On Sat, 2003-10-04 at 08:33, John Richard Smith wrote: snipped all sorts of content, but you won't miss it.... > I'm concerned that at some stage we will encounter technobabble answers > we don't know how to question and counter. It's not the MEP's one has to > be concerned about, they know nothing , and are even more ignorant of > these things than the average list member. It's after the MEP's start > challenging the highly paid technical experts . These fellows will be > paid by the industries and vested interest groups who seek this > legislation . They are well paid full time patent/software types who > know how to argue their case for themselves to an extent that will pull > wool over legislators eyes, and I'm just aware that as they present > their case they will have to be countered with just as strong counter > arguements . It does not matter, once the MEPs catch on that this is something a simple person who is paying attention, but may not spell like an master of Modern English Literature, or format documents like an attorney (kinda like the average person driving) they will either begin to show interest, or (more likely, imo) try to figure out how they can make money on this too, and if they are only interested in how _they_ profit, there might not be any point. other than to learn who those pols are and not vote for them again.
> Still at least the politicions in Europe will know that > there are concerned people out there, voters, who need to be persuaded > of change, so at least that much helps, but at the end of the day you > need good technical based counter arguements to persuade the legislators > to rewrite their law. or good legal based, or profit based. if they need tech answers, be honest, and say "that is not _my_ area of expertise, but I can get someone who is a true expert in that area who will answer your questions, as well as can be". How could your MEP begin to know if he was being bullshitted anyway, he does not know the 'right' answers if it is that technical anyway? > Incidentally, I just know at some stage we are going to have the > arguement for patenting code thrown at us because they will say the > Americans allow it. Is that really true, or is that just throwing sand > in the works ? I suggest you offer that 'just because the Americans do it' is a poor reason for anything, and leave that at that. > Also, The whole point about patenting code is that it prevents anyone > else from creating their own version, whereas if I have understood this > correctly, while someone may own copywrite of their piece of computer > code , there is nothing to stop anyone else from writing their own > independently produced version of that code. So by way of example , > Robert Louis Stevenson may of written Treasure Island but there is > nothing to prevent another Author from writing another Book called > Treasure Island with a similar story , provided it is writen as a fresh > novel and in his own words, and not just a carbon copy of Stevenson version. not quite. there is nothing to prevent someone else writing a book about buried treasure, islands, and a peg leg ship capt. so there should not be a patent on writing a bit of code to send out a fax from a PS document just not everyone can call it 'hylafax'. but it would be wrong to not allow any one else to have the right to use the idea of a blinking text in a web page, while it is fine to prevent the blinking text from being the text of 'RLS's Treasure Island' (Treasure island may not be the best example as I believe it is in the public domain, therefor not copyright protected any longer). Can't hurt. If anyone in the EU has a lug in their area, amybe copying a few links from this thread and forwarding them around might be a nice idea too.
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