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- From: José Fournier <jaa.f AT cegetel.net>
- To: traductions AT april.org
- Subject: Traduction EN de "Nos positions" Appel à rele cture.
- Date: Sun, 14 Sep 2008 13:47:53 +0200
Bonjour,
comme mes envois précédents semblent être tombés au fond du lac, je persiste et renvoie pour relecture cette traduction de la page "Nos positions" légèrement révisée.
Merci
Cordialement
José Fournier
Title: Nos Positions | April - Promouvoir et défendre le Logiciel Libre
Our positions
- The association
This page, which is updated depending on the actuality and on the Board of Directors' disponibility, gathers positions of the association. Any request to publish a position here must be sent to its Board of Directors.
Links are added to some positions. The documents referred to that way are given as information. Giving them, doesn't mean that the association agree with their whole content.
- Position on software patents
- Position on the Microsoft/Novell agreement of November 2006.
- Position on the free software - open source terminology
- Position on adhesion of enterprises
- Position on the condemnation of Microsoft by the European Union for abuse of dominant position
- Position on the Law on Confidence in the Digital Economy (LCEN)
- Position on the "Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive" (IPRED)
- Position on the SCO affair
- Position on the passage of Java under the GNU General Public License
- Position on electronic voting
- Position on the representative policy
- Position on bundled sale
- Position on the DADVSI law
- Position on the article 3a of the GNU General Public License
- Telecom operators and free software in the « boxes»
Position on software patents
Briefly...
The principle of software patent
During the review of the Directive on «the patentability of computer-implemented inventions », massively rejected by the European Parliament in July 2005, the French government defended a position consisting to refuse any patent on software "as such", contrary to what is accepted in the United States, while allowing the patenting of computer programs which bring a "technical" contribution, though this term was not defined.
State of the European patent system
The systems of patents have been established to give a legal frame to a compromise: while the ideas are of free course, that everybody can access, use and enrich at will as common inappropriable possessions, society in general accepts to grant a temporary monopoly to an inventor to exploit the industrialization of an innovative idea. With this concession, we so intend to incite innovation. In exchange, the inventor agrees to reveal his innovation which, at the expiration of the monopoly, will return to the public domain so facilitating the progress of science and avoiding that inventors take their secrets to their grave. That way, the offices of patents are supposed to fulfill a mission in the service of society: by holding a register of the inventions deserving being patented, they guarantee the balance and the ethics of this compromise. However, for some few decades, we have been observing a real inflation of the applications for a patent. This leads inevitably to an extreme difficulty for the examiners in offices to judge the quality of the demands, and to the patenting of simplistic or not innovating solutions.
Future of the system of patents
Whatever the positions in the debates around the system of patents are, everyone agrees that this system is currently in crisis and needs to be reformed. The European Office of Patents ["Office Européen des Brevets" OEB], supported on this point by the direction of the internal market of the European Commission, promotes the creation of a European Court of Patents charged with the settlement of disputes in European patent matter. According to this project, called EPLA (European Patent Litigation Agreement), judges of the Boards of appeal of the OEB would sit in this central court. Its verdicts would lean on the case law of the OEB, and it would be steered by a body appointed by the Board of directors of the OEB, which by this fact would still widen its judicial power.
To go further
Visit the "patentibilty book by April issued in 2007 on the occasion of the presidential election.
Link to : Position on software patents
Position on the Microsoft/Novell agreement of November 2006
Qualifieded symbolic by several editors of daily newspapers, the agreement signed by Microsoft and Novell on November 2, 2006 is effectively such. [1] But it is not for that a good piece of news for Free Software. By means of buzzwords as "interoperability" or " opened positionards ", Microsoft indeed managed to divert the journalists' attention from the bottom of the agreement: Microsoft embraces Novell only to try better to suffocate Free Software in general..
