WEBlog -- Wouter's Eclectic Blog

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Sun, 20 Dec 2009

Good, not evil

There is a bit of a fluff online currently about the following clause in the "jsmin" code (whatever that is):

The software shall be used for good, not evil

This seems to have started when Google rejected a project based on that code due to its license being not free or open source according to their standards, and therefore not welcome anymore.

The arguments then quickly degenerated into things like 'when did google stop being against evil'. But those are all besides the point.

One of the most important properties of free and open source software is that anyone can use it for any purpose; there are no restrictions to using them. The DFSG (and hence, the OSD which was derived from the DFSG) encode this as follows:

No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.

You may think "how is 'evil' a field of endeavor", but that is the wrong question. To "use software for evil" can mean any of a number of things, including "nuclear research", "weapons development", "abortion", or, heck "the cash register in a butchery shop", depending on the ethical and moral framework through which the person writing the license sees the world.

The ability to give someone a CD or DVD with a bunch of software on there, being able to tell them that they can just use this in any which way they see fit, is a very strong and important feature of the free and open source community. Every time someone comes up with a clause like the above, however, this ability is diluted somewhat; and if it is readily accepted within the greater free and open source movement, then eventually everyone interested in using a piece of software must first check whether they're not trying to use software that forbids someone's pet evil, and we lose one of the greatest strenghts that does exist for free software, but not for proprietary software.

The sad thing is, the jsmin author seems to agree. From a video/transcript on which he talks about his absurd license clause is the following quote:

Also about once a year, I get a letter from a lawyer, every year a different lawyer, at a company – I don't want to embarrass the company by saying their name, so I'll just say their initials – IBM…
[laughter]
…saying that they want to use something I wrote. Because I put this on everything I write, now. They want to use something that I wrote in something that they wrote, and they were pretty sure they weren't going to use it for evil, but they couldn't say for sure about their customers. So could I give them a special license for that? Of course. So I wrote back – this happened literally two weeks ago – "I give permission for IBM, its customers, partners, and minions, to use JSLint for evil."

Or, in other words, all you have to do if you want to use this software for evil is set up a second company, tell Douglas that this second company wants to sell software that uses his software to people who might use it for "evil", even though the first company won't, and you're in business. Because Douglas doesn't really oppose evildoers.

So the question is, why is that clause in there in the first place? There are only two possibilities; either Douglas didn't really think about those issues, in which case I hope he will one day see the light and remove the clause; or he did, and decided to go ahead and put that clause there anyway. And that would be evil.

Fri, 20 Mar 2009

TomTom

Cheers.

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Tue, 03 Mar 2009

GFDL 1.3

Yeah, yeah, I may be living under a rock these days. Anyway, I just noticed that the GFDL v1.3 is out; it has been for four months or so.

There aren't many changes; apart from some minor wording changes that have little to no effect on the meaning of the license, there are two new sections: the first adds details on what happens when you violate the license (basically, it gets temporarily terminated, which can become permanent if you do not fix it in a reasonable timeframe or under some other circumstances); the second allows one to change the license from GFDL to CC-BY-SA under certain circumstances (where "certain circumstances" in practice basically means "you're wikipedia", although it isn't written as such).

And that's it. Nothing groundbreaking, nothing to follow up on the FDLv2 discussion drafts that were released about two-and-a-half years ago.

Me, I find that disappointing. When the initial discussion drafts were put out on the web, I was thrilled; I spent some time reading them and providing comments. However, nothing happened on those drafts beyond initially getting them out there. It would appear that today, the FSF has even managed to lose the comments that were made.

I guess they don't really care about the FDL as much as they do about the GPL.

Sun, 18 Dec 2005

Big Brother

I know why I voted Staes during the last elections. But now I'm reminded why, should I have forgotten.

Oh my.

Sat, 03 Sep 2005

Nutzwerk is a scam, and should be ashamed of themselves

If you're trying to open up the FFII's web pages at ffii.org, you might notice that for some reason this isn't possible. What's happened is that some German software company called "Nutzwerk" has been abusing loopholes in the German law system that allowed them to file no less than five distinct lawsuits about the very same thing so that the FFII, in the end, couldn't afford the costs anymore.

The claims were about some documentation that the FFII had put up on their website about their services. Apparently, as can be read in the google cache of a recent press release on FFII.org, Nutzwerk was used as an example of a successful SME based on software patents—but a very dubious one at that.

They'll probably try to sue me now, but I don't care. They deserve all the negative attention they can get.

