Aargh writes "Every year a public Internet poll is taken to vote for, amongst othes, the "European of the Year". This year, the founder of NoSoftwarePatents.com has been selected as a candidate. Taken from the NoSoftwarePatents.com site: "We now have a first-rate opportunity to make political leaders, media and citizens all over the world realize the significance of our cause. Please give us your vote, and help us gain more votes, so that the founder of the NoSoftwarePatents campaign be elected as the new 'European of the Year'." Non-europeans can also vote, so why dont we unleash the slashdot hordes?" Mr. Mueller had been exchanging e-mails recently on this subject; thanks to an introduction from Kaj Arnö. I truly do think that given his, and the organization's work that they deserve to win. Check out the celebrity endorsements as well. *grin* Also, worth reading their voting guide if you are going to vote.Ads_xl=0;Ads_yl=0;Ads_xp='';Ads_yp='';Ads_xp1='';Ads_yp1='';Ads_par='';Ads_cnturl='';Ads_prf='page=article';Ads_channels='RON_P6_IMU';Ads_wrd='patents,yro';Ads_kid=0;Ads_bid=0;Ads_sec=0; Elect NoSoftwarePatents as European Of The Year Log in/Create an Account | Top | 172 comments | Search Discussion Display Options Threshold: -1: 172 comments 0: 164 comments 1: 140 comments 2: 91 comments 3: 27 comments 4: 16 comments 5: 8 comments Flat Nested No Comments Threaded Oldest First Newest First Highest Scores First Oldest First (Ignore Threads) Newest First (Ignore Threads) The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way. Despite not being able to read that site... (Score:5, Funny) by Fridgey (907481) on Monday October 31, @08:05AM (#13914214) I'll just do what slashdot tells me to and vote anyway!1! [ Reply to ThisRe:Despite not being able to read that site... by utnow (Score:1) Monday October 31, @09:00AM Re:Despite not being able to read that site... (Score:5, Interesting) by frisket (149522) <[peter] [at] [silmaril.ie]> on Monday October 31, @09:44AM (#13914847) (http://silmaril.ie/cgi-bin/blog) OK, so we /.'d the site. But WTF is it on box running an operating system, made by one of the biggest offenders in the patent business?Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80004005'[MySQL][ODBC 3.51 Driver]Too many connectionsE:\WWWROOT\WWW.EV50.COM\HTML\POLL\../include/dbhea der.asp, line 9 [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Despite not being able to read that site... by Tony Hoyle (Score:2) Monday October 31, @10:37AMHow can we trust this Operating System? by Falcon040 (Score:1) Monday October 31, @08:41PMRe:Despite not being able to read that site... by gentoo1337 (Score:1) Monday October 31, @10:01PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Also read the reasons for their nominations (Score:2, Insightful) by Morosoph (693565) on Monday October 31, @08:06AM (#13914218) (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tim.wesson/ | Last Journal: Wednesday October 26, @07:56AM) Since a block vote is, well, unconvincing.Many of the voting recommendations have more to do with politics than patents; when it has little to do with patents, it might be worth disobeying the recommendations in order to make a real vote, rather than simply boosting an arbitary choice.I wish in fact that NoSoftwarePatents.com had made no recommendation when the was no patent-related issues for that candidate. Such block-voting recommendations also make it easier for people to write this kind of idiocy [techcentralstation.com]. [ Reply to This Re:Also read the reasons for their nominations (Score:4, Informative) by ErrorBase (692520) <errorbase@@@hotmail...com> on Monday October 31, @08:11AM (#13914253) If you took the time to actually read the voting recommendations, you'll see that some of the proposed candidates are actually generated at random. actually encouraging to pick one of your own choice. but helpful for the decision impaired. [ Reply to This | ParentMy mistake, in part by Morosoph (Score:2) Monday October 31, @08:31AMCowboy neil by oliverthered (Score:1) Monday October 31, @12:09PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.1 reply beneath your current threshold. Reasons for this kind