The first issue of this agreement is that Novell agrees to pay a tithe for the distribution of copies of popular free softwware containing code which will fall under the purview of Microsoft patents. The Linux kernel and various pieces of software used on computers servers are concerned. In return Novell obtains the guarantee that Microsoft will not pursue it, nor its customers. Developers contributing to OpenSuse, the community version of Novell 's commercial offer (Suse),as well as the volontary free software developers, would also be authorized to contribute to the free programs listed in the agreement.[2]
Thus, not to be afraid of the ire of the legal service of Microsoft, the developers of free software should work thus now for Novell, free of charge, or pay a tithe to Microsoft as Novell do. Via this agreement, Microsoft thus allusively expresses that it holds rights on free software to which it didn't nevertheless contribute, and that, for example, every distribution of a copy of the Linux kernel by a commercial actor other than Novell infringes its intellectual property. Steve Ballmer didn't moreover slow to say it loud and clear a few days ago.
Red Hat, the leading distributor of free operating systems, had not made a mistake there moreover declaring on its website the day after the agreement that he did not intend to pass such an agreement with Microsoft since " an innovation tax is unthinkable "..[3] The authors of the Samba program, a program covered by the agreement, asked Novell to cancel purely and simply the agreement, pointing out that Novell had no right to determine with Microsoft who can redistribute their software..[4] They added that by signing such an agreement Novell was violating the GNU GPL which protects their software and, consequently, their copyright.
The GNU GPL indeed forbids an actor to redistribute a software that it protects, under conditions other than those which it fixes. Now by imposing on its own customers to respect the agreement which it signed with Microsoft, Novell does not respect this condition.
The professor of law Eben Moglen, one of the authors of the GNU GPL , which is the most used license in the world of the free software, held exactly the same speech..[5] He besides declared "This is giving Microsoft a new lease of life. Microsoft is about to suffer a company-ending defeat. The correct answer to Microsoft is to tell them: Your patents are worthless. Go away".
The second issue of this agreement is the fact that it lets believe that Microsoft commits itself actively in the development of the interoperability around opened positionards. Now nothing is less true because, as Red Hat explains it on its website : " the opened positionards allows the development by all of the interoperability. They do not require an agreement between companies".
The objective of the agreement is in fact to prevent the free Open Office suite from benefiting from the network effect that a massive and fast use by the public sector of its native format the ODF ( Open Document Format) would have engendered. Microsoft which issues its new Office version on November 30 wants to put a stop in this tendency on a strategic segment, without being, for all that, regarded as an opponent of the interoperability. This agreement and especially the announcement which accompanies it, contribute to this: they commit their authors in nothing but make a lot of noise.
In a comprehensive and informed article, [6] Jean-Marie Gouarné, associated partner of the Ars Aperta company, a specialist of open formats, explains this very well : «The announcement, by its only existence, obliges the actors concerned by the projects of adoption of the OpenDocument format in public utilities, to freeze the processes of current decision to engage themselves on this new track. Committees are going to be formed, files are going to be opened, debates of experts are going to take place. As long as OpenXML Translator will not have been studied in the magnifying glass, and experimented in representative conditions of an operational working station, it will be more difficult, in America as in Europe, to eliminate the Microsoft suite of a procurement contract for non-compliance with the ISO 26300 standard. It is so much time gained while waiting to the maturity of Office 2007."). Thus, the purpose is not the development of the interoperability but indeed to give Microsoft's format enough time to become an ISO standard (a process presently in progress).
Beyond the tactical operations around Open Office, this agreement also aims at distilling a particular vision of the interoperability, and this, at the same moment when the European Commission reaffirms its requirement to see Microsoft communicate without discrimination all the essential information needed by the interoperability to all its competitors.[7]
Let us remind that Microsoft was condemned by the European Commission for abuse of dominant position because it refuses to communicate to its competitors all the essential information necessary to the interoperability, and this in not discriminatory conditions, notably for the authors of free software. Microsoft attacked this decision in front of the Court of Justice of the European Communities ["Cour de Justice des Communautés Européennes" (CJCE) ] . [8]
With this agreement, Microsoft also defends that the actual implementation of the interoperability depends on agreements between industrialists who choose each others , and that it cannot be implemented by all, even above opened positionards. It is all the difference between the legal interoperability, that every new entrant on the market can implement, and the negotiated interoperability, where it is necessary to comply with the conditions of the dominant in order to interoperate.
