[Fsfe-ie] European Parliament:OSS & enforcement directive
James Heald
j.heald at ucl.ac.uk
Sun Feb 29 16:46:56 CET 2004
teresahackett wrote:
>
> Extract
>
[snip]
> Moreover, enforcement of IPRs is good for OSS developers just as it is
> for commercial software developers. Obligations regarding the use of
> open source software are established in the respective OS licenses and
> grounded upon IPRs . The ability to enforce these IPRs is a critical
> element in maintaining the open source system.
Well, it's nice to know she was listening to at least *some* of the talk
I gave in Strasbourg :-)
What I went on to say, of course, was that there is a very delicate
balance to be maintained between the needs of supposed rightsholders
(often very powerful), and the need to avoid undue harassment of
innocent deliberately-targeted innovative small companies and software
projects.
If Mme Fourtou wants to introduce the needs of OSS projects into the
debate, then bring it on. It opens a space between the goalposts the
size of a barn door for IFSO to officially publicly respond to this letter.
> Failure to achieve a
> minimal harmonisation of IPR enforcement rules in an enlarged EU will
> expose software developers – both commercial and open source – to
> situations in which they are unable to enforce their respective
> rights.
As somebody pointed out in the Slashdot discussion on the directive a
week ago, what you actually need to enforce the GPL is pretty minimal,
not any of this clodhopping boot-boys stuff.
Unless Mme Fourtou thinks we just can't wait to apply for a nice Anton
Piller order for a private raid on Microsoft Ireland ? :-)
James.
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