ESP launches en.swpat.org: A Wiki for Anti-Software Patent Campaigns
End Software Patents today launched en.swpat.org, a wiki to document the case against
software patents. Over 100 articles have already been started to give an idea of
the scope and structure of the wiki.
Monday, May 4th, 2009 -- End Software Patents today launched en.swpat.org, a wiki
to document the case against software patents. Over 100 articles have already been
started to give an idea of the scope and structure of the wiki.
ESP's executive director Ciaran O'Riordan explains: "So far, we have articles about
the case law, legislation, and patent office behavior in various countries. We have
articles about economic studies, about related books, about the various ways to
fight software patents, about each of the arguments against software patents, and
most importantly, the evidence for each argument. There are so many topics, I've
only had time to scratch the surface of each, but visitors should get an idea of
how all this information is being categorized and organized. We've also built up
a very long list of sources of information that have yet to be processed. The wiki
can be edited by anyone, so I'm looking forward to seeing what the community and
other projects make of it. If other campaigns, large and small, would like to use
en.swpat.org as a workspace, that would be welcome. It makes sense for projects
with common goals to be interconnected."
"Most of the information currently on en.swpat.org was gathered casually. Each time
I see something interesting in a document, I make a note of it in the wiki." O'Riordan
continued, "If more people start contributing in this piecemeal manner, we can create
something really useful with very little effort. Good wikis are made sentence by
sentence. There's no need for anyone to try to write a full article."
"There were hesitations about compiling articles about individual companies and
organizations. swpat.org should become a reference, not a platform for announcements
or for smear campaigns, but there is useful info that can be gathered about companies,
so I decided to allow it and we'll keep a close eye on how those articles get used."
"By placing all the information side-by-side, we can spot inconsistencies and fill
the gaps. I recently found information about software patent case law in France.
Everyone I previously talked to said that the only European software patent case
law was in Germany and England. On en.swpat.org, there's a page for collecting case
law, so now everyone can see that there are three European countries with case law.
And maybe there are others that are yet to be uncovered."
As the "en" in the web address suggests, there are plans to add wikis for languages
other than English in the future. Adding new languages will depend on finding a
group of dedicated people for that language. The various language wikis will be
linked together and coordinated much like is done in Wikipedia. That is to say,
there'll be a lot of independence and each wiki will be useful as a starting point
for research by the contributors to other swpat.org wikis. But that's for the future.
About End Software Patents
End Software Patents is a project formed to eliminate patents on software and other
designs with no physically innovative step. End Software Patents is funded by donations
handled on its behalf by the Free Software Foundation. For more information on participating
in the project, or to access its knowledge base, please visit its website at: http://endsoftwarepatents.org/
Media contact:
Ciaran O'Riordan Director End Software Patents
Tel: +32 487 64 17 54 email: ciaran [at] fsf.org