It is finally rather distressing to notice that few journalists perceived that Microsoft, via this agreement, tries mainly to slow down the craze of companies and administrations for free software by shaking the spectre of patents. Nevertheless the method is not new. It was already used in the SCO affair. [9] The journalists who presented the agreement with Novell as an opportunity for the Free Software thus have made a mistake. We are closer here to the racket than to the co-opétition. In the same way, it is regrettable that few journalists pointed out the fact that announcements made around the interoperability and opened positionards arrive in a very particular context, and is more similar to a delaying operation than to anything else. Microsoft is simply trying to introduce the doubt, to spare time and to blur cards. Let us hope that the computing and political decision-makers will not be trapped.
References
[1] - http://www.novell.com/news/press/item.jsp?id=1196
[2] - http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/11/27/2113210
[3] - http://www.redhat.com/promo/believe/
[4] - http://news.samba.org/announcements/team_to_novell/
[5] - http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2167966/novell-microsoft-partnership?page=2
[6] - http://www.itrmanager.com/print.php?oid=54721
[7] - http://solutions.journaldunet.com/0611/061127-microsoft-commission-europeenne.shtml
[8] - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0586d7b0-baa6-11d9-a27b-00000e2511c8.html
[9] - http://www.fsf.org/licensing/sco
Lien vers la position : Position sur l'accord Microsoft/Novell de novembre 2006
Position on the Free Software - Open Source terminology
« Free Software » and « Open Source » are employed to characterize the software covered by a license providing freedom to execute, study, redistribute, modify and improve them (see in appendix a more detailed explanation of these elements). The term « Free Software » refers to the definition of the Free Software Foundation, whereas the term " Open Source " refers to the one of the Open Source Initiative. In practice, these two definitions are close. They present however noticeably different points of view. The Free Software movement is above all ethical and philosophical, based on the sharing of knowledge and mutual aid, where the Open Source movement focuses on free software for its practical advantages. Moreover, the term " Open Source " was often used in a wrong way to describe products not meeting the criteria of the OSI. The term Free Software being more precise and reinforcing the importance of the liberties, it is used by the April.
Links :
- « The Open Source Definition » : http://opensource.org/docs/definition.php
- Page « What is Free Software ? » on the website of the FSF : http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/free-sw.fr.html
- Page « What do we speak of Free Sofware » on the Web site of the FSF Europe : http://www.fsfeurope.org/documents/whyfs.fr.html
- Page « List of the licenses with comments » by the GNU project : http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.fr.html
Link to the position : Position on the Free Software - Open Source terminology
Position on adhesion of entreprises
See the detailed position on adhesion of entreprises (format PDF).
Lien to the: Position on adhesion of entreprises
Position on the condemnation of Microsoft by the European Union for abuse of dominant position
The April considers insufficient the measures taken by the European Union to restore the competition in the field of the readers of media. Notably by not requiring the supply of all the information necessary to the writers of compatible free software and by imposing the payment of a fine being similar to a simple tax compared to the reserves of Microsoft, the commission endorses the dominant position of the publisher of Redmond.
Read specialy the tribune « The European Commission makes the big eyes to Microsoft and endorses its monopoly. The coronation of Microsoft ».
You can also read our page dedicated to this affair.
Link to the position : Position on the condemnation of Microsoft by the European Union for abuse of dominant position
Position on the Law on Confidence in the Digital Economy (LCEN)
The Law on Confidence in the Digital Economy ["Loi sur la confiance dans l'Economie Numérique"] LCEN contains, after its passage in second reading in the Senate, measures tending to make the hosts the censors of the "manifestly illicit" contents. The April thinks that these measures could be used abusively to prevent the spread of a free software competing with a proprieytary software . For the April, only a judge should decide the lawfulness of a content.
Links :
- Page of the ODEBI ligue on the LCEN : http://www.odebi.org/deputes/0justice.html
- IRIS file on the LCEN : http://www.iris.sgdg.org/actions/len/
- Article by « Temps Nouveaux »on the LCEN : http://temps-nouveaux.net/article.php3?id_article=23
- LCEN file on the sit of the Senat : http://www.senat.fr/dossierleg/pjl02-195.html
- LCEN file on the site of the National Assembly : http://www.assemblee-nat.fr/12/dossiers/economie_numerique.asp
Link to the position : Position on the Law on Confidence in The Digital Economy(LCEN)
Position on the Intelectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED)
- The unclear escalation of the penalties concerning the "intellectual property", a vast ensemble collecting things so diverse as the copyright, the patents, the right of the brands...
