Techrights
Open Source Initiative Needs to Tackle Software Patents and Kangaroo Courts (But It Does Not, It Works for Microsoft Now)
Posted by Roy Schestowitz on Feb 02, 2024
OSI is not what OSI was meant to do
THIS week we've seen the OSI's Simon Phipps writing about patent policy (SEP), with the OSI's PR people mass-mailing random people about it (Open Source Initiative offers solution to loophole in SEP-R). While Phipps did in fact offer a positive contribution in this blog post, the OSI as a whole is rogue. It does a lot of Microsoft and proprietary software advocacy. Phipps wrote: "In OSI’s feedback to the European Commission’s proposed Standard Essential Patent (SEP) Regulation (SEP-R), OSI recommended that the legislation add a waiting period for patent claims registered under the regulation as standard-essential after the standard has been ratified. The recommendation was based on the social purpose behind tolerating the presence of royalty-due patents in standards at all, rather than as an endorsement of it."
Another approach would be to encourage the EU to do something about the EPO corruption, and moreover the deliberate violation of the rules in order to grant European software patents that can only be invalidated after long and expensive battles (as just happened, thanks to Unified Patents). The Unified Patent Court, which is in no way related to Unified Patents, must be abolished as soon as possible. It's not legal and the EU actively participates in abolishing constitutions, not to mention violating the Vienna Convention. This kangaroo 'court' already facilitates patent trolls.
On another topic, OSI is absent from this consultation (also EU). "Probably important to get FOSS people in on that en masse or they will all get locked out forever after..."
So said an associate. "Except the feedback window passed already... back in October of last year."
"Microsoft, IBM, BSA, Google, CISCO, all there," the associate has pointed out, whereas "EFF, FSF, OSI, FreeBSD Foundation, all absent."
"Does the FSF consider itself a global institution in any way?"
What about the OSI? Anyway, Phipps seems to be almost the only person there who is doing real work. His colleagues are in effect Microsoft or people financially beholden to Microsoft. █