of idiocy (Score:5, Insightful) by pieterh (196118) <pieter.hintjens@nOsPAM.imatix.com> on Monday October 31, @08:27AM (#13914360) (http://www.imatix.com/ | Last Journal: Sunday August 28, @05:09PM) The kind of idiocy written by those in favour of software patents has nothing to do with block votes. It has to do with money, lots and lots of money, and the surprising effect this has on "journalists". Calling the FFII "communists" is a strange attack but then you have to realise that the author is Polish, and the Polish MEPs were one of the most single-minded blocks to vote against software patents.Software patents are being pushed hard by a rich, powerful, and ammoral machine built from lawyers, lobbyists, and large misguided software firms that have been beguiled by the arms race.Voting for Florian will send a strong signal that software patents are not a popular legal innovation but are rightly seen as a threat to the free market and open capitalism. [ Reply to This | Parent Vote for Florian (Score:4, Insightful) by Morosoph (693565) on Monday October 31, @08:44AM (#13914455) (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/tim.wesson/ | Last Journal: Wednesday October 26, @07:56AM) Voting for Florian will send a strong signal that software patents are not a popular legal innovation but are rightly seen as a threat to the free market and open capitalism. I agree that voting for Florian is a good thing. But how the signal will be read depends very much upon the beholder. Some, for example, will see it as a victory for democracy over the doctorine of property right.The more sophisticated amoung us see the issue of software patents as one of the artificial creation of monopolies and the unneccessary restriction of freedom, but from the pure propertarian perspective, this can look a lot like the slogan "property is theft". Lawyers know how complex a concept property is, but the average person, and it seems the average politician doesn't know this, and hear opposition as simple "rationalisation". [ Reply to This | ParentAnd oh what irony it is... by rk (Score:2) Monday October 31, @11:57AMRe:Also read the reasons for their nominations by MattGS (Score:1) Monday October 31, @08:51AMRe:Also read the reasons for their nominations by micronicos (Score:1) Monday October 31, @09:14AM Do not vote if you have no clue (Score:5, Insightful) by vinlud (230623) * on Monday October 31, @08:06AM (#13914220) (http://vincent.ludden.nl/) As the voting form requires to vote for all categories it is not a good thing to do this if you have no clue who all these people are. Even I, as a overaddict news consuming European, have no clue what to choose for most of the categories because here in Europe news sources are mostly nation minded and therefore very fragmented. [ Reply to ThisRe:Do not vote if you have no clue by rar (Score:2) Monday October 31, @08:09AMRe:Do not vote if you have no clue by SimilarityEngine (Score:3) Monday October 31, @08:17AM Re:Do not vote if you have no clue (Score:4, Insightful) by vinlud (230623) * on Monday October 31, @08:23AM (#13914332) (http://vincent.ludden.nl/) Business Leader of the Year: Anne LauvergeonWe have no particular problem with any of the five candidates, nor do we have a strong preference for someone. The recommendation above was made by a random generator.Well, this is exactly the way not to go. Instead of giving an advice people have to judge for themselves and that regarding the patents issue the candidates are equal they take a random recommendation!And ofcourse voting should have been possible with categories unselected, it is really a major error on behalve of the builder. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Do not vote if you have no clue by SimilarityEngine (Score:1) Monday October 31, @08:28AM Re:Do not vote if you have no clue (Score:5, Informative) by Znork (31774) on Monday October 31, @08:53AM (#13914506) "Well, this is exactly the way not to go."The random recommendations are just that; random. New randomization each time you load the page. Try it a few times.Statistically, people voting using only the nosoftwarepatents recommendations should favor none of the candidates in the unrelated polls, so as far as avoiding any undesired deviations in a poll with these rules I think that's the best it can get. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Do not vote if you have no clue by Wellspring (Score:2) Monday October 31, @10:47AM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Do not vote if you have no clue by NitsujTPU (Score:2) Monday October 31, @08:33AMRe:Do not vote if you have no clue by 955301 (Score:2) Monday October 31, @10:14AMRe:Do not vote if you have no clue by NitsujTPU (Score:2) Monday October 31, @10:58AMRe:Do not vote if you have no clue by 955301 (Score:2) Monday October 31, @02:09PMRe:Do not vote if you have no clue by NitsujTPU (Score:2) Monday October 31, @04:18PMRe:Do not vote if you have no clue by 955301 (Score:2) Monday October 31, @10:12PMRe:Do not vote if you have no clue by NitsujTPU (Score:2) Monday October 31, @11:30PMOh please, no way can you use an excuse like that by Biotech9 (Score:2) Monday October 31, @09:59AM Re:Do not vote if you have no clue (Score:4, Insightful) by PhotoBoy (684898) on Monday October 31, @11:04AM (#13915468) Well here's an easy voting tip: Don't vote for Tony Blair in anything, he's pro-patents and he's a lying scumbag too. Just ask him where all of Saddam's WMDs are! [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Do not vote if you have no clue by Taladar (Score:2) Monday October 31, @01:22PMShort blurbs about the nominees by henni16 (Score:2) Monday October 31, @11:53AM Lets hear it for scalability (Score:4, Funny) by NitsujTPU (19263) on Monday October 31, @08:10AM (#13914243) (http://www.hcoop.net/~nitsuj) Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80004005'[MySQL][ODBC 3.51 Driver]Too many connectionsE:\WWWROOT\WWW.EV50.COM\HTML\POLL\../include/dbhea der.asp, line 9 [ Reply to ThisRe:Lets hear it for scalability by strider44 (Score:2) Monday October 31, @08:18AMRe:Lets hear it for scalability by k0de (Score:1) Monday October 31, @08:41AMRe:Lets hear it for scalability by 955301 (Score:2) Monday October 31, @10:21AMRe:Lets hear it for scalability by Bubble666 (Score:2) Monday October 31, @08:52AMRe:Lets hear it for scalability by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Monday October 31, @09:02AMRe:Lets hear it for scalability by Bubble666 (Score:1) Monday October 31, @09:19AMRe:Lets hear it for scalability by ArsenneLupin (Score:2) Monday October 31, @10:37AMRe:Lets hear it for scalability by MullerMn (Score:2) Monday October 31, @11:38AMRe:Lets hear it for scalability by Itchy Rich (Score:2) Monday October 31, @09:05AMRe:Lets hear it for scalability by Bubble666 (Score:1) Monday October 31, @09:41AMRe:Lets hear it for scalability by Tony Hoyle (Score:2) Monday October 31, @10:44AM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Lets hear it for scalability by digidave (Score:2) Monday October 31, @09:47AMRe:Lets hear it for scalability by Vihai (Score:2) Monday October 31, @10:25AMRe:Lets hear it for scalability by 6*7 (Score:1) Monday October 31, @11:07AMRe:Lets hear it for scalability by Mr2cents (Score:2) Monday October 31, @08:19AMThey should patent their technology by lheal (Score:2) Monday October 31, @08:50AMRe:Lets hear it for scalability by kylie69 (Score:1) Monday October 31, @10:27AM Junk (Score:1) by Decameron81 (628548) on Monday October 31, @08:11AM (#13914250) Making it mandatory for people voting to vote in each and every cathegory is a good way to create junk results in my opinion. Can someone tell me how I can vote if I have no clue of what most of those people did? [ Reply to ThisRe:Junk by SimilarityEngine (Score:1) Monday October 31, @08:13AMRe:Junk by ErrorBase (Score:1) Monday October 31, @08:18AM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Junk by Decameron81 (Score:2) Monday October 31, @10:50AM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Voting guide... (Score:4, Funny) by sznupi (719324) on Monday October 31, @08:12AM (#13914261) You know, thsi reminds me of old joke...School teachear giving homework: "children, please write who's your idol, and why Lenin"Luckily the background isn't the same :P [ Reply to ThisRe:Voting guide... by sznupi (Score:2) Monday October 