Brussels conference log

(From a backstage perspective, motivation: make you interested in doing
a conf or other useful stuff yourself.)

'Innovation comes from the subcontractor': Starting in Munich, I
changed trains at Cologne, and to use the DB Lounge wireless at Cologne
station in the early morning (the internet shops around the railway
station open at 08:00 :() I had to upgrade to first class for the last
hop (don't panic, my ticket does not go on FFII ;). The upside of
first-class of course is that it is more likely to meet some interesting
travellers (especially on a way to Brussels) - a nice soundbit I got
were two engineers from a large and in the software patent debate
quite vocal european enterprise who stated 'innovation comes from the
subcontractor'.

More prep work: Having arrived at Brussels I threw off a backpack with
clothes at the van Gogh hostel (using that hostel for the bookings was
my choice not because of some potentially good karma because the painter
actually had lived in that house sometime in the 1880s, but rather
for the logistic reason that it allows some l ast-day cancellations
for a group reservation), and hurled on to the office of a friendly
SME organisation that housed a dozen of last-minute preparers for
the conference day. It was only on Monday noon that we closed our
already quite hostile conference registration form (warning the hotel
room is already quite crowded...) and then immediately dispatched a
participant list to the Parliament (I nearly had forgotten to close
the French registration form too). Afterwards, badges were printed,
participant lists and programs to be copied, thanks to Jeroen and a
FOSDEM badge making stylesheet for taking care of this. After this also
an email had to be sent out to German supporters and itlalian supporters
about the conference (these had to be customized to add the Hamburg
enterprise initiative for Germany and Ante Wessels Bologna talk). With
last registrations being fixed, the inevitable pizzas in between etc etc
we fell to bed at 02:30.

Standards (the missed panel): The next day was at Park Hotel, at
9:00 participants flocked in, badges were mostly taken and mostly
correct (special apologies to David) and the room was full pretty
soon. Once things got started here in the morning (hearing the Bessen
talk), registrations had to be checked - oops I already had caused
one no-show at Park (by overlooking an important email) and several
at Gogh Hostel (some participants were unconfirmed, it is hard how
to deal best with such situations). The conference seemed to go well
though and from noon-time on I also started to enjoy it, though I had
missed the standards panel :(. From the online audio recording I get
that Koen Martens made a very nice point about how the SPF standard
was delayed for about 1 year about a feature called Sender-ID due to a
Microsoft patent on Caller-ID (XML over DNS and PRA algorithm), with the
formal standard development cancelled (and the SPF without Sender-ID
implementations fighting with the SPF with Sender-ID implementations).
The questions sessions of that panel also raised some interesting
points, eg Mr Smets pointed that the French government is about to
standardize on an MPEG-2 format for national television. The was some
debate in how far Sun's position (reengineering should be allowed as in
the 1991 copyright directive) differed from EICTA (whether the outcome
should be included). Concerning antitrust (raised by Mr Henrion) it
was mentionened that competition people in DG Enterprise had been very
sceptical about the directive but that they had procedurally not been
in the process (with DG Internal Market taking over). From a recent
antitrust case he had recently experienced in Switzerland, where after
two years no binding measures had been taken, Mr Schulze doubted the
usefulness of antitrust provisions in the enforcement process.

Insurance panel: The most interesting thing to me was the
quantificiations that Mr Lewis of Miller Insurances gave. Software
patent litigation in continental Europe (eg Netherlands) was estimated
to be about 20k-75k GBP, in the UK about 400-700k GBP in the US about
1,500-2,500k GBP in a typical case. This boils down to patent insurance
rates of 0.5-1.0% of turnover for European patent insurance up to day
2,000k GBP or 1.0-2.0% of turnover world wide. With hindsight this
patent litigitation risk 'tax' alone to me seems comparatively tolerable
(of course it feels just like an extra % of VAT or other tax), and made
clear to me that the problem is less the litigation itself but rather
the adaptations it entails (even if my court costs are covered I will
have to comply with the ruling, and that's where the cost is, eg in not
being able to implement a standard).

Sant/Pilch debate: good summary of which directive is the right one,
details later. At dinner at Park made some interesting contacts, though
I should brush up my French ;) I was asked an interesting point in the
evening: is a webserver, database server or any other machine in a
specialized machine a universal computer / Turing machine. I'd still say
yes but maybe that argument should be elobarated. I also learned that a
debate in Berlin of the Greens (putting European Greens together with
German Greens) is planned around 9 November.

Parliament: on Wednesday we got everyone into Parliament quite smoothly
(compared to the chaos in April) special thanks to Jeroen, Laurent,
Juliette for helping with everything and to Caroline for bringing some
T-shirts (though I didnt have much time to distribute myself so most of
them were distributed next day at another conference by Laurence). In
the Wednesday morning panel there was a nice controversy between Harhoff
and Bessen/Kahin about whether greater patent depth would solve the
problem (Harhoff supports that view, Bessen rather emphasizes that the
inventive step is a legal fiction).

EIF: in the evening Arlene McCarthy defended the directive in clear
words, which was reassuring to hear (she afterwards had to rush off
unfortunately). A panel with more or less pro-software-patents speakers
was confronted with some more criticial interventions eg from Novell
and nosoftwarepatents.com. Nice discussions ensuing. At dinner, Mrs
Breyer from the Greens elobarated on some strategies from a consumer
perspective.

Conclusion: great speakers, many new insights, no big planning disasters
(though as every time a lot of clean-up has to be done), and some other
interested developments in many private channels.