One of the key problems with ACTA is the lack of transparency during its negotiation. That this is becoming a big issue in Europe is shown by the fact that the European Commission has tried to dispose of the question twice -- first in its "10 myths about ACTA", which I discussed recently on Techdirt, and now with a page entitled "Transparency of ACTA negotiations":
It's a sign of the European Commission's increasing desperation over ACTA that it has been forced to send out a document entitled "10 Myths About ACTA" [pdf] that purports to debunk misinformation that is being put around. Unsurprisingly, the EC's document is itself full of misinformation. Here are just a few of the more outrageous examples.
It's a sign of the European Commission's increasing desperation over ACTA that it has been forced to send out a document entitled "10 Myths About ACTA" [.pdf] that purports to debunk misinformation that is being put around. Unsurprisingly, the EC's document is itself full of misinformation; over the next few days I'll be going through some of its most egregious attempts to obfuscate and generally explain away the deep problems of ACTA.
At the end of last year I reported on the worrying signs of vacillation from the UK government over its support for truly open standards. At least it's relatively straightforward to keep tabs on what's happening in Blighty; Europe is another matter - I find the labyrinthine bureaucracy and its digital shadow pretty hard to navigate. So I was pleased to come across the following page, entitled "Strategy for internal use of OSS at the EC".
As readers of this blog will have noticed, open data is particularly hot at the moment. Whether that will endure is another matter, but for the moment we should be grateful for all the politicians jumping on this particular bandwagon, and we should grab the open data they are releasing with both hands while we can. Here's the latest convert, the European Commission itself:
In a previous column, I mentioned that I was invited to talk at a meeting at the European Parliament about innovation prizes last week. That's not something that often happens, and I frequently get to hear about meetings only after the event, when it's too late, which is very frustrating. But happily here's one on the 16th June entitled “Interoperability and standards: making it happen“ that I've come across in time:
On Open Enterprise blog.
I have long been appalled by what we are doing to our oceans. Not content with taking out more fish than is sustainable - a mathematically stupid thing to do - we have also turned this amazing, fundamental resource into the world's dustbin. The most visible result of that is the clutch of gyres of marine litter whose dimensions are almost beyond comprehension - and growing.
Closer to home, I have also looked on with rising anger at how European fisheries are mismanaged, not least because of the absurd practice of discards, which results in huge quantities of fish being thrown back into the sea. That is again insane from the viewpoint of sustainability, and a perfect symbol of the irrational way fishing is conducted in Europe.
So I was delighted to hear that the EU fisheries commissioner, Maria Damanaki, wants to stop it:She wants a ban – which she says is necessary to preserve fish stocks – within two years, as part of a wide-ranging reform of the European common fisheries policy.
Of course, nothing is simple: the fishing industry seems incapable of recognising its own best interests, and is against an idea that would enable them to preserve their industry and jobs in the long run:at a hearing in Brussels on Tuesday afternoon, held by Damanaki and attended by fishermen's representatives, green groups and consumer groups, some members of the fishing industry vehemently opposed the plans, while others suggested the proposals should be modified.
But something rather amazing has happened. Damanaki has not only come up with a way to address some of the concerns of the fishermen, she has at the same time found a way to start reducing marine litter in the Mediterranean:I am working with my colleague Janez Potočnik, who is responsible for Environment; we have just been to Athens together, on Friday, to meet public authorities and representatives from environmental organisations and the industry and discuss concrete opportunities to address the issue.
We think to limit –or even ban – the use of plastic bags in retailing. Several EU countries have already put in place different mechanisms to try to achieve this: in Italy plastic bags were banned since the beginning of the year; Ireland was the first country to take action imposing a duty of around 0,22€ on plastic bags since 2002; in Belgium, there is a voluntary agreement of the retailing sector not to issue or at least to charge plastic bags. There is consensus among EU member states on the need to take up the challenge and the Commission is now examining the problem and its possible solutions.
