on the grounds of software technology.

So apparently it is a great day for Open Source advocates, but I believe FFII is pretty right saying Microsoft might trump EU competition with (European) software patents, as results from Pieter Hintjens statement:

The decision seems positive but it is five years out of date. During that time, Microsoft has lobbied for software patents in Europe and bought patents on many trivial concepts. It has claimed patent violations against Linux, put patent timebombs into its formats and interfaces, and turned fear of patents into a core part of its business strategy. It will now open its formats, because that lets it extend its software patent franchise even further.

I would suggest Italian and European IT firms, especially medium to big ones, to invest some money to help natural born lobbyists, or accept software patents will affect their business, either open or proprietary.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, FSFE, EU, software patents, FFII, SimoSorce, CarloPiana, NeelieKroes, PieterHintjens

Few months ago I wrote about the need of open source lobbyists, just after Dana Blankenhorn post, and I eventually ended reporting Florian Mueller and Simon Phipps opinions around software patents war.

Florian Mueller, “No lobbyists as such” author and founder of the NoSoftwarePatents.com campaign, has recently announced to take his blog offline in about a month, because he retired from the patent policy debate, and I took the chance to ask Florian two more questions.

Talking about the role of interoperability, you wrote me that also Google played a role, so which is their position, in your opinion?

As for Google, I’m quite sure there are lots of people inside Google (well, even inside Microsoft) who are anti-swpat personally but the company position isn’t really clear. The only thing they really cared about in the final days before the EP’s 2nd reading vote 2 years ago was interoperability, just so they can continue to analyze PDF documents without infringing Adobe’s related patents etc.

Are you about to leave for good the patent policy debate? Why?

I still care about the software patent issue and a competitive software market, and I believe that my long-standing concerns over their impact have been validated by Microsoft’s Novell-type deals and its announcement to collect royalties from FOSS users. But after my recent and successful project to defend certain strategic interests of Real Madrid in the context of the EU’s ongoing sports policy initiative, I’m at least ten times more likely to take on another football-related assignment than to get involved with patent policy again.

I just don’t see that companies with an interest in fighting software patents would make the level of resources available that I would consider to be a reasonable basis. In other fields that’s a lot less of a problem, if any. That’s just a market reality.

Florian Mueller by duncandavidson

In Europe we are still facing very talented lobbyists working hard on this controversial political issue, and despite patentability of computer-implemented inventions is not yet legal in Europe, there is still a lot of work to be done.

Interoperability matters, but software patents do matter even more: the file format war is not the ICT market panacea. I invite medium to large IT European companies to think about it, and invest money to lobby. Now.

Technorati Tags: google, software patent, lobbyists, mueller