Hint: www.ffii.de still seems to work. Oh well.

Update: this entry isn't entirely correct. Read this.

Sat, 21 May 2005

Software Patents in Europe: MEPs reply

Two days ago, I received a second reply to the mails I had been sending out to Belgian MEPs. The first one was from Bart Staes, who, being a representative of the Flemish Greens, reaffirmed that he, together with the other Greens in the European Parliament, opposed Software Patents. I knew that, of course (it's why I voted for him on the last elections), but I still thought it important to let him know he's not off base in this particular subject. You wouldn't want your MEPs to start thinking they're somehow wrong when they receive information from lobbyists from 'the other side', and no longer from us.

I thought I had received another reply from Dirk Sterkcx, but in looking through my mails, I found out that this was apparently not the case (or I already deleted it, though I don't think I did).

The reply I received on wednesday was from Anne Léger, an assistant to Philippe Busquin. It was a very short email:

Geachte Heer,

Philippe Busquin dankt u voor uw mail mbt de patentproblematiek die hem
toelaat een compleet beeld te krijgen van het gegeven om een gefundeerde
positie in te nemen.

Met vriendelijke groeten,

[signed]

Which translates approximately to:

Dear Sir,

Philippe Busquin thanks you for your mail regarding the patent issue
which allows him to have a complete view on the situation in order to
form a well-founded opinion. 

Regards,

[signed]

Now, I'm happy about this; perhaps even more so than I was about the mail from Bart Staes. Judging by the email from Mr. Busquin's aide, it would appear that he's not yet formed his opinion; to know that the work I did to contact the Belgian MEPs—including the Walloon ones, whom I can never vote into parliament and whom I mailed in Dutch rather than French—could influence the opinion of MEPs, even if only one, made it all worthwhile.

If you're European and you haven't yet mailed your representatives regarding the Patent issue, it might be a good idea to do so. There is still time, if not much; and it doesn't have to take a long time. Just make sure you write a personal email, though, not a form letter used by possibly tens or hundreds of other people.

Mon, 09 May 2005

Mailed the Belgian MEPs again.

I've just mailed our Belgian MEPs on the Software Patents issue again. This isn't the first time I'm doing this -- last time was before the last europarl elections, though.

My mail was quite a bit diferent this time, as compared to the previous one. Based in part on one of my previous blog posts about this subject, I'm trying to convince the MEPs that they should vote against this directive, even if they support it, because I think (and I hope they do so with me) that if we do get a directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions, at all, it should be through a democratic process, rather than through people switching off other people's microphones so that they can claim consensus due to lack of opposition.

Let's see whether it has any effect. I sincerely hope so.

Mon, 07 Mar 2005

Europe has become a circus

I really don't see why the mass media don't jump on this. Even if you don't uderstand what all the fuss about software patents is about, the amount of abuse going on in the Software Patents discussion is incredible, and of interest to everyone, especially now that people all over Europe have a chance to vote in referenda on a European Consitution; after all, if the system is broken, the People should know.

Let's recap.

Somewhere 2002. Some subordinate of Frits Bolkestijn proposes a directive "on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions" (commonly known as the "software patents directive").
September 2003. After adding a number of amendments and ending up with a compromise between those in favor and those against software patents, the parliament votes on the directive, approving the text.
May 18th, 2004. The European Commission, which functions as a second chamber in European politics (but is much smaller than the Parliament) votes on the directive. In doing so, it removes all of the Parliament's amendments (so that it ends up at the non-compromising position of the pro-patents lobby again) and adds some of its own (that, needless to say, favour the pro-patent people again). Over the next few months, while defending their amendments, they outright lie, telling people that their amendments restrict the patentability of software (which people in the industry have been on record of saying that it is not true.)
May 2004-November 2004. The Dutch and German national parliaments approve motions instructing their delegations in the European Commission not to support the directive. The German delegation even goes on record as promising they will not support it. When it comes to a vote, the Dutch delegation deliberately seeks loopholes in the motion by their parliament, so that by its letter (but against its spirit) they can vote for it, supporting the directive; and the German delegation manages to get an amendment through that only adds two words, so that they can claim the directive is now no longer dangerous and they support it none the less (which, needless to say, is so incredible that it would be funny if it wasn't sad).
December 2004-February 2005. Even though the directive already lost its qualified majority since ages, it is repeatedly scheduled on the agenda of several minister meetings, as an A-item, that is, for it to be approved without discussion or without vote. They did this twice on the agricultural and fisheries meeting, and once on a meeting of financial ministers. No, nobody understands the link between agriculture and software patents. Special thanks go out to Poland, for getting the item off of the agenda twice.
End of February 2005-current. The JURI commission–an organ of the European Parliament responsible for legal affairs–proposes a motion to restart the entire procedure, which would end the directive up at a new first reading; by doing so, the democratic process would get a fair chance, this time (which it didn't really get last time). When they vote on it, the vote is almost unanimously to support it. Yet, the European Council of Ministers (or the Commission, not entirely sure on that one) apparently is able to blatantly ignore the request.

