It’s all clear to me now

The European Commission has finally clarified the European software patent issue once and for all. Software clearly is either patentable or not patentable, depending on your opinion and on the size of your business. You can get a software patent filed at the European Patent Office, and somebody with enough money for the lawsuit can then ask the European Court of Justice to invalidate the patent on the grounds that it describes a piece of software.

So this means that dominant tech companies can add software patents to their patent portfolios in order to ensure their dominance just like in the US, and small tech companies are free to go bankrupt while fighting in court for their right to do business and innovate in Europe.

Not confused enough yet? Let Yahoo! News try and explain:
EC: Software is not patentable – Yahoo! UK & Ireland News

Technorati Tags: software patents

Welcome to peruse my private data, US officials!

The govenment’s interest in my private data has always annoyed me. So I was not particularly happy with the new EU data retention law passed this February. The news that based on this law and previous agreements my data may also be available to US authorities somehow doesn’t really come as a big surprise. Perhaps commenting further on this affair is unwise, lest the Gestapo FBI does find my data to be valuable in the war against Terra…
Read the EUobserver.com article instead.

Open Document Format is now ISO standard 26300

The International Standards Organization has accepted the Open Document Format developed by OpenOffice.org as an international standard. Good news, freedom lovers! Perhaps governments and other stubborn bodies will not be so eager to force citizens (the owners of their own personal data) to use “industry standard software” such as Microsoft Office. Instead, as the OO.o press release states, “For the first time in the history of computing, software users will be guaranteed that they will be able to use their data in any compliant software package, both now and in the future.” Nice job, OpenOffice hackers and suits!

EOL for proprietary chat protocol support

As of today, I will no longer be logged in on the following proprietary chat networks:

• MSN
• Yahoo!
• AIM

I will be happy to chat with you on the free Jabber and IRC networks. Please see my updated contact information on the About page.

If you don’t have a Jabber account, you can easily get one for free on the jabber.org home page. If you use Gmail, you already have a Jabber account. If your current chat client does not support Jabber, upgrade to the open source multiprotocol Gaim messenger if you use Linux or Windows, or Psi if you use a Mac. Of course, I’ll continue to idle on the Freenode IRC network as well.

I stongly recommend that everybody upgrade to open chat protocols and leave the corporate networks fight their own battles.

Young killers praised

I couldn’t agree more with koke. Apparently Mexico is celebrating their youngest killer. Bullfighting might be an established tradition in some countries, but that doesn’t make it right. I find praising 9 year old children for their kills particularly repulsive.

Get your facts straight

Found a nice blog entry by Bldust with some beliefs some people may have that might need checking out. Even if you’re not American, this checklist is worth a read. On a similar note. compare the American adventure in Iraq to, say, the cost of funding global anti-hunger efforts.

New versions of US Amendments

Miguel notes that Jesus' General has fixed the amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

Bribe them!

Mikko Rauhala is very cool. He sees how decisions in the EU are made, and is collecting funds to bribe the EU Council Presidency to reconsider software patents in Europe. Can we balance Microsoft and Sony's bribe money out? Not likely, but hell, I've spent money on dumber things.

Software patents right on course for Europe

So the EU Counsil decided software patents are useful enough for Microsoft so that everybody else can just bite it. The Parliament can still spoil their plan. Let's see if anyone there realizes what's going on.