The OROCOS project, which finished in August 2003, aimed to build a library of open source software for robotics and machine tool control. Explains project coordinator Herman Bruyninckx, "Very simply, our goal is to become the Linux for machine tool and robot control - to make available and distribute a free software infrastructure in support of that goal." [CORDIS]
An interesting thing to make it onto the CORDIS web site, especially so close to the recent debate about software patents. The article raises the ugly spectre of software patents in a bizarre way:
The topic of open-source software arouses fierce passions, both among backers of free software for user communities and the software manufacturers who want to protect their business investments. The European Commission wishes to harmonise the way such patents are treated by national governments across the EU. The Commission has tried to ensure that software patents apply only to ideas or technical devices that are novel and have a clear technical consequence. The European Parliament passed on 24 September A new pan-European law governing the application of patents to software programmes. Yet proponents of open source software are uneasy. [CORDIS]
What patents? The first time they are mentioned is in the phrase "such patents".
And damn right Free Software advocates uneasy. Free software authors are totally unable to defend themselves against patent infringement claims, however absurd.
The ability to patent and establish a monopoly on an idea has morphed from being a mechanism to encourage innovation into some kind of fundamental right. A means has become and end in itself.
Comments