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Comment by auxbuss | Hacker News Reader

Don't get angry. Get even.

Software patents are a political problem. They are a very live political problem. Lobby. You can change things. But not by getting mad here, but by lobbying your representatives in whatever parliaments, senates, councils, etc. that your representatives attend.

The experts in the field of software patents -- that's us -- know that they are an appalling bad way to attempt to manage IP claims in our industry. We know that they should not exist. They require nothing in their place. They are a completely inappropriate device in this industry.

We all need to communicate this fact to those that determine and influence the law in our respective countries -- although I suspect this will be determined in the US and the EU.

Start acting to kill software patents.

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Individual action is good and all but if we really want to be effective we need to organize. We need a hacker's trade association that can raise money and lobby to protect our interests.

The EFF is the closest thing that exists to this, but I don't see a broad enough interest or financial backing to achieve any significant change to the current laws. Too bad there's not some way for hackers to leverage their superior knowledge of technology within the bounds of the law to swing things to their advantage, as businesses and in particular financial institutions have done for years.

From what I've experienced hackers seem more adverse to organizing in a trade association than many other professions. Does this line up with others' experiences?

For those who think its correct: any idea on why? Is it due to the relatively new nature of the profession? Or maybe we're all more cocky than we should be. Maybe it just comes with the culture. I don't really know.

I don't know if we are more adverse than many other professions, seeing as I don't know many other professions that well.

But I do believe that the hacker mythos doesn't make us more likely to join organizations, since the architypical hacker is the lone, but determined and very skilled person. Exactly the person who would loose the most by creating a trade organization.

I think we're fine with organizations... IEEE, LOPSA, SAGE, USENIX, etc... I bet the average sysadmin is a member of more professional organizations than the average public school teacher.

The difference is that we use these organizations to make contacts, learn things, etc... basically to become better programmers or sysadmins, to find new mentors, co-workers, employees or employers. Teachers use their union to set wages.

I don't think you will find technical people using a union to set wages any time soon just 'cause we have little tolerance for incompetence (and because our market is efficient enough that good people, to some extent, get rewarded. maybe not as well as they should, but there is some correlation between skill and pay.)

Most of us are perfectly okay with seeing our less-competent peers getting left in the dust. Really, most of us prefer it that way. This is what the organizers will have to overcome if we are to unionise.

I'm in the UK, but this issue is very much a European one relative to the UK, as most things are these days. Albeit that your average man-in-the-street Brit tries to ignore the EU, or simply blame it.

Here, we are quite well organized. There are open rights groups, including the aptly named http://www.openrightsgroup.org/

We are also responsible for Wikileaks, even if its figurehead is Australian.

I write personally to my MP (Member of UK Parliament) and my MEPs (Members of European Parliament), and they know who I am, which tends to indicate that they don't receive a mass or correspondence. In fact, even my previous MP knows me, and I've only been back in the UK for six months. So an individual can have direct influence. Don't believe for a second that you can't.

The system of government is not a large and impenetrable as the media would have you believe. The media struggle to gain access because of what they are, and they rarely seek to influence, despite the bluster. Voters moved to get involved often have knowledge and insight, politicians are not blind to the usefulness of these things.

Next week, the EU debates the ACTA and thereafter will vote on it. (This was announced today.) ACTA has a direct influence on this topic. With many others, I will be writing and lobbying for votes. It's also happens that an influential figure in the EU Commission will be in my neighbourhood and I am hoping to get some of her time to present what I think are broadly held views in the tech community.

So, definitely organise as a group if you can, but don't underestimate the power of the individual. Just make your feelings known. The results never cease to surprise me.

People have been complaining about the extensions of copyright law ever since the 1978 extensions. That hasn't slowed them down a bit. Congress is too beholden to big businesses who benefit from the laws. Though if this new set of patent trolls that have sprung up over the last several years keep going after bigger companies that may change, but I'm not holding out much hope.

Perhaps finding all the politicians' sites that use rollovers and pointing out how they are in violation of the patent might help.

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