Tor, your absolutely correct concerning your statements about the EU (and yes, I fully aware the the US is not the world). But let me remind you where M$ is located. This is why the threads about has focused on U.S. law. If the home country can pass laws relating to this then the impetus for M$' behavior will be curtailed. Yes, there are countries where rev-engineering can be done. the issues is how to hit M$ on its home turf. Like it or not the U.S. has a lot of pull around the globe. Putting aside whether or not this is a good or bad thing. Look at what Germany is doing and then compare it to Great Britian. Germany is very concerned with the issue of open standards in government data bases and records. England has implemented an M$ based system the prevents those that don't use an M$ based product from utilizing government sites and resources via the web. Please forgive my seemingly arrogant attitude. I'm consider myself to be a very un-nationalistic person. I just can't help but focus on the U.S. because that's where I live and that's where M$ lives. If it were just a matter of the rest of the world adopting a standard and then leaving America to no alternative but to adopt it then fine. But seeing how the U.S. can't even adopt the universal standards for measures (e.g. the metric system, SAE sucks) I'm not convinced a world standard would have any real impaci on a U.S. standards adoption. Cheers. Curtis On Sunday 17 June 2001 04:11 pm, Anders Johansson wrote:
I think there is a much better chance of getting something open to be used as a standard in the EU, since Microsoft isn't nearly as politically powerful here as it is in the US. In Sweden the constitution guarantees all citizens access to all documents (with a few exceptions, mainly related to national security). While other countries in the EU aren't as open, I think the case for open standards can be put quite strongly.
Also, the political left is much stronger in Europe than in the US. Whatever your personal opinions about this, I think it gives open source/free software a very good chance here.
While we're on this topic, what's the status on the Bundestag contract? Are they close to a decision yet?
Regards Anders
On Sunday 17 June 2001 22:29, Tor Sigurdsson wrote:
Hey-hey... hello - a moment here....
You guys are completely forgetting ( as is to be expected of americans ;) that US law does NOT - I repeat - NOT tell people in other parts of the world what to do. Never ! The US is NOT all of the world, and neither is the US government a world government. - That aside, now for the REAL issue...
The DMCA is valid in the US.
The MPAA has "jurisdiction" in the US.
In Iceland ( for example, as I live there so I happen to know the law a bit ) you can NOT patent:
Formulae
Methods
or any other mathematical work of creative mind.
MP3 ( method/compression formula ), DeCSS, AND .DOC/.XLS etc can all be reverse-engineered, as long as it's in the best interest of the people, and not for harmful purposes ( terrorism / sabotage etc ).
Although we happen to have world-scale stupidity in the parliament ( althingi ), I have yet to see it happen that they'll try to impose foreign patent rules upon us.
So, for the issue: Why don't you guys find a no-mans-land to store your code and work on it ? oooor... Get some EU guys to do it :-) EU isn't as crowded with greedy AND stupid lawers as is the US ;-)
( Yes, I love bashing the US... can't help it ;)
-tosi