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[FYI] <Rant on> MICROSOFT, SWPAT etc. pp <Rant off>
- To: debate@fitug.de
- Subject: [FYI] <Rant on> MICROSOFT, SWPAT etc. pp <Rant off>
- From: "Axel H Horns" <horns@t-online.de>
- Date: Wed, 22 Dec 1999 10:25:24 +0200
- Comment: This message comes from the debate mailing list.
- Organization: PA Axel H Horns
- Reply-to: horns@t-online.de
- Sender: owner-debate@fitug.de
http://www.theregister.co.uk/991221-000005.html
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Posted 21/12/99 10:41am by Graham Lea
Nader slams MS pricing, licences, demands Office
ports
Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate who brought General Motors to its
knees over car safety failures ("Unsafe at any speed"), has been
talking and writing about Microsoft's "poorly designed products" that
were "prone to crash" at the Bazaar, an open source software event in
New York. He drew attention to the narrowness of the DoJ case, which
ignored "a plethora of issues" relating to the desktop monopoly, MS
Office, and licensing issues. Nader has previously arranged two
conferences on Microsoft which focussed public attention on the
company. Nader is much admired by Microsoft president Steve Ballmer's
mother, who was concerned that her son was doing something that was
criticised by her hero.
[...]
Rant on: Stallman is right, and this is a very important issue
indeed. Software patents issued by a maverick patent office, such as
the US Patent and Trademark Office, should be overturned, and in the
interim, they should not be recognised elsewhere. The European Patent
Office shows signs of similar weakening towards software patents in
the face of pressure from corporate patents lawyers desiring to lock-
up intellectual property that properly belongs to the world, and not
to corporations. The Association for Computing Machinery never
envisaged that the algorithms it published be patented, for example,
and nothing has changed. It would be a good if WTO member states
negotiated that if the US wants TRIPS (the trade-related aspects of
intellectual property rights) to be extended, it should reign-in its
abuses of intellectual property patenting. Rant off
[...]
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