- The automatic character of the right to information which could allow persons to argue rights, for example on a logo, to get information about opponents ;
Links:
- Page « The Draft IPR Enforcement Directive ? A Threat to Competition and to Liberty » on the site of the FIPR : http://www.fipr.org/copyright/draft-ipr-enforce.html
- Page « Issues with the IP enforcement directive » on the site of EDRI : http://www.edri.org/cgi-bin/index?id=000100000139
Link to the position : Position on IPRED
Position
on the SCO affair
The April is outraged by the unfounded claims of the SCO. The association notably reminds that by redistributing at a time the Linux 2.2 and 2.4 kernels, SCO actually accepted the dissememination of possible codes sources which it considers copied without its authorization
Links :
- Page by the FSF on the SCO affair : http://www.fsfeurope.org/documents/whyfs.fr.html
- Copyright in the pocket, SCO wants to charge the users of the Linux kernel : http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/technologie/0,39020809,2138127,00.htm
- IBM ripostes by attacking SCO for violation of the GPL : http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/technologie/0,39020809,39115745,00.htm
- SCO wants to make invalidate the principles of the GPL : http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/business/0,39020715,39115870,00.htm
- A German court validates the legitimacy of the GPL : http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/technologie/0,39020809,39150367,00.htm
Link to the position : Position
on the SCO affair
Position on the passage of Java under GNU GPL
Note : Text published on November 13, 2006
Following the announcement of SUN concerning the passage of JAVA under the GNU GPL, here is the reaction of the April:
The « Java Trap» was the most visible emblem of the dependence of free software on proprietary software. By putting Java under free software license Sun Microsystems made a big contribution to the world of the free software.
Indeed, even if a program is free software that freedom may be restricted because of proprietary software on which it depends. All software depend on other software, which can be proprietary. This problem was the most visible with Java. Another example concerns most 3D video cards which only work completely with non-free drivers.
Free software written in Java depend on libraries of Java which are not free. This programs are, by nature, not ethically usable in the world of free software. At instigation of the Foundation for the Free Software, free implementations of Java, as the GNU compiler for Java (GCJ) and GNU Classpath, are developed but they do not yet have all the features.
The decision by Sun Microsystems which confirms the commitment of the company in the free software, will facilitate the adoption of Java in the free software community, and the choice of the GNU GPL shows that this license can meet both the needs of the users and those of the companies..
The adoption of the GPL by Sun for Java demonstrates once again, the economic viability and the strategic interest of Free Software for businesses.
Benoît Sibaud, president of the APRIL declares : « After OpenOffice.org and the Open Document format, by this freeing, Sun Microsystems confirms its role as major contributor in the world of free software. The company is close to the actors who work for freedom in the computing field. In particular, let us remind that SUN was signatory to the petition EUCD.INFO [ 1 ] following the publication of the «Vivendi Universal» amendments [2], And that the French branch of the company has just adhered last month to the APRIL ».
[1] Petition calling for the withdrawal from the parliamentary agenda of the DADVSI law (Copyright and related rights in the information society) - http://eucd.info/
[2] http://www.eucd.info/268.shtml
Link to the position : Position on the passage of Java under the GNU GPL
Position
on electronic voting
Note: published on February 2, 2008
Although the subject of the electronic voting is not directly the
heart of the object of the association (promotion and defence of the
free software), the April took position when the free software was
concerned, and because of the democratic issue introduced by the
voting computers : the interview below describes why the April is
against the electronic voting within the frame of the institutional
elections and why the use of free software is not sufficient to make
the electronic voting acceptable. The opening of the code does not
allow
every citizen to verify the functioning of a voting computer, because
it would imply that every citizen is an expert in computing; thus,
the citizen has no longer the means to check the progress of the
election and the counting of the votes. Besides the publication of the
code does not imply that it is indeed the one really used or that the
software and the equipment work correctly.