The EU can also offer opportunities to remedy to the present situation: the European Fisheries Fund, for instance, offers now the possibility of developing projects that may contribute to the preservation of the marine environment, such as “fishing for litter” initiatives. Such projects are already ongoing in some countries: in France, among other initiatives, a pilot project will be launched at the end of May, whereby marine litter will be collected by fishermen and sent for treatment.
The fisheries fund can also co-finance port reception facilities in cooperation with the local authorities and municipalities, to collect the waste of fishing and recreational boats.
This is brilliant. Instead of simply telling fishermen they must - for their own good - do things differently, and do different things, it offers a concrete way for them to earn extra money. At the same time, it mobilises precisely those people who are best able to address the problem of marine litter - and avoids all the costs and complications of creating some new task force to do so.
Although it would be naive to expect these measure to be implemented without a fight, I am incredibly heartened to see such creative thinking from the European Commission. This kind of smart approach that turns a problem into a solution elsewhere is exactly what we need for the difficult times ahead. It is vital that we as European citizens support such moves and not let bureaucracy and lobbying stymie them.
Until the last few weeks I'd not really followed Maria Damanaki's work in the European Commission, since I had no expectation that anything so radical was about to emerge from her deparment, but these recent announcements have certainly made me sit up and take notice.
The fact that just a few hours after I tweeted about these marine litter proposals I received a reply from her (or her office) is also highly encouraging, since it suggests someone at ease in the new world of highly-connected and open politics. That, too, is vitally important for the Europe's future, notably its digital side: let's hope she can infect some of her less clueful colleagues.
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Although the current excitement over the gradual release of the Wikileaks documents is justified in that it concerns what is undoubtedly an important development for the future of the Internet, it has rather overshadowed another area where crucial decisions are being made: the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). In fact, ACTA finally seems to be nearing the end of its slow and painful crawl through the secret negotiation process that only recently we have been allowed glimpses of. And the more we learn, the more troublesome it is.
On Open Enterprise blog.
Here's a wonderful cautionary tale:
Systran created a specially adapted version of its Systran-Unix machine translation software for the [European] Commission, calling it EC-Systran Unix between 1997 and 2002.
On Open Enterprise blog.
The European Commission looms large in these pages. But despite that importance, it remains - to me, at least - an opaque beast. Hugely-important decisions are emitted by it, as the result of some long and deeply complex process, but the details remain pretty mysterious.
On Open Enterprise blog.
There's an important conference taking place in Brussels next week: "Tensions between Intellectual Property Rights and the ICT standardisation process: reasons and remedies - 22 November 2010". It's important because it has a clear bearing on key documents like the forthcoming European Interoperability Framework v2.
It all sounds jolly reasonable:Key ICT standards are perceived by many as critical technology platforms with a strong public interest dimension. However, concerns are voiced that Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) and their exclusivity potential, may hinder or prevent standardisation.
The European Commission and the European Patent Office (EPO) are organising a conference to address some specific issues on patents and ICT standards: are today’s IPR features still compatible with fast moving markets and the very complex requirements of ICT standardisation in a global knowledge economy environment? Where are problems that we can we fix?
Unfortunately, I can't go - actually, better make that *fortunately* I can't go, because upon closer inspection the agenda [.pdf] shows that this is a conference with a clear, er, agenda: that is, the outcome has already been decided.
You can tell just by its framing: this is "a conference to address some specific issues on patents and ICT standards". ICT is mostly about software, and yet software cannot be patented "as such". So, in a sense, this ought to be a trivial conference lasting about five minutes. The fact that it isn't shows where things are going to head: towards accepting and promoting patents in European standards, including those for software.
That's not really surprising, given who are organising it - the European Commission and the European Patent Office (EPO). The European Commission has always been a big fan of software patents; and the EPO is hardly likely to be involved with a conference that says: "you know, we *really* don't need all these patents in our standards."
