Death of M. Rocard, former French PM, hero in the fight against software patents | Hacker News Reader

Death of M. Rocard, former French PM, hero in the fight against software patents

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There were quite a few articles on ZDnet like this:

http://www.zdnet.com/article/why-we-need-software-patents-an...

Which were pushing software patents for all they were worth (not much), in recent years.

Keep in mind that this is one of those 'retry until you get it' subjects, that will be pushed over and over again until the ratchet clicks and then you're stuck with them forever.

We owe M. Rocard a great debt for keeping Europe free as much as possible of this nonsense and it's sad to see him go.

Rocard was into politics to try and make the world a better place. He was one of our strongest allies in the software patents fight.

I remember standing at the entrance of the Strasbourg parliament with a megaphone kindly saying to all members of parliament arriving: "Please vote Buzek-Rocard-Duff. Thank you very much!"

Makes me think of http://free765.wikidot.com/ . I never spoke to him in person like I did with other MEPs, but friends who were in the parliament while we were canoeing tell me he really really appreciated that.

Rest in peace, Michel.

Some interviews of Michel Rocard are now available (in french) on various news sites. One funny detail is that he ALWAYS mentions the fact that politics has become incredibly difficult to do properly because of the small time available in medias to explain things in depth to the people. He usually points at the book "Amusing Ourselves to Death" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death) to explain why. That is quite an unusual opinion for a politician. (especially when you compare with media experts, such as Nicolas Sarkozy).

For French speaking people, original article is http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/michel-rocard-heros-victorieu...

This is what a democratic Europe looks like: Parliament standing its ground and rejecting special interests pushing bad legislation coming from the executive, like it happens in the best democracies. And at a time when the European Parliament was even less powerful than it is now.

Note that Rocard's opponent in this issue, McCreevy also tried to get copyrights extended to 95 years on behalf of the major labels and was one of the bigger wheels in the EU part of the real estate crisis because of his incessant pushing to relax the rules governing banking.

Note, that people who have a clue about why the EU came to be at all are either dead or have been managed away. BXL became a parking place for second rate politicians (understatement). Manipulators like Cameron, Farage know this too: and this is the tragedy.

McCreevy, déçu de voir ses arguments taillés en pièces, ne prenne la parole, le visage rougeaud, sur un ton énervé:

"Monsieur Rocard, si c'est la guerre que vous voulez, vous allez l'avoir."

Réponse de Rocard, d'un ton posé et ferme: "Monsieur McCreevy, des guerres, dans ma carrière, j'en ai déjà arrêté deux. Mais ce n'est pas parce que je suis un homme de paix que je céderai à l'intimidation. Je maintiens donc mes positions."

> BXL became a parking place for second rate politicians

This is primarily the fault of national governments, for which BXL is a convenient scapegoat for their own mistakes, and secondarily of voters who ignored European elections for too long. Post-Lisbon, MEPs do have significant powers and ultimately designate the Commission President, so it does matter who you vote for AND that you vote at all.

For McCreevy in particular, the Irish government should shoulder a lot of the blame for nominating him, at a time when Commissioners were extremely powerful. These days a Commissioner so divisive would likely get shut down by EuroParliament. Also, I might be partisan but the last three Commissions were mostly a reflection of centre-right parties (EPP etc), which still command a majority in EuroParliament as well as in the Council. As long as people keep voting right-wing, we will get right-wing policies.

Like with all democracies, we get the politicians we deserve, not the ones we need.

We are talking about the same thing: those managed away from domestic power get compensated by a bxl holiday if their blackmail powers warrant it.

The Parliament was and still is weaker than the Commission and the Council, the latter two usually work in tandem anyway. (Actually, the swpat rejection by the EP wasn't about values, but rather an attempt to demonstrate capabilities, unseen before or after for that matter, see belgacom).

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/07/nsa-gchq-surve...

What was the consequence for those behind?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/06/security-and-l...

In a democracy you need to be informed (see NHS campaign). That is incompatible with W. Lippmann's Society of the Spectacle, privacy and freedom of thought.

The Parliament now has veto powers on almost all directives, as well as a (not practiced yet) right to send packing the entire Commission.

It does not have executive powers, so it cannot "take action". To be fair, it does need additional powers to initiate legislative action rather than just blocking or shaping laws that Commission and Council introduce; but that's blocked by euroskeptics who think BXL already has too much power and proposals should be left to national governments.

The reason EP and Commission/Council don't lock horns that often is that, when you get down to details, pretty much everyone agrees that European Directives are right in principle (i.e. harmonizing this or that) and it's just about hammering out details (which are often just guidelines anyway and are left to national parliaments to sort out) and trade a few horses. Swpat and copyright extension were among the very few subjects that were simply too controversial to pass, so MEPs put the hammer down - at a time when their hammer was much smaller than it is now.

As the EP gets a bigger role, it's on the electorate to send better-prepared MEPs. After 2009 old practices should be on their way out, as long as we push for this change to continue.

Translation of the very pertinent first comment of the article:

No one can deny the role of this political giant in this epic battle, but it would be very improper to speak of victory so far. 25 years later, Maastricht has not kept its promises, and Rocard still openly confessed it a few months ago, stating that they had "missed the boat" in Europe. Somewhat paradoxical given that it is nevertheless his government and his buddies who sold us the baby ...

Beyond this basic finding it's especially pertinent that TAFTA Treaty is being negotiated in secret with the US, which is very worrisome. As Mr Asselineau (UPR) in his youtube videos, our former allies want Europe in their pockets, to face the other 2 major blocs. This is all the more urgent and decisive for them to submit and satisfy the European nations, with NATO on the military side, and Europe for the civilian side, the Chinese are trying to win points quickly, and everyone already knows that China will concentrate a very large part of global production in the next 20 years, which will not help at all our economies, artificially abused ...

Forced sale in stores, mobile, cloud and its derivatives, are only the top of the iceberg for Washington, Europe MUST become an American colony and controlled subject in itself. Just observe the successive zeal, and still more evident of our elites since the 80s!

Between $ ironing ticket which runs idle since the end of the gold parity / dollard, and an abysmal debt, it increasingly relegates Americans in the background, the Treaty TAFTA is even more dangerous for us Europeans, it may lead us to the bottom with our former ally of 39-45. When Mr. Pierre Sprey, father of the F16 and A10, openly calls the last lighning F35 II "Turkey" (Turkey), one realizes that even in their own defense, and despite defense budgets in hundreds of billions of $ (!), the americans are completely off track!

Finally, when I read the obstacle course that Mr. Mamère's has to simply follow to access a part of the ongoing negotiations TAFTA (cf. https://lesmoutonsenrages.fr/2016/06/26/les-incroyables-prec... for example), and with reports that are apparently not the same on both sides of the Atlantic, there are many more battles ahead, and not just in IT. We can certainly recognize Mr Rocard for having a rare piece of political courage, that became sporadic in our elites. The fact remains that software patents as the rest will eventually be back on the table, and there is absolutely no doubt. In politics, there is never victory: just battles won in their time ...

While Mr Rocard did a fantastic job trying to understand the consequences of software patents, he was also a supporter of software patents through the backdoor of a central patent court.

In fact, the directive was rejected at the call of large companies that did not want to see a Parliament voting against their interests. Their argument was to push for a central patent court, which they managed to get only 6 months after the 6 july.

Now we are 10 years later, and their plan is near completion, only the Brexit has slowed down their plan.

But the goal is still the same, validate software patents Europe-wide.

One result of the anti-patent fanatics is that more important technology is now a trade secret. We don't know how Tesla's "autopilot" works, even though it's a shipping product. We don't know much about Google's automatic driving technology. We don't know what Intel's management processor is really doing. We don't even know how to maintain a modern John Deere tractor.

The price of weak patents is mysterious, undocumented technology, often made resistant to reverse engineering.

Having grown near the city he was a mayor (Conflans St Honorine) his influence on french politics has lead to a severe turn of technocracy and denial of democracy.

His (in)famous disciples are [0] Macron, A. Richard, Valls, Sapin, DSK that are all famous for priming business accounting based decisions other the people's choices. A very capitalist/market friendly turn of socialism, that makes US democrats looks like hardcore communists.

Valls (Val d'Oise federation) and Richard (St Ouen l'Aumonne) were famous for their interest in politic agenda and despising the people.

I do regret that some google washing has been made on his keyword in google because right now, all his obituaries are saying how human and nice this man was, and I can't factualize my memories.

He was also a great artisan of the European Union, I may say in the direction most europeans maybe a tad mad with: the one where enlightened freaks and crony technocrats can lead 300 millions people to a destiny they did not choose.

For the software patents he was like for a lot of things choosing direction randomly by reading techno-prohecies and as coincidence happens, he happened to be right on this.

With his death, we remember that my generation scarified to the altar of the greater good envisioned by the 68' generation may have one day the power to choose their destiny ... democratically now that these people begin to die.

He did great things still, like helping to solve the post colonialist kanak situation in new caledonia and was at least a convinced pro-peace and pro-friendship between people, even at the cost of an heavy jacobinism.

[0] http://www.slate.fr/story/85937/rocardiens-pouvoir-valls-mac...

Let's not abuse the fact that most of the readership here know nothing about French politics, please.

Here is a text written by Rocard on the topic of software patents:

http://www.sens-public.org/IMG/pdf/SensPublic_MRocard_Patent...

I'll just let those interested here compare your slightly biased description of him with his writing.

He had nice ideas and was a wise men.

It does not mean that all praise should not come with a little of objectivity on its political bias: his slightly biased opinion of the people in the process of making political decision.

He was a techocrat -even though he was a gifted one. And technocrats have been so far strongest heralds of unfair IP laws that is the very first reason of the existence of free software.

Free software is a walk-around technocratic decisions. Technocracy is much more a problem to free software than regulations.

Regulations that can be changed by the people matters more than «right» decisions taken by some sort of deaf aristocracy.

I will agree his essay was on spot. I will still spot his strong will to undermine democratic process and his distrust of the people.

1 right can be undone by a small wrong that is more important.

so...this is probably one of the reasons im being paid zap for this work and have to skirt regulations to get anywhere. meanwhile the folks in the us earn over a hundred thousand each year, inventing new software and getting proper recognition for their work. maybe the hero of open source fanatics (i like open source. i just mean certain fanatics) and perhaps consumers, but certainly not my hero. of course its sad that another well intentioned person passed away.

You can always go work in the US or sell your product there.

Rocard - may he rest in peace- and so many others did make a difference, for the better.

The software patents battle is one of the reasons we have less patent trolls in the EU versus the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_f...

What few people seem to know is that the software patent battle was also an important in tilting the balance of power between the EU commission, the EU council and the EU parliament towards the democratically elected parliament.

I'm not sure bout how easy it would be to move to the US, but it's not surprising many of our best software engineers and innovators choose that option. Not wanting to belittle the guys achievements, yet the balance between EU parliament and the commission is still way off, which is one of the only legitimate reasons people have to dislike the EU. i understand that the patent system has downsides and of course 'fewer patents' means 'fewer trolls'. however nothing significant in software (esp. outside of open source) has come out of the EU for a long time. Our innovation model needs to change.

How have software patents helped any of the big growing companies over the last 10 years?

Maybe explain it using the various startups which are quite a success: Whatsapp, Instagram, Wechat, Twitter.

Your entire comment reads like a false dichotomy. http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?FalseDichotomy

For one thing those are/were based in America and china, not Europe. If anything the cases of startups with European founders moving to the USA to found their companies helps my argument. As for companies which have benefitted: microsoft gets paid for android. because of stuff they invested in a long time ago. Motorola getting bought by Google because they invented a lot of things. oracle is of course a very big company and the only thing that keeps it alive is their IP. All those big companies rely on the patent system to make investment decicions. to put someone on a project which takes a long time before it will yield results. If there are no patents, you will not have these kinds of R&D based corporations. And that is a big loss for Europe. As for whether this particular dichotomy is false, it may be so but i doubt it. history has more or less already spoken.

Try to rent something in NYC and SF and you'll complain less about your French salary.

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