Interview of May 9, 2007 Frédéric Couchet, general delegate of April, published on the site of the Federation of Associations of Science and Information Technology (ASTI). Source : http://asti.ibisc.univ-evry.fr/actualite-frederic-couchet
The association spoke on electronic voting when free software was presented as the solution to all problems. Thus at the 6th e-democracy Forum in Issy-les-Moulineaux in September 2005, we refused to sign the call "For a free electronic democracy" which also spoke of electronic voting.
All the major associations of free software had indeed done the same at the time. If we are obviously in favour of using free software in governments, administrations and communities, we reject the idea that free software is a sufficient condition to electronic voting, only a necessary condition: it must indeed ensure five principles , transparency, privacy, anonymity, sincerity, unity, and generally get the confidence of voters in the electoral system, allowing verification of the ballot by every citizen.The APRIL uses electronic voting for its internal decision-making for several years. At our last general meeting in February 2007, the topic of electronic voting has been addressed, some members hope that the APRIL intervene more extensively on the subject. The discussion is underway with members favorable to electronic voting (under certain conditions) and other unfavourable.
The voting computers currently in use in France for institutional elections (presidential and legislative likely in 2007) are opaque and not verifiable, therefore we are obviously unfavorable to electronic voting in these conditions.
Our initiative Candidats.fr,, which asked the presidential candidates on the open-source software and related subjects, also relayed the questionnaire of the association Computer-vote.org. The responses show that the subject is no unanimity in the political class.
The APRIL(since May 2007) participates in the working group « Electronic voting and modernization of the electoral process» which aims at updating a recommendation of the FDI (2003) on « the future of the electronic voting in France»
Link to the position : Position
son the electronic voting
Position
on the representative policy
It appreciates case-by case, invitations to attend assembly of various political parties and their activists, in order to conduct outreach activities.
Link to the position : Position
on the representative policy
Position
on bundled sale
You can see our our page devoted to this issue.
Don't forget to sign « No to the racketware we are forced to buy».
Link to the position : Position
on the bundled sale
Position
on the DADVSI law
The DADVSI law was published on August 3, 2006 in the Official Journal ["Journal Officiel"].
You can read the DADVSI book written by the April in 2007 on the occasion of the presidential election.
On our actions on this issue you can see our dedicated page.
Link to the position: Position on the DADVSI law
Position on the utilization of article 3a of the GNU GPL
The April also recalls that the GPL requires making the source code available to users, which is different from an obligation to publish the source code.
Links :
- GPL : GPL
- FAQ GPL : http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.fr.html
Lienk to the position : Position on the utilization of article 3a of the GNU GPL
Telecom operators and free software in the « boxes»
Link to the position : Telecom operators and free software in the « boxes »
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Last contents
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MultimediaSept. 8, 2008 - 15:32
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Interview in Nord Éclair of the General Delegate of the AprilSept. 5, 2008 - 22:12
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Conceptual map of free software
Sept. 5, 2008 - 19:41 -
Press review following the reaction of the April to the recommendation "electronic voting" of the FDI
4 sept. 2008 - 15:45 -
Réaction de l'April à la recommandation vote électronique du FDISept. 2, 2008 - 14:42
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Publication of the news lettre of the April of September 2008Sept. 1, 2008 - 14:36
Syndication
- Traduction EN de "Nos positions" Appel à rele cture., José Fournier, 14/09/2008
- Re: [Trad April] Traduction EN de "Nos positions" Appel à relecture., Marc Chauvet, 14/09/2008
- Re: [Trad April] Traduction EN de "Nos positions" Appel à relecture., Marc Chauvet, 18/09/2008
- Re: [Trad April] Re: [Trad Ap ril] Traduction EN de "Nos positions" A ppel à relecture., Jose Fournier, 19/09/2008
- Re: [Trad April] Re: [Trad Ap ril] Traduction EN de "Nos positions" A ppel à relecture., Jose Fournier, 19/09/2008
- Re: [Trad April] Re: [Trad April] Re: [Trad April] Traduction EN de "Nos positions" Appel à relecture., Marc Chauvet, 20/09/2008
- Re: [Trad April] Traduction EN de "Nos positions" Appel à relecture., Marc Chauvet, 18/09/2008
- Re: [Trad April] Traduction EN de "Nos positions" Appel à relecture., Marc Chauvet, 14/09/2008
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