Of course, the opposite result - that patents are so indescribably yummy that we need to have as many as possible in our European ICT standards - must emerge naturally and organically. And so to ensure that natural and organic result, we have a few randomly-selected companies taking part.
For example, there's a trio of well-known European companies: Nokia, Ericsson and Microsoft. By an amazing coincidence - as an old BBC story reminds us - all of them were fervent supporters of the European legislation to make software patentable:Big technology firms, such as Philips, Nokia, Microsoft, Siemens, and telecoms firm Ericsson, continued to voice their support for the original bill.
So, no possible bias there, then.
Then there are a couple of outfits you may have heard of - IBM and Oracle, both noted for loving software patents slightly more than life itself. So maybe a teensy bit of bias there.
But wait, you will say: you are being totally unfair. After all, is there not an *entire* massive one-hour session entitled "Open source, freely available software and standardisation"? (although I do wonder what on earth this "freely available software" could be - obviously nothing so subversive as free-as-in-freedom software.)
And it's true, that session does indeed exist; here's part of the description:
This session will explore potential issues around standardisation and the topic of open source software and free licences. We will look at examples of how standards are successfully implemented in open source. We will also consider licensing issues that may exist regarding the requirement to pay royalties for patents present in standards, as well as other licensing terms and conditions in relation to the community approach common in open source and free software technology development.
But what's the betting that those "examples of how standards are successfully implemented in open source" will include rare and atypical cases where FRAND licences have been crafted into a free software compatible form, and which will then be used to demonstrate that FRAND is the perfect solution for ICT licensing in Europe?
Luckily, we have Karsten Gerloff from the FSFE to fight against the software patent fan club, and tell it as it is. Pity he's on his own on this though - and no, poor Erwin Tenhumberg does not count. He may be "Open Source Programme Manager, SAP", but SAP is one of the fiercest proponents of patenting software in Europe, as I've discussed a couple of times.
So this leaves us with Karsten against the collective might of the European Commission, EPO, Microsoft, Nokia, Ericsson, IBM, Oracle and SAP: clearly they'll be some of that "tension", as the conference title promises, but a fair fight conducted on a level playing-field? Not so much....
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As you may have noticed, I've been writing quite a lot about the imminent European Interoperability Framework (EIF), and the extent to which it supports true open standards that can be implemented by all. Of course, that's not just a European question: many governments around the world are grappling with exactly the same issue. Here's a fascinating result from India that has important lessons for the European Commission as they finalise EIF v2.
On Open Enterprise blog.
I see that my old mates the Business Software Alliance are a tad concerned that the European Commission might do something sensible with the imminent European Interoperability Framework (EIF):
On Open Enterprise blog.
One of the inescapable facts of free software is that it involves a lot of law - far more than innocent hackers might expect when they settle down for a light bit of coding.
That's in part because it is built on the foundation of licences like the GNU GPL, which depend upon copyright for their efficacy (although that doesn't mean that free software couldn't survive without copyright - see my earlier discussion of this point with Richard Stallman.)
On Open Enterprise blog.
You would have thought that what with local initiatives like the Digital Economy Act and global ones like ACTA, the copyright maximalists would be satisfied with the range and number of attacks on the Internet and people's free use of it; but apparently not. For here comes the Gallo Report, an attempt to commit the European Union to criminalisation of copyright infringement and a generally more repressive approach to online activities.
A key vote on the Gallo Report takes place tomorrow, so we need to act today and (early) tomorrow if we want to stand a chance of making it more fair and balanced. The best site for information about this is La Quadrature du Net, which summarises the Gallo Report as follows:
On Open Enterprise blog.
Just over a month ago I wrote about a leaked version of the imminent Digital Agenda for Europe. I noted that the text had some eminently sensible recommendations about implementing open standards, but that probably for precisely that reason, was under attack by enemies of openness, who wanted the references to open standards watered down or removed. Judging by the latest leak [.pdf] obtained by the French site PC Inpact, those forces have prevailed: what seems to be the final version of the Digital Agenda for Europe is an utter travesty of the original intent.
