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| DATE | 2004-09-28 |
| FROM | From: "Ruben I Safir - Secretary NYLXS"
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [hangout] Munich Update
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Munich set to approve Linux despite patent worries
The city council is expected to vote on the move tomorrow
News Story by Georgina Prodhan
SEPTEMBER 28, 2004 (REUTERS) - More than a year after Munich declared its
intention to abandon Microsoft Windows in favor of open-source rival Linux,
city councilors are finally ready to move ahead with the plan. The council
tomorrow is expected to take a calculated risk and approve the switch.
The vote comes after months of delay caused by concerns about possible
software patent infringements in the face of coming European Union legislation.
Although the open-source operating system was once the preserve of a techie
counterculture, in recent years it has emerged as a viable competitor to
proprietary systems such as Windows. The inroads it has made, particularly
among local and national governments that want to adapt software to their own
needs, have provoked Microsoft Corp. to reveal some of its own code but also
to mount a staunch defense.
One method at Microsoft's disposal is the enforcement of its many thousands of
patents -- something open-source software such as Linux can easily infringe
upon. "Linux violates 283 U.S. software patents," said Florian Mueller,
software developer and adviser to the CEO of Swedish open-source firm MySQL,
adding that violations aren't actionable until validated by a court.
Fears that Linux rivals will resort to such measures, against the background
of a possible EU directive allowing software patents in Europe, prompted
Munich's CIO to raise the alarm at the end of July. The investigation he
instigated may not have prevented Munich from moving to Linux, but the debate
it sparked reaches beyond Germany's borders and could affect other cities
moving to open-source, including Vienna, Austria, and Bergen, Norway.
Patent infringements can lead to legal action, fines or orders to stop using
applications -- something that no city administration or business could afford.
"What we say is, 'Thought should be free,' " said Mueller, encapsulating the
philosophy that has led him and others to use the Munich case to push the EU
Council into reconsidering its proposed directive.
The question of software patents is a vexing one in Germany, where big firms
like engineering conglomerate Siemens AG and software giant SAP AG trade on
the quality of their "made in Germany" innovations and hold thousands of
patents. Such firms have patent-sharing agreements for mutual protection
against possible litigation -- Microsoft, for example, has agreements with
both SAP and Siemens.
On the other hand, the backbone of the German economy is formed by small and
midsize companies, a powerful group that has little access to such measures
and claims that patents held by bigger rivals stifle innovation.
"The software industry is in the midst of a massive arms race in which
copyrights and patents are being stockpiled by software vendors to be used as
ammunition against competitors," Gary Barnett, IT research director of
London-based consultancy Ovum, said in a recent note.
Companies like Siemens and SAP counter that they must protect the inventions
that are their lifeblood and on which they spend billions of dollars each year.
SAP's CEO, Henning Kagermann, has been an outspoken advocate of European
software patents, arguing that the current position puts Europe at a
disadvantage to the U.S., where software can be patented. And Siemens --
Germany's biggest patent holder, with 45,000 patents -- agrees.
"We have about 30,000 software programmers, and of course we have a big
interest in protecting what they develop," a Siemens R&D spokesman said.
The European parliament has twice rejected motions to allow software patents,
but the EU Council may still push a modified directive through. The text now
under consideration proposes that technical inventions controlled by software
could be patented but that pure software could not -- a distinction critics
say is unclear and would allow software patents in through the back door.
The council will have its next opportunity to vote on the directive next
month, by which time Munich's Linux rollout should be under way. But the
battle between open-source and proprietary software makers will go on.
"Open-source has the potential to threaten the traditional business models of
thousands of software vendors," Ovum's Barnett wrote. "It is understandable
that some vendors will attempt to derail it with whatever weapons they have at
their disposal."
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