How a guy nearly lost his house and job with open source software

probe

An interesting interview with Bob Jacobsen, who got involved with a java open source project (JMRI) and was a victim of litigation that went on for years and threatened his home (he was into a third mortgage to pay legal fees to defend the legal actions) and his job (he's a Professor at Berkeley University) was also on the line. Basically he had to mortgage the house to pay for the legal fees to hold on to his career, reputation and job at Berkeley U.

Some interesting lessons for anyone involved with open source software in any way. Worth a listen.

http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/twit.cachefly.net/floss0117.mp3

croo

Interesting listening ok.

Since we, so far, managed to keep software patents out of Europe this is not really an issue here. But was is worrying is that while software patents are (mostly) not enforceable in Europe the European patent office is handing out software related patents... which means if software patents did get forced through (and it's an never ending battle) a whole library of software based patents will come into effect.

The patent situation in the US is crazy - be that software or otherwise.

Khannie

croo wrote: »

The patent situation in the US is crazy - be that software or otherwise.

Agreed.

probe

croo wrote: »

Interesting listening ok.

Since we, so far, managed to keep software patents out of Europe this is not really an issue here. But was is worrying is that while software patents are (mostly) not enforceable in Europe the European patent office is handing out software related patents... which means if software patents did get forced through (and it's an never ending battle) a whole library of software based patents will come into effect.

The patent situation in the US is crazy - be that software or otherwise.

A company in the US managed to get a patent on a gene which causes breast cancer. This would allow them to prevent anyone else engaging in cancer research involving this gene or bringing pharmaceuticals or anything else to the market without a license from the patent holder. Perverse patent law* in the extreme…

While you might think you are outside the US jurisdiction assuming you don’t live there, if you visit the US and are somehow in breach of their patent law (in the view of anyone with $$$ to spend on legal action), you risk being arrested on arrival. Given the “close relationship” between GB and US, even a trip to Northern Ireland might be off limits. The firehose of British license plate recognition cameras is sent to the US in real-time for them to analyse. They now have cameras every km or so along British motorways and no doubt on every border crossing with IRL. The Irish traffic camera firehose might indirectly be fed to the US system, which would give them good time to prepare for your arrival north of the border as you travel up the M1!**

We might even see the European Arrest Warrant being expanded to cover a mutual arrangement with the USA (usual “anti terrorism” excuse for imposing same) – which could have the effect of imposing US patent law on Ireland. Rendition v 2.0.

*update on gene patent story: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-29/myriad-loses-ruling-over-breast-cancer-gene-patents-update1-.html

**http://www.nratraffic.ie/traveltimes/default.asp?regionid=0

When this page is working, it shows journey times between a gyratory in Newry "Fiveways" and routes along the M1. To provide this information, NRA needs access to a real-time feed of vehicle license plate data from the GB authorities. The system observes that 10-D-99999 is in Newry at 10.06 and at Drogheda North at 10.40 - computing a journey time of 34 mins. It would be impossible to compute journey times without access to a real-time feed of license plate data. One suspects that NRA is making available Irish traffic camera data to GB in reciprocity. Who knows where it is ending up!

TWIL produces netcasts covering legal issues relating to intellectual property, privacy and related matters

http://www.twit.tv/twil55

Johnboy1951

croo wrote: »

Interesting listening ok.

Since we, so far, managed to keep software patents out of Europe this is not really an issue here. But was is worrying is that while software patents are (mostly) not enforceable in Europe the European patent office is handing out software related patents... which means if software patents did get forced through (and it's an never ending battle) a whole library of software based patents will come into effect.

The patent situation in the US is crazy - be that software or otherwise.

I wonder how long more we can avoid what seems inevitable

Some links to the latest goings-on with ACTA

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/03/01/2053246/Another-ACTA-Leak-Discloses-Individual-Country-Data

http://news.swpat.org/2010/03/pushing-for-patents-in-acta/

http://news.swpat.org/2010/04/acta-text-released/#more-357

croo

probe wrote:

One suspects that NRA is making available Irish traffic camera data to GB in reciprocity. Who knows where it is ending up!

very interesting. This kind of stuff is so scary.
But the gene patent story beggars believe! Money & medicine doesn't sit easy with me... I can see the arguments "for" but there is something immoral in it too.

johnboy1951 wrote:

I wonder how long more we can avoid what seems inevitable

Yeah, I think for all the anti-patent lobbying we just escaped software patents by the skin of our teeth... we have Denmark to thank for finally putting an end to it if I remember correctly.

For a short while I thought things might be reconsidered stateside as it patently (pun intended ) doesn't work there. But I suspect more and more that Europe/USA & Japan see this as a way for them to keep the cheap army of Chinese & Indian workers, (in particular but everyone else in general) from being able to compete in our markets.

Award patents for every stupid little thing, add an extortionately expensive, adversarial mechanism for dispute resolution and sit back knowing that no matter what WTO says you can keep the treat of real competition on a level playing field out. In the process they also condemns their own populations to the same but it it keeps the status quo and when you are on top of the **** pile that's all that matters.

Of course if the boot was on the other foot I have no doubt the rest of the world would be doing the same, but in the end it just holds us all back and hurts the little people.

conor.hogan.2

http://twit.tv/floss117

podcast by Randal Schwartz (went through a similar case years ago) for twit.

fishfoodie

conor.hogan.2 wrote: »

http://twit.tv/floss117

podcast by Randal Schwartz (went through a similar case years ago) for twit.

No Randal Schwartz's case was completely different !

He was hired as a contractor on a number of occasions by Intel, & on at least one of the early occasions he was asked to do security evaluations. He basically had the permission of the company to carry out attacks on systems security.

He was later brought in again on something else, & didn't have permission to run attacks, he had copies of passwd files etc.

Intel probably should have just warned him & ended it there. But instead decided to prosecute him.

Randal may not have thought he was doing anything wrong; but he was stupid/naive in his behaviour. Major Multinational Companies take information security very seriously, & carrying out unauthorised system attacks isn't going to go down well with any hard nosed corporate types.

irish_stickman

probe wrote: »

A company in the US managed to get a patent on a gene which causes breast cancer.

that's crazy, does that mean if you contract cancer they can sue your body for using their gene?
or can you sue them for their gene causing you to become sick?