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Munich Going Forward with Linux
Wednesday, August 11 2004 @ 09:48 AM EDT

Heise is reporting that Munich's mayor has held a press conference, in which he said that the bidding process for the switch from Windows to Linux will go forward as originally planned, despite patent issues. Thanks to Matthias for spotting this first.

Mayor Ude, who said he's been thinking it over for a few days, says there will be a legal study completed by Autumn concerning the migration, and if it looks safe, they will go forward and meanwhile the bidding begins. Munich, he said, wants to stay with its commitment to Linux. He also announced that the city is going to request a legal study on the question of what consequences the EU-directive on the patentability of "computer-implemented inventions" will have in the current version of the Council of Ministers's proposed law.

A translator is at work, and I'll have more for you later.

As promised, here is the meat of it, translated by tglx:

"Despite legal ambiguity and continuous fears of a patent war around open source, Munich's Mayor Christian Ude wants to start the bidding procedure for the replacement of the desktop OS in the city administration. Ude announced this at a press conference in the city hall. The LiMux project goes into the active migration phase. A survey of the patent issue will be finished by autumn. If the conversion to Linux appears then harmless, the bidding can be started. The city wants to stay with its commitment to Linux without fail: "It's irreversible that the city of Munich has decided in favour of open source."

"Ude announced that the city will award a contract for a legal opinion to clarify the question of which effects the disputed European Union guideline to the patenting of "computer-implemented inventions" in its present version of the Council of Ministers could have. Ude requested information from the Federal Government, why they voted in Brussels against the directive which was given by the European parliament. This directive was clearly against the broad software patent legalization and was accepted by the Federal Government before the final decision in the European Council of Ministers. If the Federal Government in Berlin wants to support open source projects, as emphasized by the Federal Department of Justice last week, they must provide legal security for the public and private efforts. Furthermore Ude requested other cities, municipalities and authorities, which work on Linux migrations, to join and support Munich in its efforts to clarify the legal situation. The argumenets and the demands on the Federal Government have been submitted in written form by the city of Munich.

". . . . In a strong reaction to the interruption of the project, the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) and LinuxTag e.V. warned at the beginning of the week against the abuse of software patents 'for psychological warfare' in the economy. 'Mechanisms from the Cold War are now adapted to protect the interests of companies', said Olive Zendel, chairman of LinuxTag. 'The principle of nuclear deterrence is replaced by patent armament, where companies arrange non-aggression pacts by cross licencing of the patents. The one who suffer are the programmers, small and medium-size enterprises and thus the economic situation in Europe.'"

He also provides us a link to the official statement, in German, of course, and a translation of important bits:

1. Munich continues
Munich continues to work on the LiMux project

2. Munich requests clarifying
Legal opinion is requested to clarify the difference between the software patent decisions of the European Parliament and the European Council of Ministers.

Munich requests a clear and unambiguous wording of the terms concerning the software patents.

Munich requests an answer from the Federal Government why the change of the European Parliment decision is necessary at all and why the Ministery of Justice claims that the new decision of the European Council of Ministers is not affecting the Open Source community and small/mid sized companies. If there is no difference to the decision of the European Parliament, then the Government should explain why a change of this decision is necessary at all.

Munich requests legal security for public and private investments

3. Munich seeks support

Munich asks the affected cities, ministeries and companies to support its claims and efforts.

Infoworld also has some details:

"In a press statement issued on August 4, the city administration confirmed it was 'standing by Linux,' correcting press reports that the project had been put on ice. Mayor Christian Ude stated that his administration's IT experts had recently presented 'strategic outlines' of the Linux project to officials from Augsburg and Nuernberg. Ude noted that there was 'interest in Munich's open source solution' from these German cities as well as from Vienna.

"Ude confirmed that the call for tenders for the base client had been temporarily delayed to examine the technical and legal risks presented by the draft software patents directive which, he said, provided for large scale patenting of software.

"All European local administrations and companies that are interested in open source software should work to ensure that the planned legislation does not become EU law, Ude said. In this sense, he is in complete agreement with the decision of the European Parliament to restrict the scope of the directive."


  


Munich Going Forward with Linux | 149 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Trolls, jokes and similar here please
Authored by: MadScientist on Wednesday, August 11 2004 @ 09:59 AM EDT

[ Reply to This | # ]

OT here please
Authored by: MadScientist on Wednesday, August 11 2004 @ 10:01 AM EDT

[ Reply to This | # ]

Munich Going Forward with Linux
Authored by: thaldyron on Wednesday, August 11 2004 @ 10:36 AM EDT
> ...there will be a legal study completed by Autumn
concerning the migration...

