There are many problems caused by the enforcement of patents in the
software industry, but it is important to first understand how user
and developer freedoms are affected. If you don't know what End
Software Patents (ESP) is about, please read the recent article we
posted on the issue of software patents. To support the continued
fight against software patents, we are happy to announce that the ESP
campaign pages have been completely revamped! In this brief post, we
will go over the main changes that you should know about.
ESP has been active for many years, campaigning and influencing public
policies around the world. The campaign has been extremely
influential, and has become known as one of the most popular global
campaigns against software patents, especially after publishing
Patent Absurdity, a documentary that demonstrated the severity of
the issue. So far, it has been able to influence important court
rulings and policy decisions on software patents in a positive
direction. However, a major challenge that ESP had to face was to
attract people who were not familiar with the legal aspects of
software. The main target audience consisted mainly of developers,
lawyers, and people related to the software industry. But this wasn't
optimal, because software patents ultimately affect every single
software user.
The changes
Recognizing that software patents are a complex subject, we
acknowledged that communicating our message to the general public is
of great importance in order to spread our message effectively.
Therefore, we decided to restructure the campaign, with a focus on
presenting our main objectives in an easy-to-understand way. We
redesigned the ESP Web sites with the idea of providing progressive
levels of information, so that everyone can easily understand why we
need to abolish software patents, and at the same time also find out
information about the aspects of the problems that interest them.
ESP's internet presence includes two Web sites: the main ESP
Web site, which hosts core information and articles on software
patents, and the ESP wiki, which provides a vast database of
detailed information on software patents, editable by anyone without
permission. We made the following big changes to these two Web sites:
Complete redesign with new logo and theme, new domain names, and
modernized Web experience;
Frontpages now present basic information with intuitive icons that
can be clicked and lead to more detailed pages;
New pages help understand the issue and make it easier to
contribute (including a brand new FAQ);
Many changes under the hood that allow for easy navigation of
categories and older posts.
So what's next?
The above changes are primarily aimed at drawing newcomers to the End
Software Patents campaign. We want to strengthen the community around
the campaign, and create a sustainable way to fight software patents
worldwide for years to come.
This means that the next step is for you to join us in this
campaign!
You can especially help us with our next focus, which is the ESP
wiki. Our goals are to update, reorganize, and expand it. This
effort needs to be supported by as many people as possible in order to
create a fully up-to-date resource for the global campaign against
software patents. We invite anyone who is interested in (or wants to
learn more about) software patents to start contributing to our wiki
(no permission required!). Because of the complex nature of the wiki's
content, you can review our current plans and discuss its
overall direction.
We are also looking for moderators and active contributors to
coordinate with us on a regular basis. If you are interested, please
join our IRC channel at #endsoftwarepatents on Libera.Chat and
subscribe to our "esp" discussion list.
But there are more ways you can help. If you are a software developer,
please consider using one of our ESP buttons to promote our
campaign by stating that you don't use patents for your project (or
that you license them freely along with your project). You can also
help by donating to End Software Patents.
This overhaul was the main project of campaigns and licensing intern
Panos Alevropoulos, who worked closely with the campaigns,
licensing, and tech teams. Panos intends to continue contributing to
ESP, primarily as an admin of the ESP wiki.