31, @09:01AM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Too lazy, need a script (Score:3, Interesting) by Gopal.V (532678) <gopalv82NO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Monday October 31, @08:14AM (#13914273) (http://t3.dotgnu.info/ | Last Journal: Monday September 26, @06:32AM) Why doesn't someone write a greasemonkey script to mark all these votes ?Then I can install it, click Vote and be done about it :DOr on the other hand, I could read up on who all these people are before voting. NOT !!! [ Reply to This Flawed voting (Score:3, Interesting) by Ceriel Nosforit (682174) <`moc.liamtoh' `ta' `38essot'> on Monday October 31, @08:16AM (#13914285) The form requires one to place a vote in all categories, even if I don't know who the people are or if I support none of them. This quite simply bullshit. To support one candidate I'll have support others I care none for.This is supposed to be politics. This is supposed to mean somthing! How can they err on such a simple thing as a flawed system of voting when it is the foundation of democracy? [ Reply to ThisRe:Flawed voting by NitsujTPU (Score:2) Monday October 31, @08:23AMRe:Flawed voting by NitsujTPU (Score:2) Monday October 31, @08:26AMRe:Flawed voting by nagora (Score:1) Monday October 31, @09:03AMThe foundation of democracy? by Per Abrahamsen (Score:2) Monday October 31, @08:33AMRe:Flawed voting by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Monday October 31, @09:10AMRe:Flawed voting by Ceriel Nosforit (Score:2) Monday October 31, @08:48PMRe:Flawed voting by glesga_kiss (Score:2) Monday October 31, @11:05AMRe:Flawed voting by Ceriel Nosforit (Score:2) Monday October 31, @08:52PM Tough choice (Score:3, Insightful) by Killjoy_NL (719667) <palliNO@SPAMstc-r.nl> on Monday October 31, @08:18AM (#13914293) It was a tough choice between Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the no software patent guy.Voted for Florian though because I think that is the best choice for a more free economy. [ Reply to This Thank you for your well-considered support! (Score:5, Interesting) by FlorianMueller (801981) <florian.mueller@nosoftwarepatents.com> on Monday October 31, @10:04AM (#13914994) (http://www.openbc.com/hp/Florian_Mueller2/) It's great that you gave this some serious thought, because that's what our core group of anti-swpat activists did as well. Obviously, other candidates also stand for important causes. It's just that their stories are much more attractive to the general press than something as esoteric as software patents, and that's why we need this kind of publicity more than they do.As for Hirsi Ali's party, the VVD pushed for software patents like hardly any other political party in Europe. The whole directive project was started by Frits Bolkestein. On 1 July 2004, all of the Dutch parliament except for the VVD group supported a resolution that the Dutch government should retract its support to the EU Council's pro-patent proposal. And Toine Manders was a driving pro-patent force in the ALDE (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats in Europe) group in the Europan Parliament. It was only toward the end of the process that he was burned out and (probably because Philips also wanted this) introduced a motion for rejection of the entire bill. On the day before the vote, I met him in an elevator in the European Parliament and we actually had a friendly discussion because we all wanted to go for rejection of the proposal, but let's face it: He's an intellectual property lawyer by profession, and he didn't call for rejection because he was against software patents. He just realized that his camp couldn't get its way, and then they decided to abort the process, which was perfectly fine with me. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Tough choice by Killjoy_NL (Score:1) Monday October 31, @09:02AMRe:Tough choice by lixee (Score:1) Monday October 31, @01:04PMRe:Tough choice by Killjoy_NL (Score:2) Monday October 31, @04:06PMRe:Tough choice by lixee (Score:1) Monday October 31, @04:30PMRe:Tough choice by Killjoy_NL (Score:2) Monday October 31, @05:31PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. not the first (Score:1, Funny) by manojar (875389) <kmanoj32@ya[ ].co.in ['hoo' in gap]> on Monday October 31, @08:21AM (#13914320) (http://manojar.blogspot.com/) this doesn't look like the first time Americans want to decide European policies! [ Reply to ThisRe:not the first by enjahova (Score:1) Monday October 31, @08:46AM Sweet irony (Score:3, Insightful) by laurensv (601085) on Monday October 31, @08:21AM (#13914321) poll in association with Microsoft. Imagine some bobo from MS handing over the prize to the guy from NoSoftwarePatents.(I know the organisation would let it come to that, but Microsoft would still be on all the promo material, press releases,...) [ Reply to ThisRe:Sweet irony by Drencrom (Score:1) Monday October 31, @01:15PM If you have no clue, please read (Score:3, Interesting) by TheTilde (709489) on Monday October 31, @08:21AM (#13914322) please read their recommandations on their voting guide. The recommandations are sensible and argumented, and when they don't want to choose (business leader of the year) they generate a random choice. I found it quite funny.The issue is important. [ Reply to This Disagree (Score:2, Insightful) by Da3vid (926771) on Monday October 31, @08:22AM (#13914325) I can't say that I agree with the idea to remove software patents. Where I can see that copyright will protect your program, what if its a novel idea in software design that you want to patent? It seems to me that copyrights protect individual works, but patents protect novel ideas and inventions. Perhaps what needs to be done is not to eliminate software patents, but re-define the borders of what is granted a patent and what isn't, and make it more difficult to obtain erroneous patents. -Da3vid- [ Reply to ThisRe:Disagree by GigsVT (Score:2) Monday October 31, @08:37AMThrow out the baby with the bathwater? by Dekortage (Score:3) Monday October 31, @08:39AM Re:Throw out the baby with the bathwater? (Score:5, Insightful) by Halo1 (136547) <jonas.maebe @ u g ent.be> on Monday October 31, @10:23AM (#13915137) (http://wiki.ffii.org/SwpatcninoEn) The No Software Patents site says that copyright should cover everything that patents cover, and elsewhere that patents are used as guns against small software developers. Um, and copyrights AREN'T used this way?No. Copyright does not hold in case of independent development, while patents do hold. You cannot "amass a portfolio of copyrights" which then allows you to crush competition which wrote all code themselves. Someone else's patents on the other hand still apply even if you developed something entirely on your own.C'mon. If patents disappeared tomorrow, the lawyers would find a way of crushing you with copyrights, and you'd have a No Software Copyrights! movement in a minute.Software copyright existed before software patents. The companies behind the nosoftwarepatents.com campaign earn their money thanks to the copyright they have on their code. I don't see why they would want to abolish copyright. The people behind the nososftwarepatents.com campaign did not originally wage a "nocopyright" campaign and then just switched to patents because it's more contemporary. Please find another strawman.The problem is not with the protection of ideas, but with the execution of that protection in the business world.Can you please cite some scientific research which backs up that claim? Here's my collection of research [ffii.org] which indicates the contrary.Maybe 20 years is an inappropriate length for a patent in software; maybe two years would be better. Perhaps patent and copyright duration should be scaled based on the industry, or adjusted based on the commercialization/profit of the IP holder.The patent system inherently has a huge inherent overhead cost: filing applications, performing prior art research to avoid infringement, licensing deals, lawsuits, ... This is not about babies and bath water, but about determining whether it's all worth the trouble. It's not like the software sector needs software patents to function well, and there are an awful lot of indications software patents don't help increasing efficiency.Proponents of software patents have been claiming for years the whole system can be fixed by just making a few adjustments, but no one has been able to actually argue in economic terms that this is in fact true. And then there's still these pesky details such as the WTO TRIPs treaty, which requires a minimum duration of 17 years for all patents you grant.There are other ways of dealing with this besides chucking the whole system.We're not chucking anything, we're preventing the codification of the American system in Europe. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Throw out the baby with the bathwater? by cheesedog (Score:2) Monday October 31, @11:34AMProtect? by Per Abrahamsen (Score:3) Monday October 31, @08:40AMRe:Disagree by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Monday October 31, @08:50AMRe:Disagree by Aim Here (Score:3) Monday October 31, @08:58AMRe:Disagree by Da3vid (Score:1) Monday October 31, @02:37PMRe:Disagree by Aim Here (Score:2) Monday October 31, @03:55PMRe:Disagree by Da3vid (Score:1) Monday October 31, @05:14PMRe:Disagree by Aim Here (Score:2) Monday October 31, @06:32PMRe:Disagree by LainTouko (Score:1) Monday October 31, @09:01AMHOW IS PARENT A TROLL? by Viper Daimao (Score:1) Monday October 31, @10:18AMWho decides it is "a novel idea"? by Fallen Kell (Score:2) Monday October 31, @11:01AMRe:Who decides it is "a novel idea"? by Da3vid (Score:1) Monday October 31, @02:46PMBig problem by McLae (Score:1) Monday October 31, @11:02AMRe:Disagree by J.R. Random (Score:2) Monday October 31, @11:19AMRe:Disagree by Wolfbone (Score:2) Monday October 31, @02:05PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. The rest of the answers? (Score:1) by drange_net (859642) on Monday October 31, @08:39AM (#13914432) Can anyone give me the rest of the answers? [ Reply to This Who the hell are all these people? (Score:2) by El_Muerte_TDS (592157) <elmuerte@drunksC ... m minus caffeine> on Monday October 31, @08:42AM (#13914448) (http://elmuerte.com/) Where is the "info about" link on that voting form? [ Reply to ThisIt helps if you're interested and European by andersh (Score:1) Monday October 31, @09:51AM Voting software has problems... (Score:1) by knarf (34928) on Monday October 31, @08:54AM (#13914510) (http://www.unternet.org/) Tried it:Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80004005'[MySQL][ODBC 3.51 Driver]Too many connectionsE:\WWWROOT\WWW.EV50.COM\HTML\POLL\../include/dbhea der.asp, line 9Oops.... [ Reply to ThisRe:Voting software has problems... by WarwickRyan (Score:1) Monday October 31, @10:15AM Watch this video, SNCF (Score:2) by NigelJohnstone (242811) on Monday October 31, @08:58AM (#13914544) Slighly off topic, but watch this video from SNCF about Ideas:http://www.zippyvideos.com/3940632471977606/ideas/ [zippyvideos.com]"we give it tools to exist somewhere else""rather than on a piece of paper"Looks like SNCF taking a side swipe at how stupid patents have become. [ Reply to This Statesman of the year (Score:2) by HishamMuhammad (553916) on Monday October 31, @09:15AM (#13914642) (http://www.livejournal.com/users/hisham) They suggest voting for Spain's Zapatero. But wasn't Poland who blocked the software patents directive last time? Or was it DMCA-like laws? Heck, it's hard to keep track of all those freedom-butchering attempts. If anybody is better informed than I am, please clarify. Thanks. [ Reply to This Why we recommend the Spanish PM,not the Polish guy (Score:4, Informative) by FlorianMueller (801981) <florian.mueller@nosoftwarepatents.com> on Monday October 31, @09:42AM (#13914830) (http://www.openbc.com/hp/Florian_Mueller2/) It's true that the Polish government was extremely helpful. However, the Polish candidate for Statesman of the Year wasn't helpful at all. He's the president, but all of the help came from the executive government, which is headed by the prime minister (at the time that was Marek Belka), and mostly from deputy minister Wlodzimierz Marcinski. We discussed the voting recommendations with our Polish activists who are quite familiar with how the decisions were taken within the Polish government. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Why we recommend the Spanish PM,not the Polish by rhetoric (Score:1) Monday October 31, @10:12AM