Good. I hope this will clearly show the danger of software
patents - but somehow I feel that "by Autumn" means too
late to influence the EU software patent law proposal.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Munich Going Forward with Linux
Authored by: snorpus on Wednesday, August 11 2004 @ 10:43 AM EDT
Just to have "about" 50 percent of the corporate market even consider replacing Windows would be a huge change.

---
73/88 de KQ3T ---
Montani Semper Liberi

[ Reply to This | # ]

  • Sorry - Authored by: snorpus on Wednesday, August 11 2004 @ 10:45 AM EDT
Munich Going Forward with Linux
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 11 2004 @ 10:55 AM EDT
It is commitment like this, that will have the greater impact on the EU patent
laws future. The information published these days is not taking the number of
opensource users (linux) serious enough, when talking about the threat from
patents.

Those larger patent holders that have seen over the past three years their user
number drop, will not have the backing for a patent 'war' on a large scale.
Also, not published in the press, litigation in the U.S. is in question more now
then in past years. As the U.S. courts are seeing a larger number of cases,
patent litigation for one, the taxes needed have grown beyond existing limits.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Have Munich assessed the patent risk of staying with Microsoft?
Authored by: DFJA on Wednesday, August 11 2004 @ 10:58 AM EDT
Just a thought, they have mentioned assessing the patent risk of migrating to
Linux as a possible stumbling block. Have they assessed the patent risk of
sticking with Microsoft?

Microsoft rely on cross-licencing of patented technology, but suppose they
decide to sue a Linux company on the basis of patents in Free Software (either
here in Europe or in the USA). It wouldn't even need to be the Linux kernel,
just anywhere in the stack. It's quite possible that someone (e.g. IBM) would
then either

(a) Withdraw their cross-licencing agreement with Microsoft, or
(b) Counter sue on the basis of some unrelated issue. This is essentially what
IBM did to SCO.

Case (a) would cause turmoil in the industry, and the stand-off would probably
be resolved very quickly to avoid damage to all parties. Case (b) would be
harder to resolve, and probably line the lawyers' pockets for years. Either way,
they would put _anyone's_ use of Microsoft software in jepardy. So the only safe
option is to migrate to GNU/Linux (or some other alternative) as quickly as
possible, but work around any issues in the hypothetical case that Microsoft
brought.

Where is the flaw in my argument? Is the possibility of something like this
happening enough to stave off the threat of a lawsuit brought by Microsoft?

It seems to boil down to an issue of 'might' over 'right', and who has the most
valuable collection of patents will ultimately win. Boy am I glad that IBM are
on our side!


---
43 - for those who require slightly more than the answer to life, the universe
and everything

[ Reply to This | # ]

I don't think patent protection applies to s/w
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 11 2004 @ 11:45 AM EDT
Very simply put, the patent office was put into place to foster innovation, just
like the copyright office. The problem with making something tangible, is that
someone can skip all the R&D time and copy the dimensions and create a clone
at supposedly lower cost. So patents were established to protect your R&D
costs.

Now with commercial S/W all that code is run through a compiler. And all
compilers are not the same. Whats more is even though dissasemblers exist, but
usually it is just cheaper to write it yourself.

Now we have an interesting scenario. Two people create functional equivelents
independently. One completes the project and files for the patent first and
sells the item. In tangible goods, this goes to a store where the other people
may purchase it and dismantle it and "steal" the IP.

Software however is completely different. It is licensed. As such, they know who
has the technology. Furthermore, most licenses contain appropriate use clauses
that prohibit reverse engineering.

When you buy something as simple as a baseball glove, they all have patents or
are patent pending. I am in violation of a patent if I take ti apart and copy
it. Yet there are dozens of companies and dozens lf gloves. A "baseball
glove" is not patented, it is the contruction of that glove that is.

The same for S/W. Any software engineered to do the same task as another through
completely independent means should not be foud in violation. If I engineer a
glove catch base balls, but is developed w/o using someone else's effort, then I
am not infringing. Similarly, if I write code to mimic the functionality through
my own R&D time, then i should not have been found in violation of any
patent.

Here's the briallance of that. Our evil competitors who want to bring patent
infringements agaisnt us are completely without merit. As closed source is, we
never see the code. We have to develop it ourselves each and every time.
Therefore, no OSS should ever be considered infrigning*.

