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Standards and patents

Richard Allen comments on the EU move towards software patents.
I have not seen any compelling evidence to suggest that software development is being held up by an inability to secure patent on new ideas.
There’s so much to be said on this topic, but one important dimension to the debate that I think is being neglected is the lack of protection for standards. Once a technology has, through an open process, been incorporated into a ratified standard from a recognised body like W3C, it should be impossible to assert patent rights over it unless they were asserted during the standardisation process.

The lack of this protection in the case of the embedded code patent asserted by Eolas threatens the very fabric of the Web, as Noel has said [via Sean].
initially most people laughed, "Ha ha, they f----ed Microsoft!", until it
slowly began to dawn on people that this is a huge problem.
When it becomes impossible to create a pool of open, shared standards for common use, it becomes impossible for massive-connected-ness to emerge and our future will stall - corporate ownership is not an option.

Without a legal protection for standards against retrospective attack by software patents we will suffer death by a thousand gold-diggers as we try to navigate into the massively-connected future. If, as regrettably seems to be the case, the EU is going to encourage software patents, there should at least be an escape clause to give privileged status to technologies in standards. Get to it, Richard - the pause for reflection is the ideal time to introduce a balancing proposal!

posted at 10:10 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Equal Features

I don't think he's a convert yet because Rafe Colburn doesn't seem to have taken much time looking at the word processor component of OpenOffice.org. He thinks there is no change tracking.
Writer doesn't support revision tracking, the killer feature in Word that is required for collaboration with other people. I don't think any open source word processor can claim to replace Word until it has support for revisions, preferably in a Word-compatible way.
As the great LinuxJournal review he's commenting on (also discussed on Corante) points out, feature arms races are actually a shallow measure of goodness,
Understand that I'm not talking features here. True, with its PDF and Docbook export filters alone, version 1.1 of Writer leaves MS Word playing catch up. However, features are an arms race in which superiority rarely lasts for more than one version. When I say that Writer is the superior piece of software, I'm talking about the basics, the everyday functionality that can't be improved without massively rewriting the code.
but by his own measure Rafe should find that OpenOffice Write can comfortably replace Word because not only does it have effective change tracking, it's interoperable with Word (I use it regularly in association with OMA documents) and what's more the open OO.o architecture makes it extensible - more on that when the (non-Sun) project I saw this week stops being confidential! Look under "Edit | Changes" for the change tracking.

posted at 5:09 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Ending the monoculture

I've been giving radio interviews today on US talk radio, and it seems StarOffice and OpenOffice are the subject of the day (even on Corante) - it's time to end the monoculture if we're to reduce the attackable surface area of our software in the massively-connected world.

One key step to ending the monoculture is to have a reasonable slice of the population jettison Microsoft Office. By combining e-mail and documents with a macro capability and then integrating the browser, Microsoft has created a delicious target for the maladjusted (who also are to blame, no question). The results of things like Blaster and SoBig are a direct consequence of the acts of a monopolist manipulating markets, and it's the rest of us who are being punished for their illegal acts.

It's not (just) the software that needs fixing; it's the behaviour that creates a monoculture (and in the name of "innovation" too!) By encouraging software and platform diversity, we encourage people to become part of the solution rather than part of the problem. Mozilla and OpenOffice.org aren't just good enough - they are now, in places, better.

posted at 5:07 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Thursday, September 4

Tuesday, September 2

Foneblogging

Just back from a day-trip to Dublin. It's a long day (out at 7am, home by 9:30pm) but it avoids a night away. During the day I dropped in on NewBay, makers of Foneblog, to catch up on their progress. They are now getting on well with O2 Ireland and have a steady base of users paying €2.50/month to maintain journals on their site. The question I asked was, are these journals just annotated photo albums, or are they weblogs in the sense that my readers would understand. They commented that they're not sure their customers actually care - no-one so far has asked for RSS feeds, or referrer logs, or any other paraphenalia. Is this community the future Steve Gillmor is evangelising or is it just a bubble? My vote is for 'future', BTW...

posted at 11:58 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Monday, September 1

Siezing Air

There's plenty of comment is circulating about both the proposed software patent legislation at the European Parliament and the fact the wave of protest surrounding it has caused euro-legislators to pause [via Dave Winer]. Usually it's me urging my American friends to act to stem a tide of injustice, but this time I have the right and the insight to protest.

The thing is, who to? That's the big problem with Euro-legislation - the process is so unfamiliar. Do I protest to a Commissioner? To my MP? to the UK government? To my MEP (whoever that is)? To a representative on the huge committee (which one? all their party affilliations are unfamiliar)? One can't help feeling it's all been made as complex as possible so as to prevent too much citizen comment at this stage. Yet if we let this terrible legislative step be taken now, when it comes time for each member state to ratify and enforce (the time such dross is usually noticed), it will be too late. Really, it feels like trying to sieze an air pocket.

posted at 10:03 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |