[OLSR-users] Software Patents in Europe and OLSR

[Thomas Lopatic]

Hello list,

If you can speak for a European small or medium-sized company and if you
are against software patents, please consider registering your company
at the following website:

  http://www.economic-majority.com

About 90% of European companies are against software patents it seems,
however the European Commission says that the remaining 10% have greater
weight in terms of taxes and jobs than the 90% and that, hence, software
patents are a Good Thing[tm] for Europe. Let's show them that this is
not the case.

To get a feeling for how software patents could affect meshing, have a
look at the following URL.

  http://ep.espacenet.com

Then select the advanced search, select "EP - (spam-protected)" as the database
to be searched (so that you find European applications) and search for
"mesh" as a keyword in the title of the patent application and
"Microsoft" as the applicant. Then have a look at the application titled
"Mesh networks with exclusion capability".

Suppose that a node in our mesh misbehaves, e.g. because it is
accidentally misconfigured or because it is owned by somebody who likes
to sabotage our network. It would then be nice to be able to broadcast a
message through the mesh that tells everybody to ignore the misbehaving
node, i.e. to exclude the node from the mesh. Of course we would use
digital signatures to enable every recipient of the broadcast message to
verify that the broadcast message is legitimate. In this way, only
authorized people, e.g. administrators, could broadcast such exclusion
messages.

Pretty obvious solution, eh? And Microsoft is trying to patent exactly
this idea in the above patent application.

Please try to get involved! A few days ago I decided to make
appointments with MEPs from my region and to travel to Brussels tomorrow
to explain the situation of somebody like me that runs a small company
and why I am against software patents. And I am just a guy. So, if I can
do something (and I've never done anything like this before), you can do
so too! We have to try to stop this insanity.

Around June 5 the European Parliament will vote again on software
patents. Please try to get involved before this date. Brussels is
currently experiencing a pretty heavy lobbying battle and the pro-patent
people sent in by the Microsofts of this world outnumber us.

For more information about what you can do have a look at the following
URL that Andreas also links to from the olsr.org website.

  http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com

Thanks,
-Thomas