This morning I have read this article on Tech Crunch mentioning that – great news – one of the senior executives of Google has finally said it loud what we have thought for years: [most] software patents are detrimental to innovation. Only, he falls short of the point, because he asks for a "real patent reform," whereas the only suitable reform is a software patent abolition (if not an entire patent system abolition, but that is another discussion). All software patents are detrimental to innovation. Period.
But software patents are also detrimental to competition. Especially if they are used in an anticompetitive way. The Microsoft case, once again, gives us good food for thought and leads me to think that there is more than one antitrust concern over the sale of Nortel patents. May I attempt a few short answers to reasonable questions that are lingering around when I mention the antitrust issue. I plead guilty of omitting much of the necessary background.
Karsten Gerloff, President of the Free Software Foundation Europe, publishes a blog post on the hearing in the Microsoft v Commission case (T-167/08) dealing with the 899 million euro fine for failing to offer reasonable and non discriminatory condition for revealing secret interoperability information, AKA the "no patent" agreement that the Protocol Freedom Information Foundation has subsequently negotiated to provide same information to Samba Team and others. The article is offered under the condition "Creative Commons Attribution" (CC-BY)
Un nuovo numero della International Free and Open Source Software Law Review è stato pubblicato. Questo numero contiene, tra gli altri, un interessante articolo del mio amico Maurits Dolmans circa l'interazione tra i brevetti e gli standard, con un appello per gli Open Standards. Merita assoultamente di essere letto. Altrettanto notevole è un'introduzione a un documento che cerca di chiarire come le varie modalità di linking e altre interazioni tra software di differente provenienza possa funzionare – o non funzionare – in ambito copyleft, di Malcolm Bain.
Altre questioni "calde" coperte sono la brevettazione di software in Europa, di Noam Shemtov, e un articolo sul progetto, in qualche modo controverso, chiamato Project Harmony. Il suo scopo e funzionamento viene spiegato dall'Avvocato Amanda Brock. Per coloro che si interessanto di gare pubbliche, l'articolo di Mathieu Paapst spiega alcuni aspetti delle azioni agevolatrici in favore dell'open source, principalmente da un punto di vista economico, il che fa da appropriato complemento al mio articolo contenuto nel precedente numero. Coloro che amano leggere autori controversi, avranno piacere nel dissentire dall'articolo-piattaforma di Matt Asay.
Recently I have caught myself deep into discussions on the extent of copyright applied to Free Software and how the copyleft effect plays a role in Software Freedom. On an Identi.ca message I said:
Free Software is NOT about the freedom to choose the license under which software made by others can be redistributed.
Recently Oracle has sued Google on patent and copyright claims, demanding satisfaction regarding a – for want of a better word – functional equivalent of Java for Android named "Dalvik". A voice has pointed out that I have not been as talkative as when I announced my public support to the merger between Sun and Oracle. Now it is time to respond.
Hugo Roy asked my thoughts about the recent case of Google's employees being convicted in Italy for a video that has been online a few months on Google Video (now YouTube).
I have already said so by and large, microblogged extensively on that. My opinion is that the decision is a shame for my Country.
Amazon's announcement that it is launching cloud-based MySQL services come at a convenient time. It shows how money to support Free Software development can come from unexpected sources, and without a proprietary license appearing anywhere in the picture.
This is not really good news for Free Software. However, Amazon gives us the best evidence that MySQL can be "monetized" by offering it in a Software As a Service setting. This can happen with GNU GPL licensed software and without receiving any special permission from the copyright holder, contradicting all claims that there is no viable way to fund development of a Free Software project without a dual license. The impatient reader can jump directly to the section where I deal with the cloud, but I invite you to follow all the argument.
Un nuovo numero della 