On Open Enterprise blog.
Open source is under attack in Europe. Not openly or obviously, but in the background, behind closed doors. The battleground is the imminent Digital Agenda for Europe, due to be unveiled by the European Commission in a month's time, and which defines the overall framework for Europe's digital policy. According to people with good contacts to the politicians and bureaucrats drawing up the Agenda, Microsoft is lobbying hard to ensure that open standards and open source are excluded from that policy - and is on the brink of succeeding in that aim.
We need to get as many people as possible writing to the key Commissioners *now* if we are to stop them. Details of who to write to are given below. To help you frame things, here's some background on what's at stake.
On Open Enterprise blog.
Without much fanfare, the European Commission has arranged an "ACTA Stakeholders’ Consultation Meeting". Of course, the big problem is that it's in Brussels, and few of us can afford to take a day off work to attend - unless we are professional lobbyists, of course, who get *paid* huge sums to attend.
However, it is still possible to make some comments on ACTA, since
Those unable to participate in the meeting and/or wishing to present their positions in writing may send their comments to TRADE-ACTA-MEETING@ec.europa.eu , no later than 22 March 2010.
So if you have a few minutes to spare this afternoon, I urge you to drop the EC's Directorate General for Trade a short note to let them know what you think. Here's mine:Unfortunately, I won't be able to attend the ACTA Stakeholders’ Consultation Meeting; but I shouldn't need to. If the Internet has taught us anything, it is that such processes can – and should – be opened up to all using this wonderful democratising tool. By resorting to such traditional meetings, the European Commission makes it difficult for ordinary people with jobs (to say nothing of those who are unemployed) from attending and thus voicing their opinions. Instead, it will be the usual well-funded lobbyists who turn up and pack the meeting, crowding out the few who represent the hundreds of millions of ordinary EU citizens.
So my comment really comes down to this: we need full transparency for the ACTA negotiations, with all of the drafts released as and when they are modified, along with all other related documents, so that all of us can participate in this crucially important process. This is not some ancillary facet that can be tacked later, but is absolutely central. If other partners won't agree to transparency, then the EU should simply refuse to negotiate further, since there is no reason why such drafts should not be open for all to discuss – unless, of course, there is something in them that certain participants want hidden until the negotiations have been concluded and can be presented as a fait accompli.
ACTA negotiations without transparency are simply a continuation of the bad old days of closed-door meetings of cosy insider groups to the detriment of ordinary citizens. If the EU is truly to represent the citizens of Europe, it must definitively turn its back on that unrepresentative system, and place openness and transparency at the heart of everything it does.
If it does not, voters' disenchantment with politics will grow, and the already-gaping chasm between the politicians and the people will widen, until our nominal representatives find themselves increasingly alienated from the electorate. That would have dire consequences not just for politicians, but for European democracy itself.
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Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner for Competition Policy, had some news this morning:
Today is an important day for internet users in Europe. Today, the Commission has resolved a serious competition concern in a key market for the development of the internet, namely the market for web browsers. Now - for the first time in over a decade - Internet users in Europe will have an effective and unbiased choice between Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and competing web browsers, such as Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari and Opera....
On Open Enterprise blog.
The European Commission has released a report [.pdf] with the rather unpromising title "Trends in connectivity technologies and their socio-economic impacts". Despite this, and a rather stodgy academic style, there are a number of interesting points made.
One of the best chapters is called "Projecting the future: Scenarios for tech trend development and impact assessment", which describe three possible future worlds: Borderless, Connecting and Scattered. What's interesting is that Connecting essentially describes a world where openness of all kinds is a major feature. The implications of these kinds of worlds are then examined in detail.
I wouldn't describe it as a gripping read, but there's a huge amount of detail that may be of interest to those pondering on what may be, especially the role of openness there.
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