[Nottingham] Software Patents (East Midlands LUGS)

[Martin Garton]

On Thu, 2005-06-23 at 16:24 +0100, Tim Emanuel wrote:
> On 6/23/05, Michael Simms <michael at tuxgames.com> wrote:
> 
> > When you say 'xxx will happen because of software patenting' he will
> > reply that 'the law hasn't been passed yet, so we don't know what will
> > happen, you can't say it will happen'. He likes this cop-out and will
> > use it every chance he gets.
> 
> Uh? Does he say why, if he doesn't know what will happen, he is in favour?

A quote from the email he sent me:

"I support software patents because I believe they will not be the
threat to SME companies and open source software which you and others
believe they will."

As an additional point, he replied to my initial note saying:

"I have come to the conclusion that patenting is a good idea in
Europe." 

which leads me to believe he thinks that software patents are good
because patents in general are good. When I replied that:

"would like to clarify that I also support patents in general in Europe,
just not patents on pure software."

He replied:

"Good - so we agree."

despite the fact that (to me at least) the current directive clearly
allows parents on pure software.

So either I don't understand English or Mr Newton-Dunn does not
understand software.

I will add that I genuinely believe that Mr Newton-Dunn is doing what he
thinks is best in a situation of constant bombardment of conflicting
information for all directions.  Unfortunately for us he has got it
wrong. It is a sad truth that it is easier to convince people of things
be weight of numbers (i.e. money available to pay lobbyists) than it is
to explain why software patents are a bad thing to someone who is not a
developer. (hell, it's hard enough to explain to some developers too -
but they usually get it eventually)



Cheers,
Martin.