Bonum Certa Men Certa

Tim Berners-Lee: “Software Patents Are a Terrible Thing”

Tim Berners-Lee
Image from Wikimedia



Summary: While software patents threaten to invade Europe, Sir Tim Berners-Lee antagonises their existence

THE person credited with the invention of the World Wide Web never liked patents. In fact, the success of the Web (or the Internet at large) owes it to the fact that software patents were all along avoided as a matter of principle. It is worth adding that Mr. Berners-Lee was inspired by Richard Stallman and his GNU project before he even laid the foundations of the Web. That's how the story goes anyway. Great minds think not about intellectual monopolies.



We spoke to the FFII's president, who told us that there was a "conf[erence] with Tim Berners Lee bashing patents."

“Swedish Presidency will put the centralisation of the patent system on the table tomorrow, software patents on the way to be validated in EU.”
      --FFII's president
Sadly, for those who want to view the conference, some Microsoft software is required. What a shame. Yet again people who are not Microsoft customers are denied access to public information. That's one of the ramifications of software patents.

Most importantly perhaps, Tim Berners-Lee told the FFII's president that "software patents are a terrible thing." Berners-Lee is based in the US, even though he is British. But it is not a national inclination. Don Knuth, for example, wants to "innovate in peace" and without software patents, based on a brief that he submitted in Europe this year. Knuth is based in California and he is probably the most renowned person in the field of algorithms.

FFII's president later added that the "Swedish Presidency will put the centralisation of the patent system on the table tomorrow, software patents on the way to be validated in EU." We warned about this yesterday.

Glyn Moody, upon hearing the story about the CrunchPad dying, argues that "intellectual monopolies turn everything they touch to dust..."

Also yesterday we warned about Microsoft's new patent attempts at Fog Computing. Microsoft's spinner Gavin Clarke describes it as an "interop patent", which is utter nonsense. People complain about Microsoft's patent infiltration in this area.

A cloud interoperability hopeful has dismissed mighty Microsoft's attempt to patent technology for customers to transfer data between different services.

Vordel has said Microsoft's proposed patent targets a single vendors' cloud and fails to tackle lock-in as identified by the European Network and Information Security Agency.


Microsoft has already a notorious past as a "patent mobster" -- a company that uses extortion and intimidation using patents to milk competitors for money. It's racketeering. And as Nokia too is weakening (just like Microsoft), its inner patent monster breaks loose, so another round of lawsuits has just come.

Nokia sues everyone



IF YOU HAVE NOT RECEIVED a writ from the Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia in the last few days you must be about the only person on the planet.

Top mobile phone maker Nokia has filed lawsuits in Britain and the United States claiming that a number of leading technology firms are running cartels for mobile phone and monitor displays.


We have warned about Nokia's stance on patents many times before (see below).



Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

SoylentNews Grows Up, Registers as a Business, Site Traffic Reportedly Grows
More people realise that social control media may in fact be a passing fad
 
More Information About Public Talks That Richard Stallman Gave This Week in Europe
Two talks in Switzerland
Engadget is Still a Spamfarm, It's Just an Amazon Catalogue (SPAM/SEO), a Sea of Junk Disguised as "Articles" With Few 'Fillers' (Real Articles) in Between
Engadget writes for bots now, not for humans
Richard Stallman's Talks in Switzerland This Week
We need to put an end to 'cancer culture'; it's trying to kill people and it is even swatting people
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, March 28, 2024
IRC logs for Thursday, March 28, 2024
[Meme] EPO's New Ways of Working (NWoW), a.k.a. You Don't Even Get a Desk at Work and Cannot be Near Known Colleagues
Seems more like union-busting (divide and rule)
Hiding Microsoft's Culpability in Security Breaches and Other Major Blunders (in the United Kingdom, This May Mean You Can't Get Food)
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is vast
Giving back to the community
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 28/03/2024: Sega, Nintendo, and Bell Layoffs
Links for the day
Open letter to the ACM regarding Codes of Conduct impersonating the Code of Ethics
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
With 9 Mentions of Azure In Its Latest Blog Post, Canonical is Again Promoting Microsoft and Intel Vendor Lock-in, Surveillance, Back Doors, Considerable Power Waste, and Defects That Cannot be Fixed
Microsoft did not even have to buy Canonical (for Canonical to act like it happened)
Links 28/03/2024: GAFAM Replacing Full-Time Workers With Interns Now
Links for the day
Consent & Debian's illegitimate constitution
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The Time Our Server Host Died in a Car Accident
If Debian has internal problems, then they need to be illuminated and then tackled, at the very least in order to ensure we do not end up with "Deadian"
China's New 'IT' Rules Are a Massive Headache for Microsoft
On the issue of China we're neutral except when it comes to human rights issues
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 27, 2024
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 27, 2024
WeMakeFedora.org: harassment decision, victory for volunteers and Fedora Foundations
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Links 27/03/2024: Terrorism Grows in Africa, Unemployment in Finland Rose Sharply in a Year, Chinese Aggression Escalates
Links for the day
Links 27/03/2024: Ericsson and Tencent Layoffs
Links for the day
Amid Online Reports of XBox Sales Collapsing, Mass Layoffs in More Teams, and Windows Making Things Worse (Admission of Losses, Rumours About XBox Canceled as a Hardware Unit)...
Windows has loads of issues, also as a gaming platform
Links 27/03/2024: BBC Resorts to CG Cruft, Akamai Blocking Blunders in Piracy Shield
Links for the day
Android Approaches 90% of the Operating Systems Market in Chad (Windows Down From 99.5% 15 Years Ago to Just 2.5% Right Now)
Windows is down to about 2% on the Web-connected client side as measured by statCounter
Sainsbury's: Let Them Eat Yoghurts (and Microsoft Downtimes When They Need Proper Food)
a social control media 'scandal' this week
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 26, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Windows/Client at Microsoft Falling Sharply (Well Over 10% Decline Every Quarter), So For His Next Trick the Ponzi in Chief Merges Units, Spices Everything Up With "AI"
Hiding the steep decline of Windows/Client at Microsoft?
Free technology in housing and construction
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
We Need Open Standards With Free Software Implementations, Not "Interoperability" Alone
Sadly we're confronting misguided managers and a bunch of clowns trying to herd us all - sometimes without consent - into "clown computing"
Microsoft's Collapse in the Web Server Space Continued This Month
Microsoft is the "2%", just like Windows in some countries