An interesting consequence of this is that the only people who can sue are the
open source people, when open code is lifted into commercial products in
violation of the license.

(*The one exception case is already at hand though - SCO vs IBM. IBM had access
to both proprietary and open code. This is the only time open source is
vulnerable. I doubt any OSS developer is dumb enough to actually do this.)

The another conqsquence of this logic is that if MS wants to sue, they first
have to put the code out there for it to be copied into something.

That's the catch. With tangible items, there is no license. Patents are the only
recourse. And you can't enter into a license agreement with the purchaser. Once
they have it, they have unrestricted use. But by keeping the source in-house,
companies effectively preclude any patent infringement claims.

I certainly hope the courts are astute to make these same observations and come
to the same conclusions.

PS. Linux is now vulerable - With the Windows code leak MS can now alledge that
code was copied into Linux. Linux, though technically vulnerable, is clean as a
whistle. So MS COULD sue, but not win.

This, I think, is how patents were meant to be applied to software.

[ Reply to This | # ]

OT: One or two new DCC quotes for the database
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 11 2004 @ 12:46 PM EDT
http://trends.newsforge.com/trends/04/08/09/2351250.shtml?tid=147&tid=110&am
p;tid=2&tid=29

[ Reply to This | # ]

A correction for you PJ...Correction thread here as well I guess
Authored by: brian on Wednesday, August 11 2004 @ 01:10 PM EDT
"The LiMux project goes into"

Should be Linux not LiMux...

B.

---
#ifndef IANAL
#define IANAL
#endif

[ Reply to This | # ]

Politicians Going Forward with Linux
Authored by: Brian S. on Wednesday, August 11 2004 @ 02:07 PM EDT
What I find encouraging and what makes this so different from stateside is that
the F/OSS and patent arguements are being taken up by politicians. It seems to
me that Munich has no intention of backing down on the migration and has thrown
the ball straight at the Federal government in Germany. They'll have no choice
but to catch it. As the capital of Bavaria, Munich carries a lot of clout in
Germany.

This has political legs which will carry it to the EU council.
The Federal government is currently in no postion to blank Munich. To put this
in perspective it is like LA and California announcing they are going OSS, have
no intention of backing down and throwing the OSS/Patent arguement straight at
Washington.

German politicians are getting up to speed. I have hope yet on patent
legislation in the EU.

Brian S.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Munich Going Forward with Linux
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 11 2004 @ 03:07 PM EDT
I'll try tracking down a way to directly contact them, but in the meantime, I'd
just like to express thanks to Mayor Ude and anyone else connected to the City
of Munich that is working to make sure this project is not derailed. Working in
the government sector, it is refreshing to see the Mayor sticking by his guns
and having the vision to recognize the importance of this project to the
citizens of the city.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Munich
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 11 2004 @ 05:37 PM EDT
Whats going to be funnier is when these idiots have to close down their systems
or pay more in licensing fee's Im going to laugh my ass off.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Some remarks
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 11 2004 @ 06:16 PM EDT
The Linux migration of Munich is a very important
milestone in the adoption of F/OSS technology by
administrative bodies for at least 3 reasons:

- Munich is the capital of one of the german states.
- It is the 3rd largest city in Germany.
- Munich is a kind of "Mecca" of software development.

The danger of software and logic patents for the migration
process has certainly been overstated, with good
intentions, though, by some F/OSS proponents. More precise
information about the real extend of danger originating
from the current EU adoption of the US patent law would be
more helpful here, instead of wildly spreading wrong
alarms.

Personally, i find the current outcome of the event pretty
conscious and careful, as the Munich government both
sticks to the original plan as well as investigating in
the real amount of problems to be expected. I'm anxious to
learn about the results, as they will be substancial.

As a last remark, it is clearly the political decision of
the current (social-democratic) federal government to
strengthen monopolies (or at least its managers) as much
as it can, sacrifying the interests of the vast remainder
of the society.
Its (conservative) opposition absolutely loves that
course, but would have never dared to go that far.
So, at least for the near future, i wont hope for anything
wise coming from any federal government in this respect.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Poor Darl
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, August 13 2004 @ 01:43 AM EDT
You guys are having fun! But imagine poor Darl browsing through Groklaw on a
daily basis. For him, it's not funny at all. One can only guess the number of
years he lost out of his life just from reading this site and seeing how his war
plans get quickly discovered and destroyed. Except for Darl himself (and perhaps
the chairman Bill), I, personally, don't wish this kind of fate to anyone.

[ Reply to This | # ]
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