WTF?
OK, here's a "What the F**k?" for today:
- European Comission legits Microsoft Software Patents [1]. WTF? I mean, you can't patent software in Europe [2], but you let Microsoft patents affect Europe? Where's the logic? The sentence the royalties for a worldwide licence including patents will be reduced from 5.95% to 0.4% - less than 7% of the royalty originally claimed is written as if there's something good about this, but as a matter of fact you can read this as "you have to pay for patent infringement or patent royalties to Microsoft in Europe, even if software patents aren't valid in Europe". I wonder what is going on in this guys heads...
- Portugal is going to have something called "Cartão do Cidadão", a "Citizen's Card", obligatory, that will replace out ID card among others. It seems that there's going to be a security conference in Portugal [3] where Accenture is going to talk about the Citizen's Card security scheme. Now, what puzzles me is VD's reaction on it [4] (VD was somewhat involved in the Citizen's Card project, BTW):
in one hand the Digital Card is a portuguese Government prime security project and in the other, a local consultant company (which acts as a contractor for the Government) will be addressing his first security details at a conference, or at least I hope, it will be just a mist of conjunctions and speculation, due to the project security details and particularities
Now, if the security of this project is of such importance (as, I agree, it is) what's wrong about talking about the security scheme? Don't you trust it? Because if you don't than it would be better not to have the card... Are you defending security through obscurity [5]? I really hope not [6]...
[1] - http://tinyurl.com/yodduw
[2] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patent#Europe
[3] - http://www.vantagem.com/VS07.pdf
[4] - http://lists.paradigma.pt/pipermail/tce/2007-October/000137.html
[5] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity
[6] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity#Arguments_against
The second WTF is not a WTF, it's a ATSOS (Always The Same Old Sh*t).
ReplyDeleteBut that first WTF, is really a WTF, a major WTF. If software patents are not valid in Europe, how can someone make patents registered and approved in the USA be legitimate in Europe?! That's not legal, I think. Then again, it's Microsoft's best European friend who is in command of the UE. :\
Software patents aren't valid in most jurisdictions but before being software patents they are patents, and patents have been validated by the Patent Offices, so they are *by*default* valid.
ReplyDeleteIt is *you* who have to prove them invalid, otherwise, you're missing due royalties.
Microsoft has thousands of software patents granted by the European Patent Office, so you either owe them 0.48% per patent per copy or you have to prove them invalid.
Neelie Kroes sold herself...
Patens are valid, but software patents not?! Why not just stop using patents. No patents, more inovation.
ReplyDelete