Oops.
Last week, we put out a short little statement about the final publication of the European Commission’s White Paper on ICT Standardisation. It said:
However, we remain concerned that the policy framework suggested in the White Paper seems to favour open source software over proprietary software to achieve more interoperability…"
It was too long.
In fact, we didn’t need that second paragraph at all. The language that concerned us was NOT in the final version. There is no open source bias in the document, and the balanced approach proposed by the Commission should improve the environment for all software firms in Europe.
Unfortunately, we prepared our statement BEFORE the final version was published, and did not review the final whitepaper thoroughly before sending out the statement. It was a failure in our process that also included not publishing this statement on the website as Scott Fulton @ BetaNews noted in his very good review of the whitepaper (even if he had trouble trying to decipher its relationship to our inaccurate press statement).
It appears that Glyn Moody of ZDNet UK and Dana Blankenhorn of ZDNet US, however, were not so eagle-eyed. Instead these ZDNet reporters columnists bloggers mistakenly wrote new posts based on a year old statement that was on a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT European Commission proposal, the European Interoperability Framework Version 2. Given our admitted screw up above, we have no room to talk. But, it would be nice if bloggers/reporters at respected publications like ZDNet would give us a call before running 'hit pieces' on us.
Since, they didn't bother to call/write/email/smoke signal/etc. to get our side before writing, here are a few thoughts in response:
To Glyn Moody, I would offer the following:
- It seems you too have fallen prey to the same summer vacation-induced problem of commenting on things before actually reading them. If you had read our recent paper, you would have known we have a lot of nice things to say about free software.
- We know the final version of EIFv2 has not been released yet…you're reading a press release that is more than a year old. Please note that we have moved to the ACT blog for most of our statements.
- Many of our European members, including UK-based Astron Clinica and Galleria Retail Solutions do in fact OWN European patents on software implemented inventions. Given the importance of their patents to keeping larger competitors from nudging them out of the market, I believe they are quite happy with their lawyers at this point.
- Giants like Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP will be just fine regardless of what the government does in this area. Their revenue in the standards world fluctuates between little and none. However, smaller firms who want to participate in standards bodies with core technologies, could be seriously affected.
And to Dana, I would say this:
- I believe your response to our position is based on the fact you were reading the wrong press release.
- In your blog, you wrote: "Maybe the last 40 years of innovation within open standards like the Internet Protocol, the World Wide Web, the IEEE 802.11 standards, and the rest never happened either. Maybe it was all just a dream and I’m still writing at CompuServe. Actually, the 2008 EIFv2 proposal that we were commenting on in the press release you quoted, would NOT recognize IEEE's 802.11 as an OPEN STANDARD, and could therefore ban its use by European governments because it is both patent-encumbered and royalty-bearing. The EIFv2 draft we were discussing back in ought eight stated that open standards could not have any royalties associated with them OR any patented technologies that restricted their use in any way (including sub-licensability or field of use restrictions).
- ACT believes that open, transparent standards are a critical part of competition in the tech sector. We completely agree with you that organizations like W3C and IEEE have helped drive innovation and interoperability in our industry. Where we differed with the EIFv2 draft from June 2008, however, was in its belief that FRAND and RAND open standards were not actually OPEN. That draft suggested that technologies like 802.11, GSM, and Bluetooth must be abandoned by governments.
Not surprisingly, since summer is so evanescent here in the UK, I hadn’t actually fallen prey: I read your “Paying for Free” report, and wrote about it quite extensively last week:
http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=2311
As I wrote in my comment on the Computerworld UK blog post, you’re right, I didn’t read the date on the press release properly, which was sloppy on my part.
As for software patents, these are *computer-implemented* inventions, and are not for software “as such”, which still remains unpatentable in Europe (just).
The issue of smaller companies participating in standards bodies seems more one of having the resources to do so, and I agree it would be good to encourage them where possible.
I am happy to see that you changed your mind, I was a bit irritated because there was not much open source bias in the final whitepaper. A final version usually has a document coding COM(2009) XYZ final. Which draft version of the Commission document was it that you attacked with the earlier press release? What has been precisely improved by DG Enterprise to accomodate the needs of your constituencies that made you change your mind? Or has your change of mind to be understood in the context of the Kroes settlement negotiations reported in the media where your association attributes attention to in Brussels?
This is rather amusing. More and more people are coming to the realisation that software patents aren’t really an issue. The issue is patents. All patents. And the solution is the abolition of the patent system.
For your reference I would like to point you to:
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Should_the_whole_patent_system_be_axed
This idea terrifies those who are not able or willing to compete on a level playing field, which appears to include the entire membership of your organisation. Any business that claims it “needs protection to compete” is admiting that it is not willing to supply it’s customers what they want, at a price they are willing to pay. It’s also admiting to incompetent management, but that’s another issue.