Article from ZDNet.UK (English)

'...[The closures are] timed to coincide with a real-life protest in Brussels on Wednesday. Those rallying against the proposal -- including some of Europe's most prominent scientists and software businesses -- believe its current draft would open the door to the patenting of software and business processes, effectively shutting out software competition from small and medium-sized developers.

'Writing in The Guardian in June, Arlene McCarthy, the British Labour MEP who is guiding the software patents proposal through Parliament, argued that the legislation would "provide legal certainty for European software inventors" and protect the investments of small European software companies. "It is time some of the 'computer rights campaigners' got real," she wrote.'

At this point in time, it may be difficult to call where this is going to end in Europe and elsewhere. It may be helpful to step back and remember a few things when thinking about the debate.

First of all, the usual stated goal of patents to encourage innovation. It's somewhat difficult to see how software patents are going to do anything but create a mess as long as Open Source Software continues to gain momentum, because in such an evironment there is no single entity to sue in case of infringement; so whom is this really going to benefit? Also, while we mostly see a duplication of existing applications migrating to OSS, at some point there will be enough developers behind the effort to come up with true innovation in the OSS arena before such appears in proprietary software, especially with the efforts currently underway in developing countries. Yet defenders of software patents fail to mention how software patents will protect this innovation. Perhaps they would be more believable if they also provided such protection for OSS, or devised a "free" or "open" patent.

Second, the amount of money being spent by large multinational corporations for lobbying also belies the true intent of software patents. Ostensibly patents protect "the little guy". In fact there have been several example in articles posted in WorldWatch where patents simply make it impossible for anyone else to compete in a given market. Remember that corporations are entities which seek to reward investors with a return on their invested capital. In the current mood of world markets, long-term thinking is not rewarded; most investors are only looking as far ahead as the next quarter.

We see this from a cultural perspective as a long-term revolution enabled by the internet which some shortsighted individuals and entities are seeking to stop because it threatens their current perceived profitability and modus operandi. Also from a cultural perspective, we see this revolution as unstoppable because the concept of "intellectual property" is an artificial creation present in certain countries and systems of thinking but not in others. Denial of this revolution won't work as a defense mechanism. What we are seeing, even in the few short months of editing WorldWatch, is that the people with the mindset which seeks to hinder Open Source development in software and other fields of human endeavor will simply choke off development in their own countries and thereby transfer it to places where it is culturally and intellectually accepted and encouraged. This is easily observable on a small scale already, if you contrast places where much time and money is spent on lawsuits about such issues with places which don't. Over the longer term it should become apparent as a general world-wide trend.

We expect to have a lot more to observe on this subject as the patterns develop. We would appreciate your thoughts, comments, and article submissions from as many different countries and points of view as possible.

Willy Smith, reporting from Costa Rica