taint.org: Justin Mason’s Weblog

Patents: A great outcome! The proposed Directive has been dropped, in the face of massive opposition. Coverage: /., FFII, FT.com, VNUnet, FSFE.

Unfortunately, Rocard’s proposed amendments which would have turned this directive into a major win for us, didn’t pass — but it’s still a good win. Software patents are not explicitly legal throughout Europe; although some jurisdictions do permit them, they’re in a legal grey area, and prosecution is therefore hard (and very expensive for patent holders). This is a much better situation than if the directive as proposed by the Council had passed, since that would have explicitly legalised them throughout the EU.

On top of this win, what I find significant is that we’ve now brought the issue from where it was a few years ago, as a minor concern known only to a few uber-geeks, to a major political issue that made headlines around the globe. Even my local NPR affiliate reported on this decision! That’s a far cry from the mid-90’s, when I had a hard time explaining the point of theLeague for Programming Freedom to my hacker friends in the TCD Maths Department.

A great quote from the VNUnet article:

‘This represents a clear victory for open source,’ said Simon Phipps, chief open source officer at Sun Microsystems. ‘It expresses Parliament’s clear desire to provide a balanced competitive market for software.’

Yes, that’s Sun saying that less software patenting is a good thing. Believe me, that’s a great leap forward. Or check out Irish MEP Kathy Sinnott’s amazing comments. She hits the nail right on the head; I’m very impressed by that speech.

Tags: directive, face, issue, opposition, outcome, patents, software, source, sun, vnunet, win

Patents: lyranthe.org notes that the EU elections are coming up this Thursday, 11th June. Accordingly, here’s a single-issue roundup of the candidates, from what I’ve heard:

• The Labour Party, sadly, haven’t yet come up with a concrete policy on the issue — but the Dublin candidate, Ivana Bacik, has (verbally) stated her opposition.
• The Greens, however, are actively campaigning against them, their candidates clearly understand and have communicated with voters on the issue in the past, and the cross-Europe party policy is clearly stated.
• Eoin Dubsky is an independent candidate, standing on a primarily anti-war platform. He’s stated his opposition to software patenting clearly and publically. He’s also a total techie — with RSS feeds and a Redbrick account! ;)
• FG’s position is totally unclear, as usual… ;)
• And in the other corner: FF and the PDs are whole-heartedly supporting software patenting; in fact, they’re the ones running the EU Council which just pushed through software patenting law despite the democratic mandate from the European Parliament. boo.

(PS: these are my opinions, not those of my employer. ;)

(updated: I’d left out Eoin Dubsky! my bad, now fixed.)

Tags: candidate, issue, june, lyranthe, opposition, org, party, patents, policy, software, thursday

Insults: Tom takes issue with my assumption that ‘anyone not living in a hole would know that SpamAssassin includes a probabilistic classifier’. Hmm. OK, I should have made it clear I meant anyone following anti-spam filter development. Henceforth I’ll over-qualify every statement on this weblog accordingly.

But at least I know that badgers are CLEARLY down, since they do live in a hole. DO YOUR RESEARCH, FARRELL.

Tags: anyone, assumption, classifier, development, filter, henceforth, hmm, hole, insults, issue, spamassassin

eVoting: Highly recommended — Adrian Colley’s Lies, Damn Lies, and Six Independent Consultancies. Adrian debunks in a very clear, step-by-step fashion, the spin being produced by Ireland’s government on the e-voting furore. If you’re following the issue, don’t miss this page.

Tags: consultancies, damn, evoting, fashion, furore, government, highly, independent, issue, lies, spin

Euro software patents vote put back to September:

Members of Parliament from all parties had complained that it was impossible to react adequately within a timeframe of 10 days.

Phew, that’s a relief. This’ll give more time for our representatives to get their heads around the (thorny) issue. Read the FFII press release for more details.

Tags: euro, issue, parliament, phew, relief, september, software, thorny, time, timeframe

GNU Radio, which (as noted on Boing Boing) has just released screenshots of a successfully-decoded HDTV signal, is a totally new way to receive (and possibly, in the future, send) radio-frequency signals. The FCC ponder the implications:

The emergence of the low-cost, generally available SDR which can be configured with … open software will present a new issue for regulators. What will be placed in the hands of the public entrepreneurs, amateurs, and even those with malicious intent will be machines which in principal can emulate, send, and receive any radio signal on any band. …

Then, with the world-wide availability of software that can even be modified if needed, any radio transmitter or receiver can be emulated. Bans on receiver types will be circumventable with ease. Mandates such as the proposed ATSC broadcast flag will be hard to enforce (and may even fail in the presence of a single web-connected noncompliant receiver). And, although not generally an issue for the Commission, it will be possible to implement proprietary systems without the benefit of any license from the patent holder. Because the software is open, as a practical matter virtually all mandated restrictions will be at risk (except for total power output which remains a classical hardware issue). …

In the GNU SDR environment, we have the makings of a powerful new technology that has the potential of solving the spectrum management problem, but we may also have other people in the world writing and distributing software with their own agenda.

Wow. That’s a brave new world. I wish I knew enough about radio tech to really get a handle on this stuff…

Tags: boing, gnu, hdtv, issue, radio, receiver, sdr, signal, software, world

CNN: A box of durian, sprinkled with carpet deodorizer, sparked an aviation alert in Australia on Thursday (via monkeybum):

When they finally found the source of the smell, it was a box of durian, a large, spiny tropical fruit renowned for its fetid aroma. While many people in Southeast Asia consider the durian a delicacy, it is banned from Singapore’s subway and some restaurants in the region because of its overpowering smell.

‘This wasn’t a safety issue, this was gross issue — no one wants to fly in an airplane that smells like that,’ (Virgin Blue boss Brett Godfrey) said. He compared the smell of the gourmet fruit to ’something you’d find in your outdoor dunny’ adding that ‘it just is the most pungent, disgusting smell.’

No shit — durian really stinks. I’ve tried to cultivate the taste for it, but failed miserably. Worse, for 3 hours in the passenger seat from Khao Sok to Surat Thani in Thailand, I was stuck with a selection of ‘em by my feet — no escape!

The nearest thing to their odor is really pungent, cheesy socks. ‘foetid’ is the word for it.

Tags: alert, aviation, box, carpet, cnn, deodorizer, durian, fruit, issue, smell