The above is, in one word, incredible. Whether you support Software Patents or oppose them; or even if you don't care at all, doesn't really matter. One should be able to trust their decision-makers to follow procedures to the spirit rather than to the letter. To create good laws, that are supported by the majority of parliament rather than shabby texts written by whoever has the best money. Especially in light of the upcoming (or passed, in some countries) referenda on the European Constitution, it is imperative that we, as European Citizens, can trust our government.

With stunts such as the ones made by the European Commission in the Software Patent dossier, I don't think we can. If the European institutes can't be trusted to follow Democracy, how should I trust them?

Then again, maybe this is how politics work. Maybe this is one of those dossiers where things are especially ugly because it doesn't hit the mass media. Maybe I'm just naive. I dunno. But if that is the case, there should be a way for democracy to be forced upon all parties involved. If an organ of the Parliament votes on an issue, it should be binding, not just a recommendation. Or so.

As I said, the Software Patents issue has grown far, far beyond just Software Patents, to the point that the European instances have become a circus. Or, as some would put it, a Banana Republic. Please help in spreading that as a google ranking.

Note that I didn't do much research on the above list, so some of the details might be inaccurate. The general picture isn't, though.

Thu, 24 Feb 2005

No RAND in OASIS-blessed standards!

I have sent a mail to the people opposing the RAND patent policy in OASIS, to express my support to their cause, a while ago (when I saw John Goerzen's mail on debian-devel). I hope everyone in the FLOSS community does the same thing.

The PICTS (Permanent ICT Steering group) of the Belgian Federal Government did do so too. This makes me very happy, and proud to be a Belgian.

That mail, however, contains another important message, which is new to me as well: apparently, our government is about to recommend that communication be implemented using open standards (making it mandatory a while later), and to suggest doing this using FLOSS.

And I thought I'd never see the day.

Thu, 17 Feb 2005

Software patents NO!

Went to Brussels today, to participate in (yet another) demonstration against software patents. Which went pretty well; we stood in the cold for about an hour or so, then walked through the cold towards the building where the Luxembourg governemnt has its offices. Stood there, shouted slogans, waiting for someone to come out and listen. Eventually, one of the Luxembourg diplomats came out (someone directly involved in the process, I was told; but I don't know whether this is true) and he received our offers (bananas, a letter with explanation, and a poster to hang in their office, with a print of the FFII's 'webshop patent' example. He then told us that there will be a restart of the process, that negotiations will be re-opened, and that everyone would get to have their say. Good news, which was later sortof confirmed (as in, it was confirmed that there was a unanimous vote of the european parliament's faction presidents to ask for a restart, but it's the commision who gets to decide whether this will happen. They allegedly most likely will, but I've seen enough of European politics by now to still doubt this).

After the Luxembourg Diplomat's words, we went on to the building where the European Commision works, which is just a few hundred meters further, in the same street. Shouted slogans again, but this time there was no diplomat available; so they sent some manager instead (the guy in charge of human resources) who received the stuff we offered and promised to relay the message to the people who do get to decide.

The bananas were good, too. Fun joke, that.

The council can't re-open negotiations because, as a Council diplomat said,

This is not a banana republic

The council can't listen to the national parliaments, because

This is not a banana republic

The council completely ignores the directly elected European Parliament, because

This is not a banana republic

When there is no longer a qualified majority in the Council, they schedule the Directive at a fisheries meeting (twice), because

This is not a banana republic

with thanks to the FFII for their flyer

So, there were a lot of free bananas. Somehow, that sounds better than free beer.

Well.

Anyway. After the demonstration, we went to a bar for a beer (this is Belgium after all); then, there was a press conference. We weren't required to go there, but we were invited, so I went. Of course, there also were some people from a pro-patent pressure group, and we had a healthy discussion afterwards.

There's one thing I tried to say, but couldn't, something regarding the difference between Software and Pharmaceutical patents. That'll be for another time, though.