On Tue, Feb 21, 2012 at 12:35 PM, Matt Giuca <[email protected]> wrote:
> Well, looks like Europe just did the exact *opposite* of this -- it was on > Slashdot this morning: > > > http://press.ffii.org/Press%20releases/EuroParliament%20to%20exclude%20Free%20Software%20with%20patents%20and%20FRAND > > They intend to introduce FRAND ("fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory") > patent licensing law, which would mean you can't simply withhold patent > licenses, you need to license them to anyone who wants them under > reasonable terms. But they intend to exclude free software from the > definition. (I'm not too sure on the details, but it doesn't sound good.) > I reckon (without being sure myself) that it was an "artistic license" from the part of the /. editor. Reason: anywhere that I have searched/read, there's no mention of a special treatment of the FOSS. My interpretation: the fact the EU may want to introduce the (F)RAND requirements in the "open standards" legislation does not help in any way the FOSS movement, because any monetary license for FOSS will be either unfair (if royalty from $0 "sales") - or discriminatory (the licensor is forced to "positively discriminate" for FOSS and against commercial software). Besides, even with (F)RAND provisions, the move can hurt FOSS entities which charge for the distribution (even GPL-ed software can be "sold"). *More important:* it is not (only) the FOSS movement that is going to suffer from *the acceptance of patents in open standards* (be them RAND-ed or not). Remember* *ISO/IEC 29500 (aka ECMA-376, aka OOXML)? It's not only about the software it is also about the data formats - if the EU govts starts using formats encumbered by patents in relation with their citizens, their citizens can do nothing but either: 1. pay the royalties (directly or by buying a software able to dis/play them) 2. be discriminated against by their impossibility in "interpreting" the information (because they cannot have a software choice that they can afford) 3. have their taxes misspent (in the assumption the governments will subsidize the license. For how long?) Adrian _______________________________________________ Free-software-melb mailing list [email protected] http://lists.softwarefreedom.com.au/mailman/listinfo/free-software-melb
