Bonum Certa Men Certa

Software Patents Not a Done Deal in New Zealand, Mozilla Weighs in





Direct link



Summary: InternetNZ and other groups that actually represent New Zealand's population speak out against software patents; Mozilla's Robert O'Callahan offers words of wisdom

THE patent situation in New Zealand is an important matter because few countries other than the US and Japan actually accept software patents (although there may be loopholes). The "software patent debate rages on," says this new report from IDG which quotes InternetNZ:

The question of software patents looks unlikely to go away soon, with significant lobbies forming on both sides and a wealth of comment in live forums, letters to the Minister by InternetNZ and the NZ Computer Society, in Computerworld’s own online comment space and on Twitter and Slashdot.

Official bodies and individual commentators are not easily letting go of an apparent reinterpretation of a Select Committee’s wishes regarding a clause excluding software from patent in the Patents Bill. In some quarters the argument is sliding over into one of openness in the legislative process and who truly represents the local ICT industry.

Committee member and Labour ICT spokesperson Clare Curran is uncomfortable with what she calls the “revisiting” of the clause. At last week’s OpenGovt2010 “unconference” she cited the incident as a good example of how the lawmaking process is sometimes less than open or transparent. She referred to “how legislation gets made and the discussions that go on behind closed doors” – discussions that should, she said, “happen in a more transparent environment”.

[...]

NZICT’s most prominent members are multinational ICT companies, like IBM and Microsoft – companies used to having their intellectual property stringently protected.

[...]

In its own letter to Power, InternetNZ has called for the “changes” in the Patents Bill on software to be referred back to the select committee, with an opportunity for further input by “those who originally made submissions”. Ironically, this would cut out NZICT, who did not make a submission. To get a representative point of view the committee may be forced to open submissions more generally.


As we explained before, the "NZ" in NZICT is deceiving because NZICT is a front for multinationals [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].

The following text has just come from New Zealand's Robert O'Callahan (Microsoft boosters quote someone as saying that he is "work[ing] for Mozilla full-time as an employee of Novell in New Zealand"). Although not a formal response from Mozilla, the following is worth quoting:

Mozilla produces the Firefox Web browser, used by more than three hundred million people around the world. Firefox is open source and is the result of a collaboration of a large group of paid developers and volunteers. In fact, Mozilla funds a team of paid developers in New Zealand working on core Firefox code; some key innovations in Firefox, such as HTML5 video, are the work of our New Zealand team. The work we do is some of the most highly skilled and high-impact software development to be found anywhere in the world. I write about software patents in my personal capacity as one of Mozilla's senior software developers, and manager of our Auckland-based development team and also our worldwide layout engine team. I also formerly worked for three years at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center where I participated in the filing of several software patents based on my research.

[...]

The patent system was designed to promote invention and especially the disclosure of "trade secrets" so that others can build on them. Research casts doubt on whether it has succeeded at those goals (see an example), but even if it did, in software development --- especially open-source software development --- it is clear that no patent incentive is needed to encourage innovation and publication of our work.

[...]

Software development is uniquely able to have huge impact on the world because copies can be made available to users for free. If we had charged users for each copy of Firefox there is no doubt we would not be nearly as successful as we have been, either at changing the world or even at raising money --- Mozilla has substantial revenues from "tie-ins" such as search-related advertising. The patent system threatens this business model, because most patent licensing arrangements require the licensee to pay a per-unit fee. This is not necessarily a problem for traditional manufacturing, where there is a per-unit manufacturing cost that must be recouped anyway, but it completely rules out a large class of software business models that have been very successful.


So basically, every coder is an inventor and all the inventions are published in the form of source code. This is not a statement from Mozilla, just an employee's blog.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft, Very Deep in Debt, Trying to Take Over Other Companies Without Paying to Buy Them
the CEO strengthened his loyalty to Microsoft
A Code of Conduct Can Lead to Deterioration of Quality Control in Linux (Nobody Reprimanded for Technical Issues, Instead Critics at Times of Crisis Get Reprimanded)
Quality control demands opinionated people, even blunt opinions at times
Online Media as a Lying Machine of Microsoft and Bill Gates (and, As Usual, Follow the Money)
The lies go a lot further than greenwashing
Links 11/12/2023: Buzzword Rules in the EU and Misinformation/Disinformation on the Rise
Links for the day
Today in Techrights
Some of the latest articles
Misogynists Versus Techrights
the "imams" of the tech world
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, December 10, 2023
IRC logs for Sunday, December 10, 2023
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news
Links 11/12/2023: Climate News and Chatbots as Plagiarism
Links for the day
Links 10/12/2023: Second Belmarsh Tribunal For Assange, EU Legislates for Buzzwords
Links for the day
Links 10/12/2023: Inflation Woes, Tensions With China
Links for the day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, December 09, 2023
IRC logs for Saturday, December 09, 2023
Links 09/12/2023: Dictator's Nomination in Russia
Links for the day
[Video] To Combat Efforts to Cancel or Kill the Career (and Reputation) of the People Who Made GNU/Linux We Must Rally the Community
nobody speaks better for projects and for licences than their own founders
Electronic Frontier Foundation Incorporated is Run by/for Corporations Now (Members' Money is Less Than a Quarter of the Money EFF Receives)
Facebook bribes
The EFF Should Know Better, But It Is Promoting Mass Surveillance by Facebook (an Endorsement of Lies)
What is going on at the EFF?
Feedback Desired
Feedback can be sent by E-mail
A Message in Support of Richard Stallman, Condemning Those Who Misportray Him
message about Richard Stallman (RMS)
Links 09/12/2023: Many 'Open'AI Employees Strongly Dislike Microsoft, Many Impending Strikes
Links for the day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, December 08, 2023
IRC logs for Friday, December 08, 2023
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news